Tag Archives: Maine

Flooded streets and evacuations as storm pounds Boston and U.S. Northeast

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) – Seawater on Friday flowed onto some coastal streets around Boston, where businesses set up flood barriers and piled sandbags around their doors as a powerful storm threatened to flood pockets of the U.S. coast from Maine to Virginia.

Over 700,000 homes and businesses were without power in the U.S. Northeast, hundreds of flights were canceled at New York’s three major airports and Boston’s Logan International, and the federal government closed offices in Washington.

It was the second time this year that Boston streets, including areas around the Long Wharf and the rapidly developing Seaport District, flooded in a winter storm.

“It’s crazy. I guess this is sea-level rise in action,” said Bob Flynn, 38, who had stepped out from his work at Boston’s Children’s Museum to survey a partially submerged walkway along the city’s Fort Point Channel.

Heavy rains, extreme high tides and a wind-driven storm surge could combine to cause several feet of water to flow onto streets in coastal Massachusetts, with government and private weather forecasters warning of a repeat of an early-January storm that drove a couple of feet of icy seawater onto Boston’s streets. High winds gusting up to 60 miles per hour (97 kph) could also bring extensive power outages.

“The winds are going to keep on increasing and the seas are going to go higher and higher for the next three high tide cycles,” said Bill Simpson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton, Massachusetts. Floodwater surged in during high tide around 11 a.m. ET (1600 GMT), and forecasters warned that strong winds coming in off the ocean could keep levels high through the next two high tides.

Residents of coastal areas that regularly flood in storms, including the towns of Newburyport, Duxbury and Scituate had been encouraged to evacuate their homes and head to higher ground, said Chris Besse, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.

He added that it is hard to predict where the storm will take its heaviest toll.

“It could be that the first high tide washes away dunes from one beach and the second washes away houses,” Besse said.

Sarah Moran, a 59-year-old mother of six, was fretting whether her family’s oceanfront home in Scituate, Massachusetts, south of Boston, would survive the storm.

“Every house south of mine has been washed away since the 1978 blizzard. That risk is part of the package – the house comes complete with ocean views, taxes, maintenance and risks,” she said in a phone interview from Burlington, Vermont, where she owns a catering business.

The National Weather Service had coastal flood watches and warnings in place from southern Maine through coastal Virginia, including New York’s eastern suburbs, and was also tracking a snowstorm heading east from the Ohio Valley that could drop significant amounts of snow in northern New York State. It forecast storm surges of up to 4 feet (1.2 meters) for eastern Massachusetts.

More than 700,000 homes and businesses were without power across the region, with the largest number of outages in New York, utilities said.

Federal offices closed on Friday in Washington, while dozens of schools throughout the region canceled classes. More than a quarter of flights into and out of New York’s three major airports and Boston’s airport were canceled, according to tracking service Flightaware.com.

Southern California was also facing weather dangers, with risks of rain-driven mudslides prompting mandatory evacuations ordered for some 30,000 people living near fire-scarred hills around the Santa Barbara coast.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg and Gina Cherelus in New York and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; editing by Phil Berlowitz and Jonathan Oatis)

Trump administration will allow states to test Medicaid work requirements

U.S. President Donald Trump attends the Women in Healthcare panel hosted by Seema Verma (R), Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 22, 2017.

By Yasmeen Abutaleb

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration said on Thursday it would allow states to test requiring some Medicaid recipients to work or participate in community activities such as volunteering or jobs training as a condition of eligibility for the government health insurance program for the poor.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued guidance making it easier for states to design and propose test programs that implement such requirements. States must propose such changes through waivers and receive federal approval.

Seema Verma, the agency’s administrator, said the policy guidance came in response to requests from at least 10 states that have proposed requiring some Medicaid recipients to work or participate in activities that may include skills training, education, job search, volunteering or caregiving. Those states include Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, Arizona, Indiana and Utah.

Certain Medicaid populations would be exempt from the rules, including those with disabilities, the elderly, children and pregnant women. Verma also said states would have to make “reasonable modifications” for those battling opioid addiction and other substance use disorders.

