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Former state Sen. Jim Boyle of Gorham has declared his candidacy for governor in 2018, adding to a growing list of Democratic contenders.

Boyle made an announcement Tuesday morning but registered with the Maine Ethics Commission quietly a day earlier, joining five other Democrats.

Maine was once a place where you could work hard and build a good life for your family. It didnt matter if you lived in Fort Kent, Portland or Millinocket, he said in a statement. But those opportunities no longer exist for too many people. I cant sit on my hands and watch Maine become a place where hard-working people get left behind.

Jim Boyle

Boyle served one term in the Maine Senate from 2012-14 before narrowly losing to Republican Amy Volk of Scarborough, who was reelected in 2016.

The 58-year-old owns an environmental consulting firm. He is the latest name to enter a rapidly growing field of candidates seeking to succeed Gov. Paul LePage, whose second term ends.

Adam Cote was the first Democrat to declare back in April but he has been joined recently by Janet Mills, Maines attorney general, and Mark Eves, former speaker of the House.

Betsy Sweet and Patrick Eisenhart also have declared their candidacies.

The Republican slate of primary candidates is still thin, with only Mary Mayhew, former Department of Health and Human Services commissioner under LePage, entering the race to date.

This story will be updated

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Gorham Democrat Jim Boyle enters Maine governor race - Press Herald

If there's one thing you can be sure of, it's that in a few months, you'll be overwhelmed by news stories with headlines like these:

"She's a liberal Democrat -- maybe a commie! -- can I bring her home to meet my parents?"

"I just married a conservative, and my friends dropped me."

"I just married a liberal -- her friends let me pick up the check, but they still hate me."

"I'm libertarian, so will I ever find someone?'

Whatever would we do without those stories on political biology in Sunday lifestyle sections?

How can we live without advice columns calming the turgid panic surrounding the American political mating rituals?

You've seen them. They're all about hand-wringing over dangerous liaisons between men and women who find themselves ideologically opposed.

Often, they involve guilt, a liberal woman dating a paleo conservative and not knowing how to tell her friends the terrible news. They'll drop me from the book club!

And sometimes, they're not tales of forbidden political love, but obnoxious humble brags about how she married a conservative out of pity and was surprised to find that he treated her with respect and knew how to use a knife and fork.

Don't worry, she'll dump him and run off with a Bernie Bro before 2020.

Whether you like it or not, in coming months such themes will be pushed on you, relentlessly -- the way stories about bitcoins and Esperanto were pushed on you -- despite your loudest inner screams.

Your eyes will skim some. Talk show hosts will use them as program fodder. Can you date a Republican? Can you marry a Democrat without a prenup?

Soon we'll understand that our species is not long for this earth. Because what's natural is natural. And letting politics divert you from staring into her eyes and holding her hand is unnatural.

But politics doesn't care about what comes naturally. Politics has a mission.

Politicos may fight about tax cuts or Russian spies in our closets, but with the midterm elections coming in 2018, the sociopolitical herding will be on the increase. And shame is the goad of ruthless political herdsmen.

So there will be more studies and stories and polls asking, "Can I date a Republican and not get a disease?" or explaining, "How to hide your Democratic lover from your family," and so on.

And because the media leans left -- don't even try to argue otherwise, that's like being a wild-eyed science denier -- most political mating stories will reflect a certain antipathy toward "those people," meaning Republicans.

So gather around, let me put on my favorite cardigan, fill my pipe and pour myself a mug of mulled wine, and I'll tell you of ye olden days.

Back then, "mixed marriage" had nothing to do with politics. It meant Episcopalians dating Methodists.

And later, "mixed marriage" involved Italians marrying Irish, Greeks marrying Jews, blacks marrying whites, and the most difficult mixed marriage of all, Sox fans marrying Cubs fans.

Now the divide is politics, because politics is our new secular American church. There's much evidence of this already. Read or listen to the hysteria in the media. It has the ring of a crusade.

Each sect or denomination has its own particular catechism, dogma, priests (politicians) and stern bishops (pundits) who shepherd the faithful away from the temptations of those odd libertarians.

