The Constitution of the State of Maine established the "State of Maine" in 1820 and is the fundamental governing document of the state. It consists of a preamble and ten articles (divisions), the first of which is a "Declaration of Rights".

The preamble of Maine's constitution states the document's intents and the purpose of statehood: "Objects of government. We the people of Maine, in order to establish justice, insure tranquility, provide for our mutual defense, promote our common welfare, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of liberty, acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe in affording us an opportunity, so favorable to the design; and, imploring God's aid and direction in its accomplishment, do agree to form ourselves into a free and independent State, by the style and title of the State of Maine and do ordain and establish the following Constitution for the government of the same."

History The Maine Constitution was approved by Congress on March 4, 1820, as part of the Missouri Compromise since the Maine Constitution did not recognize slavery while the Missouri Constitution did. The State of Maine was previously the District of Maine in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. William King may have authored the largest part of the Maine Constitution, as he was the president of the Constitutional Convention and later elected Maine's first Governor.

Other authors of the constitution were Thomas Jefferson, John Chandler, Albion K. Parris, William Pitt Preble, and John Holmes. Thomas Jefferson authored the section of Article VIII on education. The Maine Constitution was approved by all 210 delegates to the Maine Constitutional Convention, which was held during October 1819, in Portland, Maine.

The Maine Constitution is the fourth-oldest operating state constitution in the country.

Preamble The Preamble defines the following reasons for establishing the State of Maine, which would also have served as an expression of dissatisfaction with being the District of Maine: "establish justice", "insure tranquility", "provide for our mutual defense", "promote our common welfare", "secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of liberty".

The Preamble states that the people of Maine "do agree to form ourselves into a free and independent State, by the style and title of the State of Maine and do ordain and establish the following Constitution for the government of the same."

CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF MAINE

(as amended on the year of 1820)

PREAMBLE

We the people of Maine, in order to establish justice, insure tranquility, provide for our mutual defense, promote our common welfare, and secure to our selves and our posterity the blessings of liberty, acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe in affording us an opportunity, so favorable to the design; and, imploring His aid and direct ion in its accomplishment, do agree to form ourselves into a free and independent State, by the style and title of the STATE OF MAINE, and do ordain and establish the following Constitution for the government of the same.

Article I. "Declaration of Rights" This Article contains 24 sections, of which the longest is on religious freedom. The first section starts "All people are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and unalienable rights." The beginning is similar to the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 which used the phrase "born free and equal", the basis for which slavery was abolished in that state in 1820.

The section on religious freedom starts with "all individuals have a natural and unalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences". This is notably different from the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 which referred to the "duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons to worship the Supreme being.

Article II. "Electors" (Voters) This article describes who may vote for Governor and members of the Maine Legislature. It states that every citizen of the United States of age 18 or older who has established residence in Maine shall be eligible to vote in state elections. There are certain exceptions such as "persons under guardianship for reasons of mental illness" and "persons in the military, naval or marine service of the United States." It was decided in 2001 that persons who are under guardianship are still permitted to vote.Doe v Rowe, Doe vs. Rowe, 156 F. Supp. 2d 35 (D. Me. 2001).

Article III. "Distribution of Powers" This article says that "the powers of this government shall be divided into 3 distinct departments, the legislative, executive and judicial." No person may assume a position in two of the branches at once.

Article IV: "House of Representatives, Senate, and Legislative Power" Establishes the Maine House of Representatives and the Maine Senate which shall comprise the Maine Legislature. The number of members of each body are set, and their duties are described. This article also describes the establishment of districts, how members are elected by Electors in each district, the qualifications for office, a residency requirement, etc.

However, this article also reserves to the people certain important powers. "The people reserve to themselves power to propose laws and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the Legislature." Also the people reserve the "power at their own option to approve or reject at the polls any Act, bill, resolve or resolution passed by the joint action of both branches of the Legislature, and the style of their laws and Acts shall be, 'Be it enacted by the people of the State of Maine.'"

"Legislative Powers" describes when the Legislature shall meet and allows the Governor 10 days to approve legislation. The Governor is also granted the "line-item veto of dollar amounts appearing in appropriation or allocation sections of legislative documents."

