Maine's enemies of free speech: Marraché and Waxman

In this week's issue of the Portland Phoenix, we publish a round-up of various assaults on free speech around New England, which we call the Muzzle Awards.

Two Muzzle winners are from Maine:

First, there's Waterville Democratic state senator Lisa Marraché, for her attack on the Maine Heritage Policy Center's MaineOpenGov.org Web site, which tracks Maine's government spending. (We didn't even bother mentioning that in her testimony supporting her bill, she demonstrated a serious failure of understanding of the First Amendment, when she railed against anonymous commenters on Web sites, and suggested that shouldn't be allowed. Obviously, anonymous speech is protected speech. Period.)

And the other honor goes to Portland City Councilor Dory Waxman, for her efforts to stifle communications from her opponent during her campaign for office.

Congratulations to the winners - the real winners, that is - the people of Maine.