County of Androscoggin

A Resolution of the Board of Androscoggin County Commissioners questioning the constitutionality of pandemic orders
instituted by Governor Mills and any rules or guidelines promulgated or issued by state agencies acting under power
delegated to such agencies by Governor Mills.

Whereas, there is scant scientific evidence to date that cloth masks prevent the spread of COVID 19 despite the
fact that cloth mask use is quite common, yet infection rates are still high;

Whereas, the Coronavirus is so small that only masks of such type as N95 masks or greater have a likelihood of
preventing its spread through airborne transmission, yet are suffocatingly tight and require fit testing and a respirato-
ry protection program if required by an employer;

Whereas, wearing masks on a regular basis may aggravate heart, lung, upper respiratory irritation, asthma, and
other issues;

Whereas, people with medical issues or disabilities used to have protection from discrimination under the law;
Whereas, The Governor’s two executive orders require masks, make an exception for people who are unable to
wear masks and then state that under no circumstances may a person be allowed to enter into a store or other loca-
tions without a mask;

Whereas, Fear has long been used by governments to control people and manipulate them to give up their liber-
ties in exchange for perceived “security” that has later turned into tyranny;

Whereas, a 2015 study in the British Medical Journal found that cloth masks were penetrated by 97% of parti-
cles, and may increase infection risk by retaining moisture, or repeated use, [as a result they would likely allow a
substantial percent of infectious particles through them in either direction];

Whereas, a CDC policy review article in May 2020 stated that “We did not find evidence that surgical type face
masks are effective in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza transmission, either when worn by infected persons
(source control) or by persons in the general community to reduce their susceptibility,”;

Whereas, Governments of the people should be concerned with serving the people, not mandating, ordering, or
controlling them;

Whereas, Section 2 of Article I of the Constitution of the Great State of Maine (the “Constitution”) declares that
All power is inherent in the people; all free governments are founded in their authority and instituted for their benefit;
they have therefore an unalienable and indefeasible right to institute government, and to alter, reform, or totally change
the same, when their safety and happiness require it;

Whereas, in instituting their government, the people of Maine understood that lawmaking poses a danger to their
freedom, and therefore the people of Maine by a positive voluntary grant pursuant to Section 1, Part First of Article IV of
the Constitution, vested the power to make laws for their benefit only to one branch of government - the Legislature - and
as an added protection of their liberty reserved to themselves the power to propose, enact, or reject laws:

The legislative power shall be vested in 2 distinct branches, a House of Representatives, and a Senate, each to have a neg-
ative on the other, and both to be styled the Legislature of Maine, but the people reserve to themselves power to propose
laws and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the Legislature, and also reserve power at their own option
to approve or reject at the polls any Act, bill, resolve or resolution passed by the joint action of both branches of the Leg-
islature, and the style of their laws and Acts shall be, “Be it enacted by the people of the State of Maine.”;

Whereas, to protect against the usurpation of freedom and human dignity that would inevitably result, as it has
throughout recorded history, if executive power (the power to enforce the law) and the legislative power were united in
the same branch of government, as in monarchy or dictatorship, the Maine people determined that those powers should be
kept separate and declared in Article III of Maine’s Constitution that (i) the “powers of [Maine’s] government shall be
divided into 3 distinct departments, the legislative, executive and judicial; and (ii) be kept separate so that “[n]o person or
persons, belonging to one of these departments, shall exercise any of the powers properly belonging to either of the oth-
ers”;

WHEREAS, in the event the need for emergency legislation were to arise, Section 16 of Part Third of Article IV of
the Maine Constitution provides a shorter time period before such legislation would take effect, albeit subject to the peo-
ple’s veto:

No Act or joint resolution of the Legislature . . . shall take effect until 90 days after the recess of the session of the Legis-
lature in which it was passed, unless in case of emergency, which with the facts constituting the emergency shall be ex-
pressed in the preamble of the Act, the Legislature shall, by a vote of 2/3 of all the members elected to each House, other-
wise direct. An emergency bill shall include only such measures as are immediately necessary for the preservation of the
public peace, health or safety; and shall not include (1) an infringement of the right of home rule for municipalities . . . .

