AUGUSTA, Maine — Yet another legal fight is kicking up in Augusta, this time over whether a forthcoming ballot question should receive a public hearing in front of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee before it likely heads to voters.

Two weeks ago, the Democratic leaders of the committee moved to forgo a hearing on a red flag gun law initiative—which, if passed, would allow family members of someone who is a threat to themselves or others to petition a judge to remove that person's guns. It’s one of two such initiatives currently poised to go to voters this November.

That is, unless the Legislature first passes it with no changes whatsoever.

With that route unlikely, Senator Anne Carney, the top Democrat in the group, argued in May that “voters really are the best public hearing forum

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