The facts
In March 2023, then-Maine Senate president Troy Jackson took credit for having “secured” a new cell phone tower in his rural town of Allagash, dedicating it to the town’s “hardworking families” who “have been left behind when it comes to this essential service”. What his statement left out: the tower was built on his family’s land, real estate records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.
Built by Wireless Partners, LLC, the tower was completed in December 2022, according to its FCC registration. Four months earlier, in August 2022, Wireless Partners’s sister company, Rising Tide Towers, signed a lease with Louis and Patricia Pelletier to build the tower on their property. Louis and Patricia Pelletier are the parents of Jackson’s longtime partner and the mother of his children, Lana Pelletier. They are also Jackson’s cousins; the Maine Wire reported that Jackson and Lana Pelletier share the same great-grandparents, making them second cousins.
The lease’s financial terms are not in the records reviewed, but rural landowners can earn more than $2,500 a month leasing their land to carriers, and the lease’s coordinates match the tower’s FCC registration, indicating the lease remains active.
Jackson laid the legislative groundwork years earlier. In 2019 he sponsored a bill directing the state to develop a “plan to expand cellular telephone service” in “underserved areas”. In June 2021 he voted for the bill creating the Maine Connectivity Authority. That agency awarded a $180,000 grant to Wireless Partners in December 2022 to “provide accelerated low-cost internet access”; MCA president Andrew Butcher said the grant “was funded via federal funding provided in the American Rescue Plan Act” and “was scaled down to a single location (not Allagash) and then terminated due to the provider's non-compliance.” The Allagash tower, meanwhile, is “operated by AT&T and supported by FirstNet Authority”, according to Jackson’s press release.
Neither Wireless Partners nor the Pelletier family responded to requests for comment. The Jackson campaign said first responders called the towers a “godsend” that could “save a life”, but did not address the Allagash tower’s location or answer questions regarding Jackson’s role in placing it there.
Jackson is now the Democrat running a tight race against Republican incumbent Susan Collins, a contest that could decide which party controls the U.S. Senate come 2027.
The Free Beacon calls the tower the latest instance of Jackson’s family benefiting from his power as Senate president. His son Chace spent years lobbying while Jackson led the Senate from 2018 to 2024, joining Resurgam Group, the “full service lobbying” firm launched in 2021 by Jackson’s former chief of staff and current campaign adviser B.J. McCollister, which pledged to “leverage our strong existing relationships” to “help deliver results”. In Jackson’s final year as Senate president, the firm received $182,500 in lobbying compensation from nine clients, including Diageo. Though Jackson earned an NRA endorsement as recently as 2022, he flipped on gun bills his son lobbied for, voting for a 72-hour waiting period and a stronger “yellow flag” gun confiscation law that Chace lobbied for on the Maine Gun Safety Coalition’s behalf. In 2019 Chace represented Global Partners LP against emissions bills targeting its South Portland facilities; one of the bills died in the Troy Jackson-controlled Senate. In 2024 Troy cosponsored $13.4 million in added taxpayer funding for the Maine Maritime Academy while Chace served as the academy’s “legislative designee” while simultaneously representing corporate clients for Resurgam Group, an unusual arrangement.
Our take
Fuck me. In the grand, noble tradition of political grift, Troy Jackson has managed to outdo himself. This sanctimonious prick didn't "secure" a cell tower for his constituents. He secured a direct fucking deposit for his cousins. He stood there, probably with a tear in his eye, and dedicated this tower to the "hardworking families" of Allagash who'd been "left behind." What a beautiful, heartwarming lie. The only family that wasn't left behind was the Pelletier family - Jackson's second cousins and the parents of the mother of his children - who got a nice, fat lease with a telecom company to host the fucking thing on their land. That's not public service; that's a family fucking business with a state-sponsored revenue stream. Rural landowners can pull in over $2,500 a month for these leases. So while Jackson plays the humble hero for the cameras, Cousin Louis and Cousin Patty are the real heroes, heroically cashing checks every month thanks to their very helpful relative in the Senate. What a stunning coincidence.
And the sheer, ballsack-shriveling audacity of the cover-up is a masterpiece. When asked about this cozy little arrangement, Jackson's campaign didn't answer. They just vomited up a word salad about first responders and godsends and saving lives. No shit a cell tower can save a life, you absolute cunts. That's what they fucking do. The question is why the life-saving tower just happens to be a private annuity for the Senate president's inbred fucking family tree. But that's the grifter's playbook: when you're caught with your dick in the public cookie jar, just point to a firefighter and scream 'EMERGENCY!' until the ethics questions go away.
This tower isn't an anomaly; it's the family fucking crest. For six years, this asshole presided over the Maine Senate while his son, Chace, ran a lobbying shop founded by Jackson's own former chief of staff. A firm that bragged about 'leveraging strong existing relationships.' You mean the one where your dad runs the fucking senate? In one year, that little family venture sucked down $182,500 from clients, and suddenly Daddy, an NRA-endorsed guy, starts voting for the exact gun control bills his son was paid to lobby for. A bill targeting a polluter his son represented died in the Troy Jackson-controlled Senate. And just this year, Troy co-sponsored $13.4 million in extra taxpayer cash for the Maine Maritime Academy while his son was the academy's 'legislative designee' and a corporate lobbyist at the same time. It's a fucking incestuous racket, a closed-loop system where every public policy is just a potential spigot for the Jackson family revenue stream.
So let's call it what it is. Troy Jackson didn't bring connectivity to the forgotten. He built a private fucking tollbooth on the information superhighway and put his cousins in the booth. His 'hardworking families' are the ones whose names are on the lease he helped facilitate. He's not a public servant; he's a nepotistic dickhead who views the machinery of government as a family ATM. And now this corrupt bastard wants a promotion to the U.S. Senate. The only thing he's proven he can connect is his own fucking bank account to the public treasury. He's a walking, talking conflict of interest with a press release, and the only essential service he's ever provided is to himself.