“This gives us a pathway to start approving waivers,” Verma said on a call with reporters on Wednesday. “This is about helping those individuals rise out of poverty.”

Under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement commonly known as Obamacare, 31 states expanded Medicaid to those making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, adding millions of people to the rolls.

Republicans have repeatedly failed to repeal and replace Obamacare, a top campaign promise of President Donald Trump. Instead, the Trump administration has sought to weaken the program through executive orders and administrative rules.

The Obama administration opposed state efforts to implement work requirements in Medicaid because it could result in fewer people having access to health insurance.

For instance, Kentucky last year proposed work requirements for able-bodied adults to get insurance and establishing new fees for all members based on income. A study found the proposal would reduce the number of residents on Medicaid by nearly 86,000 within five years, saving more than $330 million.

Republicans argue that Medicaid was created to serve the most vulnerable and has become bloated under Obamacare. Verma and other Republicans said implementing work and community engagement requirements could help improve health outcomes by connecting people with jobs and training.

(Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Blizzard roars into U.S. Northeast, snarling travel

A lone visitor takes a picture near the brink of the ice covered Horseshoe Falls in Niagara Falls, Canada.

By Gina Cherelus and Scott Malone

NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) – The first major winter storm of 2018 bore down on the U.S. Northeast on Thursday, closing schools and government offices and disrupting travel as work crews scrambled to clear roads of snow before plummeting temperatures turn it to treacherous ice.

After bringing rare snowfall to the southeast a day earlier, the storm carried rapid accumulation and high winds to New York, where subway systems appeared less crowded than usual as many commuters heeded officials’ warnings to stay home.

Blizzard warnings were in place along the coast from North Carolina to Maine, with the National Weather Service forecasting winds as high as 55 miles per hour (89 kph) that may bring down tree limbs and knock out power.

More than a foot (30 cm) of snow was forecast for Boston and coastal areas in northern New England.

The storm is the product of a rapid and rare plunge in barometric pressure that some weather forecasters are referring to as bombogenesis, or the so-called “bomb cyclone.”

The term comes from the merging of two words: bomb and cyclogenisis, according to private forecaster AccuWeather.

On Wednesday, the storm dumped snow on Florida’s capital Tallahassee for the first time in 30 years, and was expected to last through the day.

About 3,000 airline flights within, into or out of the United States were canceled ahead of the storm’s arrival on Thursday, with New York’s three major airports and Boston’s Logan International seeing as many as three out of four flights called off, according to tracking service FlightAware.com.

Federal government offices planned to delay opening for two hours on Thursday, while state officials in Connecticut and Massachusetts ordered non-essential workers to stay home. In Maine, Governor Paul LePage ordered state offices closed for the day.

“Travel conditions are expected to be treacherous,” LePage said in a statement. “Avoiding unnecessary travel will keep accidents to a minimum and allow state and municipal road crews to safely go about their work.”

The snow storm brought a break in extreme cold temperatures that have gripped much of the region since Christmas, frozen part of the Niagara Falls, played havoc with public works and impeded firefighting in places where temperatures barely broke 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 6 centigrade).

But forecasters warned temperatures would drop sharply on Friday and into the weekend. That left work crews scrambling to clear snow off roadways and sidewalks on Thursday before it freezes to ice and makes conditions more treacherous for pedestrians and drivers alike.

“These are tough conditions to move around in, so if you don’t need to be on the road … you shouldn’t,” said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Twitter. “Everyone needs to take this weather very seriously.”

Schools were ordered to close in New York, many parts of New Jersey, Boston and other cities through the region.

A woman walks down the street during a blizzard in Long Beach, New York, U.S. January 4, 2018.

A woman walks down the street during a blizzard in Long Beach, New York, U.S. January 4, 2018. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

SOUTHERN SNOW

Private forecaster AccuWeather said snow would fall quickly during the day, at a rate of several inches per hour, with the storm intensified by the bombogenesis effect.

The phenomenon occurs when a storm’s barometric pressure drops by 24 millibars in 24 hours. As a result, the accumulation of snow and winds intensifies, which can cause property damage and power outages.

More than 35,000 customers were without power in Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia early on Thursday, utilities reported online.