Whereas, the only method by which the Constitution may be amended is set forth in Section 4 of Article X:
The Legislature, whenever 2/3 of both Houses shall deem it necessary, may propose amendments to this Constitution; and
when any amendments shall be so agreed upon, a resolution shall be passed and sent to the selectmen of the several
towns, and the assessors of the several plantations, empowering and directing them to notify the inhabitants of their re-
spective towns and plantations, in the manner prescribed by law, at the next biennial meetings in the month of November,
or to meet in the manner prescribed by law for calling and holding biennial meetings of said inhabitants for the election of
Senators and Representatives, on the Tuesday following the first Monday of November following the passage of said re-
solve, to give in their votes on the question, whether such amendment shall be made; and if it shall appear that a majority
of the inhabitants voting on the question are in favor of such amendment, it shall become a part of this Constitution.

Whereas, the Maine Legislature pursuant to 37-B M.R.S. Ch. 13 (the “Emergency Act”), without amending the Con-
stitution, delegated to the Governor of the State of Maine at any time following the Governor’s proclamation of an emer-
gency, and for so long as that state of emergency is renewed by the Governor, the legislative or lawmaking powers to ad-
dress the emergency;

Whereas, the Emergency Act gives Maine’s Governor the unfettered discretion to proclaim the commencement of a
state of emergency and to terminate that state of emergency when he or she is satisfied that the emergency no longer ex-
ists;

Whereas, among the broad and undefined powers purportedly delegated by the Maine Legislature to the Governor un-
der the Emergency Act is the unlimited power to take whatever action is necessary to abate or mitigate the danger posed
by the proclaimed emergency, and to delegate that power to other agencies within the executive department, including the
power to make laws; and the Emergency Act does not set forth any meaningful standards to guide the exercise of such
powers and delegates such powers without any protections to guard against arbitrariness or discrimination;

Whereas, in response to the COVID-19 virus being declared a pandemic and its spread into Maine, the Governor of
the State of Maine, Janet T. Mills, proclaimed a state of emergency on March 15, 2020, and has since renewed that state
of emergency on a monthly basis for almost one year;

Whereas, following Governor Mills’s proclamation of a state of emergency, she has exercised the powers purportedly
granted to her under the Emergency Act to institute various orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (such orders,
the “Pandemic Orders”), and she has delegated those same powers to various executive departments, including the De-
partment of Economic and Community Development (DECD), the Department of Education (DOE), and the Department
of Health and Human Services, which agencies have in turn promulgated or issued rules and guidance (the “Pandemic
Rules”);

Whereas, the sweeping scope of the discretionary lawmaking power delegated to Governor Mills and by her to execu-
tive departments, and effected through the Pandemic Orders and Pandemic Rules, has since March of 2020 reordered the
lives and livelihoods of all Maine people and the entire Maine economy; invoked criminal sanctions and other penalties
for violations thereof, and affected fundamental rights declared in Article I of the Constitution, including without limita-
tion freedoms of religion, speech, and assembly, and against unreasonable searches and deprivations of life, liberty, and
property”;

Whereas, the Pandemic Orders and the Pandemic Rules have been implemented by the Governor and public officials
within the executive department in a manner that is arbitrary and discriminatory, offering citizens affected thereby no
meaningful ability to challenge, appeal or, in many instances, even receive a logical explanation of decisions made with
respect thereto from public officials such as school superintendents, and DOE, CDC, and DECD officials;

Whereas, county government has existed in Maine since colonial times, prior to statehood and the Declaration of In-
dependence;

Whereas, county government is a democratic institution that operates at the regional level between municipalities and
the state, and whose county officials (including its district attorney and sheriff) are directly elected by the voters;

Whereas, pursuant to the Androscoggin County Charter (the “Charter”), the people of Androscoggin County, Maine,
having a population today of more than 100,000, in order to provide for self-determination in county affairs, conferred
upon its county government, certain powers to be exercised through this Board of County Commissioners (the “Board”);

Whereas, Section 3.8 of the Charter declares that this “Board shall be the policy-determining body of the County”
with authority to “exercise all the powers granted to the County from any source,” specifically including responsibility to
establish and adopt county policy and to appoint the County Administrator, who has responsibility under the Charter to
execute the Board’s policy;

Whereas, Section 4.1 of Article IV of the Charter gives the Board responsibility for “[a]ll functions and duties re-
quired of the County or County officials by the Charter or by the Constitution and laws of the State of Maine, and further
provides that (i) “[a]ll entities, services, and functions are under the direction and the supervision of the County Adminis-
trator, subject to the approval and control of the Board”, and (ii) that the “Board shall use its powers to operate the County
in an optimal businesslike manner and to provide services that are in the best interest of the County’s citizens”;

Whereas, State law provides county commissioners with authority over the operation of county offices pursuant to
30-A M.R.S. Section 102 which provides that “county commissioners have final authority over the operation of all county
offices by elected or appointed county officials.”

