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131st Maine Legislature Committee Meeting Guidance for the Public/Interested Parties – January 2023

Pursuant to recent guidance issued by the Presiding Officers, the 131st Legislature will be returning to in person committee meetings.

The following is intended to provide guidance on offering testimony at a public hearing and observing committee work sessions.

Livestream (and archive) of committee meetings.  Committee meetings are now livestreamed using the Legislature’s streaming service (not YouTube). You may access the livestream (or archive) by going to the date of the committee meeting on the Legislature’s Calendar (https://legislature.maine.gov/Calendar/).

Public hearing.   As usual, the manner in which testimony is taken during a public hearing, as well as the conduct of hearings generally, will be determined by the committee chairs.

• Testifying before a committee: Persons wanting to offer testimony to a committee may do so by attending the meeting in person in the committee room or by registering to testify over Zoom using the testimony submission portal (https://www.mainelegislature.org/testimony/). Generally, registration is required no later than 30 minutes prior to scheduled start of that day’s hearing(s). Once that registration is complete, you will receive additional information regarding acquiring a Zoom meeting link that can be used to join the meeting remotely during the public hearing. Unless otherwise specified by the chairs, such as in the case of large public hearings, no pre-registration is required for in-person hearing testimony.

• Testimony via ZOOM. A person testifying over Zoom can submit their written testimony by uploading it through the registration portal (https://www.mainelegislature.org/testimony/).

• Written testimony.  Although committee clerks will endeavor to provide legislators with hard copies of testimony submitted electronically prior to a hearing, such distribution before or during a public hearing cannot be guaranteed. A person who testifies in the committee room and has written testimony, should provide 20 hard copies for distribution to the committee. (This testimony may be uploaded through the portal in addition to hard copy distribution.)