Senate accepts House privacy change to jury-source bill after floor debate; move to recommit fails

The Maine Senate voted to recede and concur with a House amendment that changes language in a bill about sources for prospective juror lists, adopting wording that replaces 'referrals' with 'assessment data' to avoid disclosure of individually identifiable records.

Senator Perce moved the recede-and-concur motion and said the House amendment addresses a confidentiality concern; Senator Carney, a former Right to Know advisory commission chair, explained the change to colleagues, saying the amendment clarifies that assessment data "does not include personally identifying information" and therefore will not expose confidential medical referrals or public assistance records.

Senator Stewart and other senators pressed for more committee vetting, arguing the floor amendment introduced a substantial policy change without prior public hearings. Stewart said the matter "seems to be a rather substantial policy shift" and asked why stakeholders had not had a chance to weigh in.

The Senate earlier considered a motion to recommit the item to committee; that motion failed on a roll call, 14–18. On the later question of whether the Senate would recede and concur, the motion prevailed on a roll call, 19–13.

Why it matters: supporters described the amendment as a technical fix to prevent the use of confidential records as a source for jury lists and to align the bill with privacy protections; critics said the floor change raised substantive questions that would have benefited from committee review.

What’s next: With the Senate’s concurrence, the amended language will go back to the House and the bill will proceed according to the legislative calendar.