The IAM urges members to support paid family medical leave (PFML) laws in its official platform.¹ “It’s simple,” Troy Jackson tweeted in June 2023. “Working Mainers shouldn’t have to choose between a paycheck and being able to take care of their health and family needs.”² A card carrying member of the IAM, Jackson supported the policy. Though achieving the IAM’s platform was anything but simple. Only thirteen states have adopted PFML so far.³ Maine is only the most recent state to make PFML the law of the land.⁴ Even so, the Legislature only passed PFML after a citizen initiative threatened to put it on the ballot. In Maine, citizen initiatives provide a tactic to elevate popular policies like PFML from the systemic to the institutional agenda. 

“In some states, citizen frustration with the perceived failings of legislatures has led to widespread use of the initiative process,” Thomas Birkland observed.⁵ Maine is one of these states. The Maine State Constitution provides for an indirect initiative process. This means that citizen initiatives pass through the Legislature before going to the ballot. Maine legislators have until the end of the next session to act on any initiative. If the Legislature cannot pass the initiative, it appears on the ballot that November. If the Legislature passes an amended version, both versions appear on the ballot at the same time.⁶ Popular policies like PFML are likely to pass at the ballot box in some form. This incentivizes political elites to look at legislation they may not otherwise consider. 

Maine has allowed citizen initiatives since 1909.⁷ The first citizen initiative passed in 1911 “to provide for nomination of candidates of political parties by primary elections.” For the first hundred years, citizen initiatives appeared sparingly. As of 2023, 79 citizen initiatives have appeared on the ballot. Fifty-nine of these initiatives appeared before 2010. Before 2000, it was highly unusual for voters to have more than two questions to consider. There were never more than three ballot initiatives at a time until 2000. Since then, citizen initiatives have become increasingly common. Nowadays, it is not unusual for voters to have to weigh many citizen initiatives at the ballot box. Five citizen initiatives appeared on the 2016 ballot.⁸ Five more initiatives appeared in 2023. In 2024, voters again had 5 questions to consider.⁹

Citizens’ increasing reliance on the initiative process reflects a lack of faith in the legislative process. Although Mainers enjoy greater access to policy-makers than other states’ citizens, the elite model still applies to Maine policy-making. It should come as no surprise that the people who benefit the most from PFML do not have the resources to engage in a pluralist government. Maine’s sparse population and vast area further limit citizens’ ability to organize in Augusta. Charles Cochran and Eloise Malone explained:

“Critics of pluralism claim that in fact different groups have vastly different resources. Some interests, such as those representing businesses or affluent professions, are very well organized and financed, while others, such as those representing poor or immigrant groups, have fewer financial resources and are more poorly organized, undermining any claim of group equilibrium.”¹⁰

The “systemic agenda” refers to “any issue, problem or idea that could possibly be considered by participants in the policy process.”¹¹ PFML is not a new idea. PFML has belonged to the systemic agenda for a long time, particularly as it pertains to parental leave. “The German feminist Lily Braun promoted the idea of a state-funded ‘maternity insurance’ as early as 1897,” wrote Kristen Ghodsee.¹² Ghodsee elaborated: 

“Braun asserted that since society benefited from children, it should help bear the costs of raising them. Children are future soldiers, workers, and taxpayers. They are a benefit to all, not just the parents who bring them into the world.”¹³

Socialists like Braun believed society should compensate people for all the work they perform, regardless of the surplus value it may generate for capitalists. Capitalists have no incentive to pay women for the work they do preparing the next generation of laborers. Braun’s solution was maternity insurance modeled on unemployment insurance and the German state pension program.¹⁴ What Braun imagined was not far off what the Maine Legislature passed 126 years later, although Maine’s PFML program covers more circumstances than childbirth.¹⁵ European countries have had something like PFML for a long time, but it has taken more than a century for the idea to become public policy anywhere in the United States.

In her classic book The Overworked American, Juliet Schor described the unsurprising inverse correlation between women’s time at work and women’s time at home. “In general,” she wrote, “the more work women do for pay, the less work they do without it.”¹⁶ In the early 1990s, Schor identified this as a component of a much bigger social issue. Although Braun’s solution was tailored to working women, the Maine Department of Labor outlines a much more progressive policy:

“Beginning in 2026, eligible workers in the private and public sector will have up to 12 weeks of paid time off available to take care for a family member with a serious health condition, to bond with a child after birth, fostering or adoption, to care for their own medical needs, to deal with the transition of a family member’s impending military deployment or to stay safe after abuse or violence.”¹⁷

Workers engaged in these activities are not generating surplus value for their employers, but they are performing important work that keeps society running. The FML Act of 1993 addressed the issue in part, but it only guarantees unpaid leave. It absolves employers of the responsibility to society to compensate employees in roles secondary to their capitalist agenda. All too often, the institutional agenda reflects the concerns of capitalist elites at the expense of society as a whole. 

Birkland defined the institutional agenda as “that list of items explicitly up for the active and serious consideration of authoritative decision makers.”¹⁸ Although PFML has periodically come up in conversation, it was not up for the “serious consideration of authoritative decision makers” until a citizen initiative forced their hand. Working mothers may not have much access to the Legislature, but it does not take much effort to sign a petition. Organizations like the Maine People’s Alliance and the Maine Women’s Lobby have learned to threaten citizen initiatives to win a seat at the table on behalf of working women and other beneficiaries of PFML. In January 2023, the Portland Press Herald reported the Maine People’s Alliance “decided to forgo putting the issue on the November ballot because the Legislature is considering a family leave benefit.”¹⁹ The newspaper quoted Democratic Senator Mattie Daughtry as “confident” the Legislature would approve PFML that year.²⁰

In June, the Maine House of Representatives passed an amended bill with input from the AFL-CIO, Governor Janet Mills, and others. The Legislature amended PFML to be friendlier to employers than the original initiative. After signing the budget including PFML, Governor Mills said:

“This measure, as amended, now accommodates potential hardships for employers and seasonal employment and employers who already have a significant paid leave program.”²¹

Despite these compromises, the PFML issue is far from settled. In December, Republicans attempted to defund PFML. Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart saiid:

“The Dems all seem to be fine with this new tax, even as the problems are rampant with the program. The Republicans still oppose it as a new tax on Maine people that’s not necessary.”²²

Then in January, BIW filed suit:

“The 20-page complaint filed in Kennebec County Superior Court asserts that labor department rules will force [Bath Iron Works] and members of the Maine [State Chamber of Commerce] to pay into a new state program even though those businesses plan to offer their own family and medical leave benefits.”²³ (Mistler, January 14, 2025)

The IAM knew about the lawsuit a month earlier. In a December union meeting, District Lodge 4 mused “piggybacking on the company’s lawsuit.”²⁴ PFML is part of the IAM’s platform. Even so, the IAM has its own vision for how the program should be implemented. This exemplifies how the policy process advantages the “no” option. In an argument for the dominance of elites over government, G. William Domhoff contrasted the liberal-labor coalition with a “power elite” much more unified in their pursuit of economic goals.²⁵ It is much easier for those against PFML existing at all to find themselves unified in opposition than it is for members of the liberal-labor coalition to find common ground. Notably, the organizations advancing the citizen initiative were components of the “liberal” half of that coalition. Labor was not involved until PFML made it onto the legislative agenda. PFML is a popular idea, but some members of the liberal-labor coalition remain suspicious of the program’s implementation. In general, this pluralist environment is much harder to navigate than elites’ unified opposition. 

“If there are problems with the law, let’s fix them,” legislative committeeperson Doug Hall suggested. He excitedly showed me in the IAM Constitution where the union is supposed to support PFML.²⁶ Whatever the outcome of these conversations, the path PFML took to becoming law illustrates how organizations can use citizen initiatives to advance popular policy from the systemic to the institutional agenda. Many important policies have come out of the threat of the citizen initiative process, such as sick leave and PFML.

