Rachel Talbot Ross is an American politician and activist. A Democrat from

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

, Talbot has been the

Speaker Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** I ...

of the

Maine House of Representatives The Maine House of Representatives is the lower house of the Maine Legislature. The House consists of 151 voting members and three nonvoting members. The voting members represent an equal number of districts across the state and are elected via p ...

since December 2022. When she was first elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 2016, Talbot Ross became the first Black woman to serve in the Maine Legislature. Talbot Ross represents District 40, consisting of the Parkside, Bayside, East Bayside, and Oakdale neighborhoods of Portland as well as the

University of Southern Maine The University of Southern Maine (USM) is a public university with campuses in Portland, Gorham and Lewiston in the U.S. state of Maine. It is the southernmost of the University of Maine System. It was founded as two separate state universitie ...

campus. She became Maine's first African-American House Speaker, and the highest-ranking African-American politician in Maine history, when she was elected speaker on December 7, 2022.

Early life and education

Talbot Ross grew up in Portland with her father, Gerald Talbot, her mother Anita, and three sisters. Her father, who also served as a Maine lawmaker and civil rights leader, was the first person of color ever elected to the Maine Legislature, and Talbot Ross describes her family as being consistently involved in public service and civic action. She is a ninth-generation Maine resident. Talbot Ross attended Wesleyan University and American University and worked as the Director of Equal Opportunity and Multicultural Affairs for the City of Portland for 21 years. She resigned in 2015 following a leave of absence. She also served as the president of the Portland branch of the NAACP. The branch disbanded in 2013, but as of February 2021 Talbot Ross was working with other area leaders to reinstate the chapter. She also helped direct the Maine Freedom Trails project, the first part of which opened in 2006, and co-founded the Martin Luther King Jr. Fellows program with Portland city councilor Pious Ali, a youth-led racial justice program for high school students of color in Portland. Talbot Ross considers herself a

prison abolitionist The prison abolition movement is a network of groups and activists that seek to reduce or eliminate prisons and the prison system, and replace them with systems of rehabilitation that do not place a focus on punishment and government institutiona ...

and has advocated for incarcerated individuals in Maine over the course of fifteen years.

Political career

Talbot Ross was first elected to represent Maine House District 40 in 2016. She defeated Democrats Herbert Adams and Anna Kellar in the Democratic primary, and after Republican opponent Carol Taylor dropped out of the race in late September, Talbot Ross received 100% of the votes in the general election. In 2018, Talbot Ross was challenged in the House District 40 Democratic primary by former state representative Herb Adams, but defeated him 75%-25%. She faced no opponent in the general election and was therefore seated for a second term. Talbot Ross faced no opponents in either the primary or general elections in 2020. On November 3, 2020, she won her third consecutive term representing House District 40. Later that month, the House Democrats unanimously elected Talbot Ross to be the House assistant majority leader, making her the first Black person in a legislative leadership position in Maine history. Talbot Ross has served on the Judiciary, Health & Human Services, and Criminal Justice & Public Safety committees, as well as the Maine State Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She is the chair of the Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous and Maine Tribal Population, which she helped write legislation to create in 2019, and is currently a member of the Legislative Council. The 130th Maine legislature took up a bill proposed by Talbot Ross, "LD #2: An Act To Require the Inclusion of Racial Impact Statements in the Legislative Process," early in the regular session. It passed both the House and Senate on March 12, 2021, and on March 17, Governor

Janet Mills 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 ...

signed it into law. The bill requires that new legislation in Maine be reviewed for its potential impact on traditionally marginalized populations. With the law's enactment, Maine became the eighth U.S. state with such a requirement. With incumbent Speaker

Ryan Fecteau Ryan Michael Fecteau (born September 18, 1992) is the Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives. A Democrat, Fecteau serves Maine House District 11, consisting of a portion of Biddeford. At the time of his election as Speaker of the House in ...

term-limited, the Maine Democrats nominated Talbot Ross as Speaker on November 18, 2022. When the new legislature was sworn in on December 7, she was elected Speaker.

Awards and honors

*2006 EqualityMaine

Bayard Rustin Bayard Rustin (; March 17, 1912 – August 24, 1987) was an African American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rights. Rustin worked with A. Philip Randolph on the March on Washington Movement, in 19 ...

award for collaborative movement-building *2009 Roger Baldwin award, Maine Civil Liberties Union *2014 Deborah Morton Award, University of New England *2020 Gerda Haas award from the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine for work on human rights reforms *2020 Emerge Maine Woman of the Year

Electoral history

Notes

References

External links

*
Rep. Talbot Ross on FacebookRep. Talbot Ross on TwitterJune 3 speech, "Your statement of support is not enough"
given at a protest in Portland, ME on June 3, 2020
March 2019 Maine Public panel interview
about hate, prejudice and discrimination in Maine {{DEFAULTSORT:Ross, Rachel Talbot 1961 births Living people 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American politicians African-American state legislators in Maine African-American women in politics Women state legislators in Maine Politicians from Portland, Maine Activists from Portland, Maine Maine Democrats NAACP activists 21st-century American politicians 21st-century American women politicians Prison abolitionists 20th-century African-American politicians 20th-century American politicians 20th-century African-American women