A part of US-13 at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel in Virginia was closed due to high winds early on Thursday while state transportation departments throughout the region reported dozens of delays due to deteriorating roads conditions.

Late on Wednesday, a baggage car and two sleeper cars on an Amtrak train traveling from Miami to New York, with 311 passengers aboard, derailed as it was slowly backing into a station in Savannah, Georgia. No one was injured, an Amtrak spokesman said.

The cold has been blamed for at least nine deaths over the past few days, including those of two homeless people in Houston.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Alison Williams and Bernadette Baum)

Erie, Pennsylvania, buried under record snowfall, ” a crippling snow event”

Silas Stueve plays in the snow after two days of record-breaking snowfall in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S., December 27, 2017.

By Jon Herskovitz

(Reuters) – A storm that has dumped more than 65 inches (165 cms) of snow this week on Erie, Pennsylvania, is expected to slightly taper off on Wednesday after leaving drifts that buried cars, paralyzed the area and made the county declare an emergency.

A general view of 1925 State Street after the record snowfall in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S., December 26, 2017 in this picture obtained from social media.

A general view of 1925 State Street after the record snowfall in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S., December 26, 2017 in this picture obtained from social media. Courtesy of Instagram @BLJEFFERYS /via REUTERS

But the respite for Erie, a city of about 100,000 in northwest Pennsylvania on the shores of Lake Erie, is expected to be short-lived, with a fresh round of winter storms coming Thursday night predicted to bring as much as 10 inches more snow, forecasters said.

“This is a crippling snow event,” said Zach Sefcovic, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Cleveland.

“They are no strangers to snow in that part of the state, but this much snow in that short a time is just unprecedented,” he said in a telephone interview.

Large parts of the United States were gripped by freezing weather, with an area stretching from Montana to Maine expected to see temperatures below 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-12.2 degrees Celsius) early on Thursday, the National Weather Service said.

People help dig out a car from a parking spot after two days of record-breaking snowfall in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S., December 27, 2017.

People help dig out a car from a parking spot after two days of record-breaking snowfall in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S., December 27, 2017. REUTERS/Robert Frank

The winter blast in Erie was caused by cold Arctic air moving over the lake, which had relatively mild water temperatures, forecasters said.

The storm broke a 59-year-old record for a two-day snowfall in Pennsylvania, topping the 44 inches that fell in 1958. Erie County Executive Kathy Dahlkemper issued a temporary disaster emergency declaration that mobilized resources to help the area.

Pictures of residents on social media showed drifts reaching beyond window-levels in houses and people clearing paths through chest-high accumulations.

“Out of Doritos. Family is arguing. Dogs are getting ornery. It’s been 3 days since my last chicken wing. We are out of whiskey,” wrote Nicole Massari on her Instagram account @theworldaroundnikki, along with a video showing her Pennsylvania home surrounded by snow.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf deployed 21 Pennsylvania National Guard troops along with some all-terrain military vehicles to the region on Tuesday to help residents dig out and transport emergency responders around the area.

Erie resident Brian Sheridan on Wednesday posted a photo on social media showing the top of his mail box peeking out underneath a mound of snow. In a caption, he wrote: “At this point, it just might be easier to put a hold on our mail until spring.”

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Additional reporting by Lisa Maria Garza in Texas; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Andrew Hay)

Maine governor will not expand Medicaid, ignoring voters

Maine governor will not expand Medicaid, ignoring voters

By Gina Cherelus

(Reuters) – Maine Republican Governor Paul LePage said on Wednesday he will not expand the state’s Medicaid program under Obamacare, ignoring a ballot initiative widely backed by voters, calling it “ruinous” for the state’s budget.

Maine looked set to become the first state in the nation to expand Medicaid by popular vote.

About 60 percent of voters in Maine approved the ballot proposal in Tuesday’s election, according to the Bangor Daily News newspaper.

Republicans in Washington have failed several times to pass legislation that would dismantle former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.

LePage said he will not implement the expansion until it is fully funded by the Maine legislature.

“Credit agencies are predicting that this fiscally irresponsible Medicaid expansion will be ruinous to Maine’s budget,” LePage said in a statement. “I will not support increasing taxes on Maine families, raiding the rainy day fund or reducing services to our elderly or disabled.”

