Governor Nominates Another Government Lawyer To High Court

Christopher Taub (via maine.gov)

A career government lawyer has been nominated to go straight to the state's highest court, without sitting as a judge on a lower court first.

Christopher Taub is governor Janet Mills' seventh nomination to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The court hears appeals and is supposed to interpret the state's constitution.

Mr. Taub is not currently a lower court judge but the chief deputy attorney general at the Office of the Attorney General. He was admitted to the bar in Maine in 1996 having earned his law degree from Boston University in 1995. He was also admitted to the bar in Massachusetts in 1995 but is classified as inactive there.

According to a press release from the governor's office, he has been with the Attorney General's office since 1999 after, briefly, being in private practice. He replaces associate justice Andrew Horton who retired from the Court.

In December 2021 he argued before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the State of Maine in Carson v. Makin in which the state lost - striking down Maine's prohibition on use of public funds for religious schooling where a public school is not provided in their locality. Private schools, before the ruling, were only selected as eligible for funding of a compulsory education when instruction was non-religious. It is this that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down.

Mr. Taub's nomination is now subject to confirmation by the legislature.