Dear Editor:

LD 2003 (HP1489) violated the Second Amendment of The U.S. Constitution when it prohibits a governing entity from referring to specific ideas:

Sec. 3. 5 MRSA §4581-A, sub-§5 is enacted to read: Housing development. For any municipality or government entity to restrict the construction or development of housing accommodations in any area based upon criteria that refers to the character of a location, the overcrowding of land or the undue concentration of the population.

Laws that regulate the content of speech are considered by the U.S. Supreme Court to be violations of the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. According to The Congressional Research Center, laws that attempt to restrict ideas or viewpoints from the public debate qualify as a violation:

The Supreme Court has recognized that laws restricting or compelling speech based on its content have the potential to expel certain ideas or viewpoints from public debate. The Court typically regards such “content-based laws” as “presumptively unconstitutional.” Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155, 163 (2015). source

LD 2003 expels ideas of brilliant thinkers like Lewis Mumford from the conversation. This simple formula by Mumford is banned by an arguably unconstitutional law: every new office quarter must be planned with shallow buildings, duly oriented for light, spaced in such a fashion that the height shall never be greater than the space between the buildings to the front and the rear.

Light and density are human health concerns, The first function of government is to ensure the survival of the people. By prohibiting a reference to health standards governing density, the Maine government fails in its first responsibility.

The unelected authors of LD 203 ensured their ordinances would survive by including §4364-A. Municipal incentive program for enacting the ordinances. Thus leaving the people to defend their rights for themselves

Susan M. Andersen

Boothbay Harbor