Janet Mills

DemocratGovernor of Maine

Age	78 (b. 1947-12-30)
Gender	Female
In office since	2019-01-01 (~7 yrs)
Race / ethnicity	White
Education	Mt. Blue High School (Farmington, ME); attended Colby College; B.A., University of Massachusetts Boston (1970); J.D., University of Maine School of Law (1976)
Prior occupation	Attorney/prosecutor; Assistant Attorney General (1976-1980); District Attorney for Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford Counties (1980-1995); private-practice litigation attorney (Preti Flaherty)
Military service	No
Birthplace	Farmington, Maine
Languages	English; fluent in French
Marital status	Widowed — Stanley Kuklinski (married 1985, died 2014)
Children	0
Residence	Farmington, Maine (primary); Blaine House, Augusta, Maine (official governor's residence)
Notable relatives	Father Sumner Peter Mills Jr. (U.S. Attorney for Maine, state legislator); grandfather Sumner P. Mills (Maine legislator); brother Peter Mills (state senator and 2006/2010 gubernatorial candidate); sister Dora Anne Mills (Maine public health director). Multiple family members served in the Maine Legislature.

Wikipedia

Pending research: religion · openly lgbtq.

Career & politics

First elected	2002
Previous offices	District Attorney, Androscoggin/Franklin/Oxford Counties (1980-1995) · Maine House of Representatives (2002-2009) · Maine Attorney General (2009-2011) · Maine Attorney General (2013-2019)
Leadership	Governor of Maine (75th, 2019-present) · Attorney General of Maine (55th and 57th)
Ideology	Moderate-to-progressive Democrat; rated A/A+ by NRA as a state legislator but F as a gubernatorial candidate; vetoed several progressive criminal-justice and labor bills, drawing criticism from the party's left. No DW-NOMINATE score (state/executive office).
Signature legislation	Executive order implementing Medicaid expansion (2019) · Conversion therapy ban for minors (2019) · Single-use plastic bag ban (2019) · Free community college for 2020-2023 high school graduating classes (2022) · Replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day (2019)

Financial

Net worth: disclosed $169,000–$460,000 (2026) · estimate

Microsoft (held within an IRA; more than half of stock holdings)	stock · 2026
Stock portfolio held within an IRA (multiple equities)	stock · $169,000–$460,000 · 2026

Top industries: Health professionals / pharmaceuticals · Lawyers & law firms · Energy/electric utilities · Telecommunications · Real estate

Scandals & crimes ledger

resolved — Inaugural Committee Fined $2,000 for Late Fundraising business

campaign-finance · 2019-01-31 · Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices · Inaugural committee fined $2,000 (out of a possible $10,000 maximum) for continuing to accept donations approximately 10 months past the January 31 legal deadline. The committee paid the fine from remaining funds.

Janet Mills' inaugural committee violated a 2015 Maine campaign finance reform law by continuing to solicit and accept donations past the January 31, 2019 deadline. The committee had incurred a $63,000 unexpected debt to the city of Augusta for use of the Augusta Civic Center and continued fundraising throughout 2019 to retire that debt. The Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices unanimously voted to fine the committee $2,000 in December 2019, finding the committee had operated in good faith but nonetheless violated the law. The debt was retired in December 2019 in part due to a $43,000 donation from financier S. Donald Sussman, and the $2,000 fine was paid from residual committee funds.

Sources: Bangor Daily News · Portland Press Herald · WGME

resolved — Sparks v. Mills - Settlement Over Seizure of Incarcerated Workers' Unemployment Benefits

abuse-of-office · 2020-05-01 · In spring 2020, after Maine's prison work-release program was suspended due to COVID-19, roughly 50-54 incarcerated workers who had been laid off from outside jobs (including work-release participant Marc Sparks, a grill cook at an Applebee's) became eligible for and received federal pandemic unemployment benefits deposited into their prison accounts. Governor Janet Mills, calling the payments 'bad public policy' and 'appalling' despite an assistant attorney general's determination that they were legally owed, ordered the Department of Corrections to seize the funds from the prisoners' accounts without a hearing. Sparks sued Mills, Corrections Commissioner Randall Liberty, and Labor Commissioner Laura Fortman in U.S. District Court in June 2020, alleging the seizure violated the 14th Amendment due-process rights of the incarcerated workers. A federal judge dismissed the individual claim in March 2021, finding no due-process violation, but the case proceeded as a class action and was appealed to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The parties ultimately reached a class-action settlement, court-approved on August 24, 2022, under which the state agreed to return more than $160,000 in seized benefits to the affected workers by September 14, 2022, and to pay roughly $200,000 in plaintiffs' legal fees. The settlement established that money in incarcerated individuals' prison accounts is their legal property and cannot be seized by the state without due process. · Class-action settlement: state returned over $160,000 in seized unemployment benefits to approximately 50-54 incarcerated workers and paid an estimated $200,000 in plaintiffs' attorney fees; established that prisoners' account funds are protected property requiring due process before seizure.

A federal class-action lawsuit alleged that Governor Mills unlawfully ordered the seizure of COVID-19 unemployment benefits from incarcerated work-release participants without due process; the case was resolved in August 2022 via a court-approved settlement requiring the state to return the seized funds and pay the plaintiffs' legal fees.

Sources: ACLU of Maine · Bangor Daily News · Maine Beacon · Bangor Daily News