LePage said a previous Medicaid expansion in Maine in 2002 had created $750 million in debt to hospitals and took resources away from vulnerable people.

Maine has been prominent in the nation’s healthcare debate. U.S. Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, helped block her party’s efforts to repeal Obamacare. Collins did not immediately respond to a request for comment on LePage’s decision.

Maine voters were asked to approve or reject a plan to provide healthcare coverage under Medicaid for adults under age 65 with incomes at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level, which in 2017 is about $16,000 for a single person and about $22,000 for a family of two.

If implemented, about 70,000 additional state residents would be eligible for the Medicaid program, local media reported, in addition to the roughly 268,000 people who are currently eligible.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Voters in Maine approve expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare

Voters in Maine approve expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – Voters in Maine on Tuesday approved a ballot initiative to expand the state’s Medicaid program under Obamacare, sending a clear signal of support for the federal healthcare law to lawmakers in the state and Washington D.C.

The approval of the ballot question in Maine comes after Republicans in Washington failed several times over the last few months to pass legislation that would dismantle the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.

Maine has recently figured prominently in the nation’s debate on how to reform healthcare. U.S. Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, helped block her party’s efforts to repeal Obamacare this year, which angered President Donald Trump.

Maine, which becomes the first U.S. state to approve Medicaid expansion by ballot initiative, is one of 19 states that has not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

About 60 percent of voters in Maine approved the ballot initiative, according to the Bangor Daily News newspaper.

Tuesday’s ballot asked Maine voters to approve or reject a plan to provide healthcare coverage under Medicaid for adults under the age of 65 with incomes at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level, which in 2017 is about $16,000 for a single person and about $22,000 for a family of two.

The state’s Republican governor, Paul LePage, staunchly opposes expansion of federal health care insurance, vetoing legislation to do so on several occasions.

“I’ve said it before, “free” is very expensive to somebody,” LePage said in a radio address last week.

About 70,000 residents in Maine would be eligible for the state’s Medicaid program when and if state officials certify the results of the election. Lawmakers could vote to repeal or alter the referendum, much like they have recently for several citizen-initiated referendums, the Bangor Daily News reported.

“It is now the responsibility and the duty of the governor and the legislature to fully and faithfully implement this law,” the state’s Speaker of the House, Sara Gideon, said in a statement.

The Legislature’s Office of Fiscal and Program Review in Maine estimated that expansion of Medicaid would cost the state about $55 million and bring in about $525 million of federal money to the state each year, according to the Bangor Daily News.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Windy rainstorm whips U.S. Northeast, cutting power to hundreds of thousands

Storm Summary has been initialized for the deep low pressure system which is bringing damaging winds, heavy rain across the Northeast, even some snow over West Virginia.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Fierce winds and heavy rain downed trees and knocked out power across the U.S. Northeast, halting trains during the Monday morning commute and leaving neighborhoods from Boston to Washington in the dark.

Wind gusts of 82 miles (131.97 km) per hour were reported on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, while steady rain from Sunday into Monday dumped up to 4 inches (10.16 cm) of water across New England, said National Weather Service meteorologist Marc Chenard.

“There has been quite a bit of wind, and when the ground gets wet like this, trees fall,” Chenard said.

Amtrak train service between Boston and New Haven, Connecticut, was suspended early on Monday as crews scrambled to clear branches and restore power, authorities said.

Connecticut commuters piled onto buses or sought alternative routes after Metro-North Railroad suspended service on its New Canaan line and on its Danbury line, which it said on Twitter was hampered by a mudslide and related signal problems.

More than 800,000 homes and businesses lost electricity overnight throughout the Northeast, including about 300,000 customers in Massachusetts, 270,000 in New Hampshire, 142,000 in Rhode Island, 30,000 on New York’s Long Island, 56,000 in Maine and 35,000 in Vermont, according to local media.

Early on Monday, traffic lights in parts of Washington remained dark due to power outages.

The storm hit the East Coast on the fifth anniversary of Superstorm Sandy. That late-season hurricane killed at least 159 people in New York, New Jersey and other parts of the East Coast on Oct. 29, 2012, and damaged or destroyed more than 650,000 homes.

