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Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross
 
     
  Representing: Portland (part)
District #118
   

Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross is a ninth-generation Mainer who has dedicated her career to public service and social justice. She is the first black woman to serve as Speaker of the Maine House.

In addition to serving as the City of Portland’s Director of Equal Opportunity and Multicultural Affairs for more than two decades, she led the NAACP in Maine and founded several nonprofit organizations, including Maine Black Community Development, Maine Freedom Trails and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Fellows. She chaired the Maine State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights as well as the African American Collection of Maine, housed at the University of Southern Maine.

Speaker Talbot Ross is currently serving her fourth term in the Maine House, representing the Portland neighborhoods of Parkside, Bayside, East Bayside, Oakdale and the University of Southern Maine campus.

As a lawmaker, Speaker Talbot Ross has worked extensively on justice reform and has shaped critical conversations about equity for all Mainers. She sponsored successful legislation to create Maine’s Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous and Tribal Populations (which she now co-chairs), and also secured passage of landmark bills to include racial impact analysis in the legislative process and expand tribal legal authority over domestic violence against Native Americans.

Speaker Talbot Ross is the recipient of the University of New England’s Deborah Morton Award for exceptional civic leadership and the 2020 Gerda Haas Award for Excellence in Holocaust and Human Rights Education and Leadership. She was also named the 2020 Woman of the Year by Emerge Maine and received the 2021 Waynflete Klingenstein Alumni Award.


To view a high resolution photo of Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross click here.


My Latest News


View all news from Speaker Talbot Ross or Search all news items from the House Democratic Office


Committee

Speaker Talbot Ross is a member of Legislative Council and serves as Ex Officio of Rules and Business of the House.

Brief description of the subject matter handled by the committee: Council is responsible for providing professional, nonpartisan staff support services to the Legislature and its officers, members, committees and commissions. These services include legislative research, bill drafting; policy, legal and fiscal analysis; fiscal note preparation; committee staffing; computer support services; public information; library and reference services and support; and general administrative services.

Other responsibilities delegated by the Legislature to the Council include preparing legislative budget requests and overseeing the legislative budget; establishing salary and benefit schedules for all legislative employees, except as otherwise provided by law; approval of employment practices; planning and oversight of projects designed to improve the organization, operation and physical facilities of the Legislature; and assignment of work to legislative committees when the Legislature is not in session. The Council also has responsibility for screening and approving requests to introduce legislation after cloture (after deadline bills) in any legislative session and exercises this same role for all bill requests prior to their introduction in the second regular session and all special sessions.

For more information about the schedule of committee hearings or to sign up for advance notice of public hearings click here.


Legislation

Click on the button below to see all bills, joint resolutions and orders I sponsored or cosponsored this session, as well as legislative sentiments that honor and recognize people from our district and throughout the state.


 
 
 
 

 

To do a general bill search, click here.


Contact Me

Thank you for taking time to contact me. You may use the online contact form to reach me.

You can also contact me by email:

Rachel.TalbotRoss@legislature.maine.gov

When the Legislature is in session, you can leave a message for me by calling the State House Message Phone: (800) 423-2900 or the State House TDD Line: Relay 711.