Ryan Fecteau

In 2018, Fecteau was again unopposed in the primary and defeated Republican Emily Rousseau[10] 62%-38%.[9] On November 16, 2018, the Maine House Democrats elected him Assistant House Majority Leader. Matt Moonen served as Majority Leader and Sara Gideon was the House Speaker.[13] Fecteau’s signature legislation was a ban on the harmful practice of conversion therapy in Maine. In 2018, despite the Legislature’s support, Governor LePage was the only Republican Governor in the nation to veto a conversion therapy bill.[14] In 2019, Governor Janet Mills signed the bill into law.[15] Fecteau also worked on a bipartisan measure to expand affordable housing in Maine, the single largest investment in housing in Maine’s history.[16]

Fecteau ran unopposed in both the House District 11 Democratic primary and the general election in 2020.[9] On December 2, 2020, the Maine House elected him as their 103rd Speaker.[17] While Fecteau ordinarily would have been sworn in by Governor Janet Mills, Mills was quarantining after possible exposure to COVID-19, so Acting Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court Andrew Mead conducted the ceremony instead. At the time of his swearing-in, Fecteau was the youngest presiding officer in the United States, the youngest Maine House speaker since 1842 and the first out speaker in Maine history. [11][2][17]

During his time as Speaker, he worked with Senate President Troy Jackson to pass LD 1, the COVID-19 Patient Bill of Rights[18] and continue the work of the 130th Legislature through a hybrid model of virtual public hearings and occasional distanced sessions at a Civic Center[19] before returning to the state house in June 2021.[20] His bill to expand dental care to 217,000 low-income Mainers was funded as part of the biennial budget.[21][22] Fecteau's multi-year efforts to fund capital improvements for Maine’s career and technical education centers finally passed in 2021 through his bill for $20 million and an additional $20 million was designated through American Rescue Plan funding.[23] In June 2020 Fecteau joined with Republicans to defeat a bill aiming to extend overtime protections to farm workers; however, he did back a bill to provide farm workers the right to organize.[24][25][26] In the same year, legislation he worked on to reform the state’s troubled unemployment insurance system became law.[27] Because of another bill passed by Speaker Fecteau in 2021, Maine municipalities could be incentivized to adopt zoning ordinances that encourage more affordable housing in Maine towns.[28] He authored legislation that allowed property owners to build an accessory dwelling unit on lots previously zoned exclusively for single-family housing.[29]