The National Weather Service said the heaviest rains and winds ended late on Monday morning, but lighter precipitation and some gusts would persist throughout the day.

“The biggest potential now is for more trees to come down and for minor-to-moderate river flooding in eastern New York and much of New England today into tomorrow,” Chenard said.

It was not immediately known how long it would be until power is fully restored.

 

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

 

Maine, New Jersey end state government shutdowns

A "Park Closed" sign is seen at an entrance to Liberty State Park during a partial state government shutdown in Jersey City, New Jersey U.S., July 3, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

By Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) – New Jersey and Maine ended partial government shutdowns just in time for the Fourth of July holiday on Tuesday, helping New Jersey Governor Chris Christie move past the embarrassment of being photographed on a beach that had been closed to the public.

Both states had suspended non-essential services for three days after failing to reach budget agreements. Their Republican governors signed the budget bills after late-night negotiations with their respective state legislatures.

New Jersey and Maine were two of nine states that had missed their deadlines for enacting budgets in time for the July 1 start of the fiscal year.

Christie signed a $34.7 billion budget measure that included reshaping the state’s largest health insurer, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, which covers 3.8 million people in the state.

All state parks and beaches would be open for the Fourth of July holiday and state offices would be open as usual on Wednesday, the governor said.

Christie had remained unapologetic after the Star-Ledger newspaper captured the photos by hiring a plane to fly the New Jersey coastline, showing Christie with family and friends on a state beach on Sunday that was otherwise deserted because of the shutdown.

The scandal became a popular topic on social media with images of Christie in his beach chair superimposed into places such as famous beach scenes in the movies “From Here to Eternity” and “Planet of the Apes.”

Christie played down the kerfuffle.

“If they had flown that plane over the beach and I was sitting next to a 25-year-old blonde in that beach chair next to me, that’s a story,” Christie said.

While states have mostly recovered since the 2007-2009 recession, their revenue growth has not always kept pace with the national economy.

Illinois is in its third year without an enacted budget. In Connecticut and Pennsylvania, lower-than-anticipated income tax collections exacerbated budget gaps and led to disputes over how to close them.

Maine Governor Paul LePage announced on Twitter that he had signed a budget for the fiscal years 2018 and 2019.

“The Maine state government shutdown is now over. Happy Fourth of July!” LePage said.

“I have signed a budget with no tax increase. I thank the House Republicans for standing strong for the Maine people,” he said in a second tweet.Maine state police, parks and offices responsible for collecting revenue had all planned to work through the shutdown, the state’s first since 1991.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Chris Reese)

Maine, New Jersey lawmakers scramble to end partial government shutdowns

A "Park Closed" sign is seen at an entrance to Liberty State Park during a partial state government shutdown in Jersey City, New Jersey U.S., July 3, 2017.

By Elinor Comlay and Chris Kenning

(Reuters) – Partial government shutdowns in Maine and New Jersey stretched to a second day on Sunday as lawmakers returned to their respective state capitals in a bid to break budget impasses that have led to the suspension of many nonessential services.

In Maine, a bipartisan budget committee met in Augusta in hopes of breaking a stalemate between Republican Governor Paul LePage and Democratic lawmakers. The shutdown came after LePage threatened to veto a compromise reached by lawmakers in the state’s $7.055 billion, two-year budget.

At New Jersey’s statehouse in Trenton, there was little evidence of progress in resolving a fight over a health insurance bill that Republican Governor Chris Christie said must be passed alongside the state’s budget.

Maine state police, parks and all offices responsible for collecting revenue planned to operate during the shutdown, the state’s first since 1991, but the majority of 12,000 state employees will be furloughed.

New Jersey residents were not so lucky. With the July 4 holiday weekend in full swing, the shutdown there included the closure of Island State Beach Park, one of New Jersey’s few free public beaches, and all other state parks.

Although he beach park was closed to the public, Christie took a state helicopter on Saturday to a gubernatorial residence there to be with family and said he would go back on Sunday night.

“That’s just the way it goes. Run for governor, and you have can have a residence there,” he said when pressed on the issue.