Whereas, the Board is of the opinion that the delegation of legislative power to the Governor pursuant to the Emer-
gency Act is an obvious violation of Section 1, Part First of Article IV of the Constitution, Article III of the Constitution,
and Section 4 of Article X of the Constitution; and further that such delegation violates the nondelegation doctrine as it is
understood under the laws of the United States and Maine state law, and as recently relied upon by the Supreme Court of
the State of Michigan to find Governor Whitmer’s pandemic orders in violation of the Michigan Constitution;

Whereas, executive departments and their officials throughout this country, including the President and Attorney
General of the United States, the Governor and the Office of the Attorney General of the State of Maine, and law enforce-
ment agencies and officials, including sheriffs, have exercised discretion to determine whether to enforce laws deemed by
such officials to be unacceptable, including immigration and drug laws;
Whereas, this Board acknowledges receipt of a letter dated February 5, 2021 (the “Letter”) from Attorney General
Aaron M. Frey, the State of Maine’s most powerful law enforcement officer and lawyer, assuring this Board that the Pan-
demic Orders instituted by the Governor, the State of Maine’s most powerful executive, are both “constitutional and . . .
enforceable through both civil and criminal processes” thereby completing the trifecta of power, the power to make law,
to enforce it, and to judge its constitutionality;

Whereas, as Montesquieu explained in the Spirit of the Laws, “[w]hen the legislative and executive powers are united
in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the
same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner”;

Whereas, without regard to the effectiveness of the Pandemic Orders, including face covering mandates, in view of
this Board’s opinion that the Pandemic Orders and Pandemic Rules are unconstitutional and our obligation as the Coun-
ty’s elected officials to oversee county operations and ensure that services provided by the County are in the best interests
of the County’s citizens, and believing that County citizens are best able to determine the pandemic protections necessary
for their own personal safety, we have determined as a matter of policy that it is in the best interests of the County’s citi-
zens to direct all County official and employees subject to Board supervision, including without limitation the County Ad-
ministrator, to refrain from enforcing the Pandemic Orders or Pandemic Rules within the County’s geographic boundaries
and to direct such County officials to conduct their offices consistent with this policy;

We, the Board of Androscoggin County Commissioners, pursuant to and in accordance with the Char-
ter and State law, do hereby resolve that no county official shall enforce a Pandemic Order or Pan-
demic Rule, including mask mandates, against any citizen or business of, or visitor to, Androscoggin
County.

We, the Board of Androscoggin County Commissioners, further resolve that the County will, in a man-
ner consistent with state and federal law, prohibit the use of County funds, personnel or equipment to
enforce the Pandemic Orders and Pandemic Rules. In the event that this Resolution conflicts with ei-
ther state or federal law, state and federal law shall control.

We, the Board of Androscoggin County Commissioners, pursuant to and in accordance with the Char-
ter, do hereby further resolve to take steps, and to direct the County Administrator to take steps, on
behalf of the County by any legal means available, including submitting an important question to the
Supreme Judicial Court, to obtain (i) a declaratory judgment or similar remedy declaring or holding
that the delegation of lawmaking power to the Governor under the Emergency Act is unconstitutional
as in violation of Section 1, Part First of Article IV of the Maine Constitution, Article III of the Maine
Constitution, and Section 4 of Article X of the Maine Constitution; and in violation of the separation
of powers doctrine and the nondelegation doctrine, thereby invalidating the Pandemic Orders, Pan-
demic Rules, and any other similar grants of legislative power that would otherwise enable the Exec-
utive department to issue similar pandemic rules and (ii) injunctive relief that enjoins the enforcement
of the Pandemic Orders, Pandemic Rules, and similar orders and rules.

Adopted this _____ Day of _____________, 2021

by the Androscoggin County Board of County Commissioners

___________________________ ____________________________
Commissioner Ames, Brian Commissioner Madore, Noel
___________________________ ___________________________
Commissioner Christner, Sally Commissioner Michael, John

___________________________ ____________________________
Commissioner Kelly, Terri Commissioner Poirier, Roland

___________________________
Commissioner Lary, Isaiah