Universal school meals
What they say
His campaign says that in the legislature he passed universal school meals.
“passed universal school meals”
What the record shows ·
In May 2021, as Senate President, he sponsored LD 1679, a bill requiring schools to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to students who do not qualify for free or reduced-price meals, with the state paying the difference. Its operative sections were enacted in the same words, with one program name corrected, as Part OOOO of the state budget, Public Law 2021, chapter 398, which the Senate enacted 32 to 2 on June 30, 2021 with his Yea vote; the Governor signed it on July 1. The Maine statutes credit the universal-meals paragraphs to that Part, which also created a Meals for Students Fund to pay the state's share. LD 1679 itself was later rewritten and enacted in 2022 as a narrower law on online meal applications.
Limit: It did not pass as his bill: the law is a Part of the budget, which 32 senators voted for. What ties it to him is the text, which is his bill's with one program name corrected, and his vote. The match between the two documents was read by hand and checked again by a word-level comparison, because both are published only as PDFs. The requirement has been amended since and applies to schools that take part in the federal school meal programs.