Maine Democrat U.S. Senate nominee Troy Jackson helped advance legislation in 2023 that made Maine the first state in the nation to decriminalize selling sex, voting for the measure and signing it as president of the Maine Senate as the state faced housing, opioid, homelessness, and food insecurity challenges.
Jackson presided over the Senate vote on the legislation, voted in favor of it, and signed the bill after its passage in 2023, sending it to the governor’s desk. The measure ultimately made Maine the first state in the country to decriminalize selling sex.
The legislation also changed terminology throughout existing state law. It struck the term “prostitute,” replacing “engaging a prostitute” with “engaging a person for prostitution.” The bill also replaced “engaging in prostitution” with “being prostituted,” among other terminology changes.
The legislation drew opposition from groups with sharply different perspectives on sex work, including the Erotic Laborers Alliance of New England and Maine law enforcement.
The founder of the Erotic Laborers Alliance of New England stated, “Adult sex work is often a consensual choice, not an exploitative one…While some believe that all sex workers only do this work because it is their only option for survival, it is not true for all…My monetization of my bodily autonomy has proven to be a successful career choice,” the founder stated in testimony opposing the measure.
The Maine State Police and Department of Public Safety also opposed the legislation, pointing to requirements it would place on law enforcement at a time when they said the state was experiencing staffing shortages and other public-safety demands.
Lt. Col. Brian P. Scott, testifying on behalf of the Maine State Police and the Department of Public Safety, said:
We are dealing unprecedented low levels of staffing where we are very close to a crisis. We are seeing more employees retiring or resigning faster than we can recruit, hire, and train. While our staffing levels have [gone] down our responsibilities have gone up. Maine has seen drug overdose deaths skyrocket; homicides double, and fatal car crashes increasing throughout the state. The DPS has many incredibly hard-working individuals who are doing everything that they can to try and reverse these horrible trends, however they only have the capacity to do so much.
The legislation was moving through Augusta as Maine faced significant challenges involving housing and drug overdoses.
A comprehensive housing study released in 2023 found Maine would need 84,000 new homes by 2030 to meet demand. By 2024, affordability had deteriorated to the point that 64 percent of Maine households could not afford to buy a median-priced home in the state.
Maine was also confronting an opioid crisis. The year before Jackson helped advance the legislation, 2022, became Maine’s deadliest year on record for drug overdoses, with 723 deaths.
During the first five months of 2023, state data recorded 4,124 drug overdoses, including 253 that were fatal.
Maine’s overdose mortality has also remained above the national rate. In 2024, the state’s drug overdose death rate was nearly 52 percent higher than the overall U.S. rate. The state’s overdose death rate increased during 16 of the previous 25 years for which data was available, rising 18 percent since 2019 and 110 percent since 2014.
Other economic and social indicators showed similar strains. Maine’s homeless population reached a record 3,726 people in 2023.
One in five Maine children experienced food insecurity that year. Maine had the highest child food insecurity rate and the second-highest overall food insecurity rate in New England.
RNC spokeswoman Kristen Cianci told Breitbart News, “Troy Jackson is a career politician who spent two decades ignoring the problems of Maine families while prioritizing far-left policies out of step with Maine values. Jackson would bring that same radical agenda to the United States Senate if given the chance.”
A Washington Post report published in July detailed allegations that Jackson repeatedly yelled and cursed at fellow lawmakers while leading the Maine Senate. The report cited a 2021 dispute with then-state Sen. Heather Sanborn over a prescription drug bill in which Jackson threw a water bottle and, according to a former colleague, was “an inch from her nose, screaming and hollering and haranguing her.” Multiple former lawmakers said Sanborn left the Senate that day and did not return for several days. Campaign adviser BJ McCollister acknowledged there were “moments when he let his frustration get the better of him” but denied the conduct amounted to intimidation, while Jackson said there “isn’t going to be anything” that sinks his campaign.
Jackson has also faced scrutiny over his longtime relationship with Lana Pelletier and a 1988 assault case. The Maine Wire reported in July that Jackson and Pelletier are second cousins who share two children and a set of great-grandparents, citing genealogical records; the two have never legally married, though older official biographies referred to Pelletier as Jackson’s wife. Their unmarried status raised questions about whether her finances would be included in Jackson’s Senate financial disclosures, while Townhall reported he had not filed a disclosure or requested an extension at the time, and the Bangor Daily News separately reported he paid roughly $4,600 in late state income taxes after a tax lien involving debt dating to 2020. The Bangor Daily News later reported on a 1988 incident in which Jackson, then 19, was charged with assault after punching a man. Jackson does not dispute assaulting the man, while both he and Pelletier deny that he was ever violent toward her, though a police report said Pelletier told an officer Jackson had pushed her and that she planned to seek “cease harassment papers,” statements she now disputes.
In 2023, he voted for LD 535, which became law. It allows qualifying 16- and 17-year-olds diagnosed with gender dysphoria to obtain nonsurgical hormone therapy without parental consent after discussing the treatment with a parent or guardian who refused to support it and signing his or her own written consent. Jackson also voted in support of taxpayer funding for transgender surgeries involving minors and repeatedly voted against measures intended to protect girls’ sports, including LD 1337, LD 868, LD 233, and LD 1134.
Maine Democrats formally declared Jackson their U.S. Senate nominee at their July 25 convention after he secured support from 566 delegates statewide, and he will face incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
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