Over on the NPR news site -- yeah, I visit to find out what liberals are really thinking -- I found a story about political dating sites, one for Republicans, another for liberal Democrats.

"There's more activity now than ever," said the liberal dating site boss. "I knew liberals would only find comfort in each other's arms." The conservative dating site guy sounded the same.

Don't ask me for statistics. The internet is full of surveys. Some say that almost half of America wouldn't date someone with opposing political views. Others say that young Democrats don't want young Republicans in the same college dorm. Or at least I heard that on a talk show, so it must be kind of true.

If these surveys are in fact true -- and right now I don't care if they are -- anyone who lets politics interfere with romance is probably too idiotic to raise children and should probably be chemically altered for the greater good.

Some of the more ridiculous dating advice I've seen includes talking about your politics on your second or third date, "to get it out of the way."

You're going to talk tax policy on a date? Loser.

Happily, not everyone feels this way. Right now I bet there's some generic young Republican college student reading The Nation, just so he gets the buzzwords right so he might date that girl in Madison with the big brown eyes.

And there must be a liberal young woman going back to school in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in the fall, thinking about gender studies, yes, but also about that boy who shocked her with his National Review.

Politics is so small compared to love, but you wouldn't know it sometimes with all the stridency aimed at guilting people apart.

Betty and I have been married for more than 30 years. She was a modern dancer marching in no-nuke parades. I admired Ronald Reagan. We're still together. We still hold hands.

It's a good thing there was no social media then. She might have been shamed out of our second date.

John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. His Twitter handle is @john_kass.

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Can you date a Democrat without shame or bring home a Republican without fear? - Quad City Times

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate education committee, is calling for the ouster of the Education Departments civil rights chief, saying she is unfit for the job.

Candice Jackson, the acting head of the agencys Office for Civil Rights, triggered fierce criticism last week when she told the New York Times that 90 percent of campus sexual-assault complaints fall into the category of we were both drunk, we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.

In days since, Jackson apologized publicly, disclosing that as a survivor of rape herself, she believes all sexual harassment and sexual assault must be taken seriously. She also apologized privately to assault survivors in a meeting to discuss the departments role in enforcing Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination at federally funded schools.

[DeVos: Too many college students treated unfairly under Obama-era sexual-assault policy]

Murray said Monday that apologizing for such callous, insensitive and egregious comments is not enough. Jacksons words crossed a serious line and highlighted her clear biases in this area in a way that, to me and many women and men across the country, should disqualify her from service in the position of top Department of Education protector of students right to be safe at school, the senator said in a statement.

In a statement to The Washington Post, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said Jackson had apologized for her remarks, which did not represent her own point of view nor that of the department. Candice is a valuable part of the Administration and an unwavering advocate for the civil rights of all students, DeVos said.

If nominated for the permanent job at the helm of the Office for Civil Rights, Jackson would need Senate confirmation. Murrays position suggests she would face opposition.

Murray led Democrats unanimous opposition to DeVoss confirmation as education secretary and has been a relentless critic since then. She has repeatedly questioned DeVoss commitment to enforcing civil rights laws in the nations schools and colleges, pointing to the agencys decisions to rescind guidance protecting transgender students and narrow some civil rights investigations.

DeVos is also a strong supporter of voucher programs, many of which allow private schools to discriminate against voucher recipients who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender or have LGBT parents. In testimony before Congress, she has declined to say whether she would block such private schools from receiving federal funds.

[DeVos wont say whether shed withhold federal funds from private schools that discriminate]

Murray was among 34 senators who sent DeVos a letter in June outlining their concerns about her teams approach to civil rights enforcement. The senators also asked DeVos nine questions about the departments civil rights division, including lists of open cases involving two of the agencys most controversial issues transgender students and sexual-assault allegations and any memos discussing policy changes.

They asked for a response by July 11, and DeVos sent a letter that day defending her commitment to the agencys civil rights work as unwavering.

