AUGUSTA — As the Legislature’s Education Committee took another crack at a pair of anti-bullying bills that could increase civil penalties and create new mandates for school districts, one of the proposal’s sponsors on Monday urged lawmakers not to assign labels to victims.

“The scope of bullying is wide and long,” Rep. Terry Morrison, D-South Portland, said. “It’s not just narrowed to the (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community.”

Lawmakers may have more technical considerations as they weigh the two proposals. However, Morrison’s comments provide some background about the politics that played into the bill getting carried over from last year. 

Morrison’s bill defines bullying while mandating that school districts adopt model harassment, intimidation and bullying policies. Last year the bill received broad support in the Senate but fell short of the required two-thirds threshold in the House after a host of Republicans voted against it. 

House Republicans said their concerns centered on funding the initiative. However, Morrison, who is gay, believes the GOP was persuaded by a late action alert from the Christian Civic League of Maine. At the time the CCLM said the bill was the product of the “gay agenda” and could infringe on students’ free speech rights. 

The Legislature eventually voted to carry the bill over to this session, but not until the CCLM and others engaged in a public debate in newspaper opinion pages.

Lawmakers on Monday didn’t address those issues, but they may play out behind the scenes as they work to craft a new bill. Morrison said during the work session that he hoped lawmakers would not “water down” the proposal.

“It’s our job as elected officials . . . to protect our children,” he said. “They don’t deserve to be in an environment of hate and fear.”

During the work session lawmakers weighed whether the state should create mandates for school districts to adopt specific anti-bullying policies. 

Rep. Peter Johnson, R-Greenville, said the bill was “taking authority from school districts.” Portland Democrat Rep. Stephen Lovejoy took a different view, saying lawmakers should strengthen the state’s existing bullying policy. 

The state already mandates that school districts adopt harassment policies. Maine’s policy was recently graded by the U.S. Department of Education, which gave the state a score of 20 out of a possible 36. 

According to the report, the state received low marks in reviewing school districts’ respective policies, record keeping for incidents, monitoring district enforcement and legal remedies for victims. 

In New England, New Hampshire had the highest score with 27, followed by Vermont (22), Connecticut (22), Maine (20) and Rhode Island (14).

Morrison’s bill, LD 1237, was tabled by lawmakers, who were considering folding that bill and a cyber-bullying bill into one initiative.

The cyber-bullying bill, LD 980, would assess civil penalties to students engaging in harassment via social media outlets such as Facebook, blogs, online chats or texting.  

The bill appears to have strong support, but last session lawmakers struggled with the legislation’s civil penalty component. The state’s judiciary branch expressed concerns that adjudicating the proposal’s $500 fine would increase caseload at a cost of about $100,000 a year. 

That prompted the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Donald Pilon, D-Saco, to strike the provision and make cyber bullying a Class E crime, which may result in the accused student having to meet with a juvenile corrections officer or losing their driver’s license. 

The amended bill also requires school boards to craft cyber-bullying policies that create penalties for harassment and reporting procedures.

The committee tabled both proposals so Senate Chairman Brian Langley, R-Ellsworth, and a working group could discuss those issues. The committee will vote on both bills at a later date. 

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