The citizen initiative serves as an important foil to elite gatekeepers, but it also gives reactionaries an avenue to pass harmful policies. A 1947 citizen initiative was the first serious attempt at passing a right-to-work for less law in Maine, for example.²⁷ A harmful voter ID law will appear on the ballot this November.²⁸ After a mass shooting in 2023, a gun safety coalition began collecting signatures for a red flag law.²⁹ This initiative will appear on the November ballot, too.³⁰

Direct democracy is worth the trouble. Citizen initiatives directly challenge elites’ power over our government. The initiative process gives everyday citizens a voice. You may not be able to testify in Augusta yourself on specific policy, but you can vote for or against it in November. This process is important in a state as vast and sparsely populated as Maine.

1. IAM Constitution (2023), iii. ↩︎
2. Troy Jackson (@SenTroyJackson), “It’s simple– working Mainers shouldn’t have to choose between a paycheck and being able to take care of their health and family needs,” X, June 22, 2023. ↩︎
3. Bipartisan Policy Center, “State Paid Family Leave Laws Across the U.S,” January 16, 2024, accessed January 29, 2025. ↩︎
4. Randy Billings, “Republicans look to defund Maine’s new paid leave program,” Portland Press Herald, December 16, 2023. ↩︎
5. Thomas Birkland, An Introduction to the Policy Process: Theories, concepts and models of public policy making (Taylor & Francis Group, 2010), 100. ↩︎
6. Maine Constitution, art. IV, part third, § 18 ↩︎
7. Maine State Legislature, “Constitutional Provisions for Maine’s Citizen Initiative and People’s Veto,” in Legislative History Collection, updated through the 130th Legislature, accessed March 25, 2025. ↩︎
8. Maine State Legislature, “Citizen Initiated Legislation, 1911-Present,” in Legislative History Collection, updated through the 131th Legislature, accessed March 25, 2025. ↩︎
9. “Maine 2024 ballot measures,” Ballotpedia, accessed March 25, 2025. ↩︎
10. Charles Cochran & Eloise Malone, Public Policy: Perspectives and Choices (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2014), 7. ↩︎
11. Thomas Birkland, An Introduction to the Policy Process: Theories, concepts and models of public policy making (Taylor & Francis Group, 2010), 170. ↩︎
12. Kristen Ghodsee, Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence (Bold Type Books, 2018), 55. ↩︎
13. Ibid, 56. ↩︎
14. Ibid. ↩︎
15. Maine Department of Labor, “Paid Family and Medical Leave,” accessed January 30, 2025. ↩︎
16. Juliet Schor, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (BasicBooks, 1991), 36. ↩︎
17. Maine Department of Labor, “Paid Family and Medical Leave,” accessed January 30, 2025. ↩︎
18. Thomas Birkland, An Introduction to the Policy Process: Theories, concepts and models of public policy making (Taylor & Francis Group, 2010), 172. ↩︎
19. Joe Lawlor, “As paid family leave gains momentum in Maine Legislature, advocacy group holds off on referendum,” Portland Press Herald, January 13, 2023. ↩︎
20. Quoted in ibid. ↩︎
21. Quoted in Kevin Miller, “Gov. Mills signs Maine budget that creates a new paid family and medical leave program,” Maine Public, July 11, 2023. ↩︎
22. Randy Billings, “Republicans look to defund Maine’s new paid leave program,” Portland Press Herald, December 16, 2024. ↩︎
23. Steve Mistler, “Bath Iron Works, business group sues Maine labor department over new family and medical leave law,” Maine Public, January 14, 2025. ↩︎
24. In union meeting, December 21, 2024. ↩︎
25. G. William Domhoff, Who Rules America? Power, Politics, & Social Change (McGraw Hill, 2006). ↩︎
26. Doug Hall in conversation with author, n.d. ↩︎
27. Maine State Legislature, “Citizen Initiated Legislation, 1911-Present,” in Legislative History Collection, updated through the 131th Legislature, accessed March 25, 2025. ↩︎
28. Maine Bureau of Corporations, Elections, & Commissions, “Citizens Initiatives & People’s Veto,” accessed January 30, 2025. ↩︎
29. Steve Mistler, “Stymied in the Maine Legislature, gun control activists hope voters will approve red flag law,” Maine Public, January 23, 2025. ↩︎
30. Maine Bureau of Corporations, Elections, & Commissions, “Citizens Initiatives & People’s Veto,” accessed January 30, 2025. ↩︎