Also duties of the Legislature are described, however "all bills for raising a revenue shall originate in the House of Representative." This means if the Senate passes legislation which raises revenue it is constitutionally invalid if the House of Representatives has not previously acted on it.

Maine is one of the states which prohibits the legislature from chartering corporations. This is dealt with in Article IV Part Third, Sections 13 and 14.

Section 13 Special legislation. The Legislature shall, from time to time, provide, as far as practicable, by general laws, for all matters usually pertaining to special or private legislation.

Section 14 Corporations, formed under general laws. Corporations shall be formed under general laws, and shall not be created by special Acts of the Legislature, except for municipal purposes, and in cases where the objects of the corporation cannot otherwise be attained; and, however formed, they shall forever be subject to the general laws of the State.

In 1969, Maine became a Home Rule State through a constitutionally defined process. In 1976 the Maine Legislature reclaimed central power by decreeing that centrally managing the economy is an essential government function. The authority to regulate the economy was already established by Article IV, Part Third, Section 13 of the Maine Constitution, leaving the interpretation that in the new centrally managed economy, the government’s role is participatory.

The participatory function is confirmed when the term "an essential governmental function" is applied to the Maine Development Foundation in a new law, PL 1977, c. 548, §1.

There is a need to establish a new basis for a creative partnership of the private and public sectors for economic development, a partnership which can capitalize on the interests, resources, and efforts of each sector, but which does not compromise the public interest or the profit motive. The state's solitary burden to provide for development should lessen through involving the private sector in a leadership role. [PL 1977, c. 548, §1 (NEW).]

The most common conflict of interest is between the public interest and the profit motive. Over the years, the Maine Legislature developed workarounds to Home Rule such as §5654. Conditional gifts that leave the local residents out of the decision-making process while creating local expenditures “in perpetuity”

In 2022, HP 1489 instituted state-wide municipal ordinances that required every municipality to have “priority zones” where housing density could not be regulated, short-term rentals are not allowed, and references could not be made to “character of location, “overpopulation, or “overcrowding”, ensuring equal protection under the law.

The default housing zones are governed by local municipal ordinances. This brings into play Article IV Part Third Sections 13 & 14 of the Maine Constitution. The priority zone ordinances are state-wide, while the default ordinances are local. The state-wide municipal ordinances are enacted by statutory law. The local ordinances are governed by the Maine Constitution.

Section 13 speaks of regulatory laws, which are general laws applying to all matters that might otherwise have been assigned to special or private legislation. Section 14 underscores that all corporations are formed under general laws forbidding the Legislature from forming a corporation unless there is no other way to achieve its object, such as a private corporation formed under general laws.

Sections 13 and 14 do not speak of essential government functions and yet express an inherent constitutional principle of the United States, that of the separation of powers. The arguable intent of sections 13 & 14 is to establish that the essential government function is to regulate industry and not to participate in industry, which requires incorporation. Many entities are participating in a field, but only one entity regulates the field, and that is the government, making regulation an essential government function. A regulatory institution cannot participate in the field that it regulates because to do so is a conflict of interest. This interpretation aligns with the first object of government declared in the Preamble to the Maine Constitution: “establish justice”. Justice balances conflicts of interest.

In 2021, the Maine Legislature established the Maine Space Corporation without including the words that the corporation is “an essential government function.” The space industry is booming in the private sector. Conflicts of interest between the space industry and other industries, including access to coastal areas and environmental concerns, led the Maine Space Corporation to shift its focus from land-based launch sites to sea-based platforms, which do not escape the conflicts of interest. Now the Maine Space Corporation is planning to launch in federal waters where federal regulations apply, but the federal government has its own special interests in the space industry, leaving it up to the states to be regulatory institutions that have not created a conflict of interest by participating in the field of regulation.

Despite the constitutional prohibition, the legislature has embedded a complex corporate network of corporations that serve as "an instrumentality of the state" and declared to be "essential government functions" and are linked to a network of "public-private relationships" also referred to as 'quasis" and business consortiums". This has largely occurred since 1977 when the Maine Legislature chartered the Maine Development Foundation as a non-profit corporation to serve as an instrumentality of the state with the expressed intent to establish legislative authority to centrally manage Maine's economy: