Now that Graham Platner has dropped out of the race to try to defeat Republican Senator Susan Collins, following a rape allegation, others have been quick to jump into the race. One of them is Troy Jackson, the former Senate President and prominent progressive.
Jackson launched a bid for governor in 2025, and his campaign featured a large swath of ideas and issues that have become common on the Democratic left, especially on the issue of taxation. So Jackson had a plan. Naturally, he called it his "fair share" plan because one of the more humorous aspects of Democratic tax plans is the accusation that wealthy taxpayers don't pay their "fair share," when it fact, they pay more taxes than all other income groups combined.
The plan included all the usual delights, such as a higher top state income tax rate, a surcharge on millionaires, higher corporate taxes, and the repeal of a 2011 tax cut package.
This would be all well and good except that it took a state lien to get Jackson to pay his fair share of taxes. In August of 2025, the state hit Jackson with a lien related to unpaid state income taxes from 2020.
In October, the lien was released by the state. It didn't indicate why, but since Jackson was in the middle of a campaign advocating for raising taxes, it's reasonable to conclude that he paid the tab for that reason. After all, it's hard to advocate that people pay more taxes when you have thousands sitting out there unpaid.
The only operative question is, "Why didn't he pay when the bill was due in 2020?"
An enterprising reporter could inquire and also ask if there is anything else he hasn't told anyone. Graham Platner did not learn that lesson.
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