She did not answer the senators questions, but she did acknowledge changes in the agencys civil rights office under her watch. Under President Barack Obama, DeVos wrote, the office had sought to punish and embarrass institutions, collecting reams of data from schools and colleges in search of violations at the expense of resolving individuals complaints quickly and fairly.

The civil rights office is no longer automatically treating individual complaints as evidence of systemic problems, DeVos wrote.

The Department today is returning [the Office of Civil Rights] to its role as a neutral, impartial investigative agency, she wrote.

Murray responded three days later, reiterating the request for answers to the nine questions DeVos had ignored.

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Key Democrat calls for ouster of DeVos's civil rights chief in light of 'egregious' remarks about sexual assault - Washington Post

The Atlantic

Dems' unity against GOP health bill masks dangerous divide Belleville News-Democrat Democrats are showing uncommon unity in fighting Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. But the discipline masks a deep and fundamental divide within the party that could complicate Democrats' efforts to gain ground in the ... The Disturbing Process Behind TrumpcareThe Atlantic all 1,364 news articles »

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Dems' unity against GOP health bill masks dangerous divide - Belleville News-Democrat

Clarendon Hills regulatory attorney Jennifer Zordani has joined the growing list of Democratic candidates looking to unseat U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Wheaton).

She is one of six Democrats, five of whom are women, from across the Sixth Congressional District who've officially announced they'll run in the March 20, 2018, primary for their shot at Roskam Nov. 6, 2018.

Zordani said the district is fortunate to have good communities and schools for people to live and raise their families.

"That is not enough. We know people care about social issues," she said. "I will bring our voice to D.C. to say we want truly fair and affordable health care, that our veterans need the medical care and benefits that they were promised, that our children are starting out their adult lives buried in college debt and we need to do better."

Zordani attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., for two years, before transferring to the University of Chicago, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics. She graduated with honors from Chicago Kent School of Law and has been a practicing attorney for more than 20 years.

Although new to the political scene, Zordani said her knowledge and experience as a regulatory attorney makes her qualified and sets her apart from the other candidates.

She added Roskam was elected to represent the values and integrity of the entire district, not just a few on the far right side of the party.

"I don't want our people to be divided," Zordani said. "The time is absolutely right (to remove Roskam)."

The congressman has come under fire by some constituents because of his refusal to hold public town hall meetings and his support for President Donald Trump. He's also considered vulnerable by the Democratic Party, since Hillary Clinton won his district with 50.2 percent of the vote in 2016.

The winner in the Democratic primary likely will receive a great deal of support and financial backing prior to the November 2018 election.

And that field of Democratic candidates continues to grow.

Last week, former aide to U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, and Aurora resident Carole Cheney threw her hat in the ring.

Cheney, who is an attorney and former partner with the Kirkland & Ellis law firm in Chicago, made an unsuccessful bid for state representative in Illinois' 84th District in 2012, losing to state Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, D-Oswego. She also ran for DuPage County Board chairman in 2010 but lost to Republican Dan Cronin, who currently holds the post.

In April, Naperville's Suzyn Price announced her bid for the seat. An adjunct faculty member at the College of DuPage, Price is a former Naperville District 203 board member.

From the north end of the Sixth Congressional District are candidates Amanda Howland and Kelly Mazeski.

Howland, of Lake Zurich, is a trustee on the College of Lake County board and unsuccessfully ran against Roskam in 2016.

A Barrington resident and breast cancer survivor, Mazeski lost to Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods, for the Illinois Senate seat in the 26th District in 2016. She is a plan commissioner in Barrington Hills.

Also running is Glen Ellyn resident Austin Songer, who works in technology at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons in Rosemont, according to his campaign website.

Shaped like the letter C, the Sixth Congressional District include portions of Crystal Lake to Hawthorn Woods in the north and down the Fox River from Port Barrington to St. Charles. It also extends diagonally through DuPage County from Barlett and West Chicago to Hinsdale and Willowbrook.

subaker@tribpub.com

Twitter @SBakerSun1

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New Democrat enters race to unseat Roskam - Chicago Tribune