Janet Trafton Mills (born December 30, 1947) is an American politician and lawyer serving as the 75th governor of Maine since January 2019. She previously served as the Maine Attorney General on two occasions.
A member of the Democratic Party, Mills was first elected attorney general by the Maine Legislature on January 6, 2009, succeeding G. Steven Rowe. Her second term began on January 3, 2013, after the term of William Schneider. She was the first woman to hold the position. Before her election, she served in the Maine House of Representatives, representing the towns of Farmington and Industry. Her party nominated her for governor in the 2018 election, and she won, defeating Republican Shawn Moody and independent Terry Hayes. On January 2, 2019, she became Maine's first female governor. Mills was reelected in 2022.
Early life and education
Mills was born in Farmington, Maine, the daughter of Katherine Louise (Coffin) and Sumner Peter Mills Jr. Her mother was a schoolteacher and Congregationalist, while her father was a lawyer who served as U.S. Attorney for Maine in the 1950s. Mills graduated from Farmington High School in 1965. As a teenager, she spent nearly a year bedridden in a full-body cast due to severe scoliosis, which was corrected surgically.
Mills briefly attended Colby College before moving to San Francisco, where she worked as a nursing assistant in a psychiatric hospital. She later enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Boston, from which she graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in 1970. During her time at UMass, Mills traveled through Western Europe and became fluent in French. In 1973 she began attending the University of Maine School of Law and in 1974 she was a summer intern in Washington, D.C., for civil rights attorney Charles Morgan Jr. of the American Civil Liberties Union. Mills graduated with a Juris Doctor in 1976 and was admitted to the bar.
Early political career
Mills was Maine's first female criminal prosecutor and was an assistant attorney general from 1976 to 1980, prosecuting homicides and other major crimes. In 1980, she was elected district attorney for Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties, a position to which she was reelected three times. She was the first woman district attorney in New England. In 1994, Mills was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Congress in the Democratic primary to replace then-Representative Olympia Snowe. She placed third, losing to John Baldacci.
Mills co-founded the Maine Women's Lobby and was elected to its board of directors in 1998.
In 2000, Mills served as a field coordinator for Bill Bradley's 2000 presidential campaign in Maine. In 2002, she was elected to the Maine House of Representatives. There, she served on the judiciary, criminal justice, and appropriations committees.
Attorney general of Maine
Mills was elected to her fourth term when the Joint Convention convened in December 2008 to elect the new attorney general. She became Maine's 55th attorney general on January 6, 2009. When Republicans gained control of the Maine legislature in 2010, Mills was not reelected. In January 2011, she was elected vice chair of the Maine Democratic Party. She joined the law firm Preti Flaherty in February 2011 as a lawyer with the firm's Litigation Group in its Augusta office. After Democrats regained control of the legislature in the 2012 elections, Mills was again chosen as attorney general, resigned as vice chair of the Maine Democratic Party, and took the oath of office as attorney general on January 7, 2013. She was reelected on December 3, 2014, despite the Maine Senate coming under Republican control.
Republican Governor Paul LePage opposed Mills being attorney general, due to many disputes between them over the legality of some of LePage's policies. On January 28, 2015, he requested the Maine Supreme Judicial Court's opinion as to whether the governor's office needed the attorney general's office's permission to retain outside counsel when the attorney general declines to represent the State in a legal matter. LePage did so after Mills twice declined to represent him in matters she determined had little legal merit, though she approved his requests for outside lawyers. On May 1, 2017, LePage sued Mills, asserting that she had abused her authority by refusing to represent the state in legal matters, or taking a legal view contrary to the LePage administration's.