At a news conference on Sunday afternoon, the governor said he had not spoken since Friday to Democratic holdouts.

The impasse could mean a furlough for 30,000 to 35,000 state employees on Monday.

In Maine, the stalled budget proposal would have repealed a measure voters approved in November for a 3 percent income tax hike on residents earning more than $200,000 a year. It also contained a 1.5 percent increase in the lodging tax, while increasing funding for public education by $162 million.

LePage has promised to veto any spending plan that raises taxes.

A six-member bipartisan House-Senate budget panel huddled into the evening on Sunday seeking to reach a deal that would win the two-thirds vote needed for passage of an emergency budget bill in both legislative chambers.

Mary-Erin Casale, a spokeswoman for Democratic House Speaker Sara Gideon, said a new compromise could be ready for a vote as early as Monday morning, about the time state employees planned to protest the shutdown at the capitol.

A spokeswoman for the governor could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

 

HEALTH INSURANCE STALEMATE

At the center of New Jersey’s stalemate was a plan by Christie to shake up the state’s largest health insurer, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, which he said lacked sufficient transparency and spent too much on salaries.

He threatened to cut $150 million in school funding and other items unless lawmakers adopt his proposal, which would redirect some of Horizon’s reserves to drug addiction treatment and other services.

Christie offered to hear Democrats’ proposals for breaking the impasse, saying: “It should end today,” but acknowledged a settlement was unlikely so soon.

Christie, a former presidential contender whose reputation was tarnished by the Bridgegate traffic scandal involving some of his closest aides, ranks as the least popular governor in state history. He is in his second and final term.

Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto and other Democrats have criticized the Horizon bill as “bad public policy,” insisting that it be considered after the budget is passed.

Christie blamed Prieto for the shutdown and vowed on Sunday to stand by the Horizon bill, saying: “I got elected by a lot more people than Vinnie Prieto did.”

 

(Reporting by Elinor Comley in Atlantic City, N.J., and Chris Kenning in Chicago; Editing by Frank McGurty and and Peter Cooney)

 

Gun control measures expected to win in four states

Mark Heitz, of Tactical Firearms in Kingston, New Hampshire, looks over a civilian version of the Colt M4 carbine during the annual SHOT (Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade) Show in Las Vegas

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Gun control-related ballot measures in four states are expected to pass on Tuesday, opinion polls show, after gun safety advocates poured a massive amount of money into backing the initiatives.

In Maine and Nevada, residents will vote on whether to mandate universal background checks for firearm sales, including private handgun transactions.

If those two measures pass, half of all Americans would live in states that have such expanded checks. Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., have already approved similar laws.

Voters in Washington state, meanwhile, will consider allowing judges to bar people from possessing guns if they pose a danger to themselves or to others, such as accused domestic abusers. In California, a referendum would ban large-capacity ammunition magazines and require certain people to pass a background check to buy ammunition.

The U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms, and gun rights advocates fiercely contest any attempt to restrict that freedom.

The votes in Republican-leaning Maine and Nevada represent a key test of the gun control movement’s decision to turn to a state-by-state strategy after efforts to pass nationwide legislation failed in Congress.

Opponents in Maine and Nevada say the laws are confusingly written and would burden legal gun owners while doing nothing to stop criminals.

“We know today that the place where criminals are getting guns, the black market, they aren’t subjecting themselves to background checks,” said Ryan Hamilton, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association-backed opposition in Nevada. “It doesn’t target criminal behavior, it targets law-abiding behavior.”

But proponents say background checks are widely backed by the public and would save lives.

Jennifer Crowe, a spokeswoman for the pro-initiative campaign in Nevada, said research had shown nearly one in 11 people who purchased guns online would have been barred from doing so by a background check.

“We have this huge online marketplace that we know criminals are using to get guns,” she said.

Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control group founded by billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has spent tens of millions of dollars in Washington state, Nevada and Maine, while the National Rifle Association has focused much of its spending on supporting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

In Nevada, the most expensive contest, the background check campaign collected more than $14 million, much of it from Bloomberg. The NRA devoted $4.8 million to fighting the measure.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)