The Reality of Bipartisanship

Hi Folks!

I apologize for not being more active on this blog, but it's been pretty hectic with work, school and the campaign. I have been the target of several attack mailings during the past few weeks and I will address them soon. However, for now here is a recent column I wrote for the paper about the reality of what we do in Augusta:

Back in 2008 when I was first running for the legislature, I attended a debate in Belfast that has stuck in my mind during these past two years. Two legislative incumbents, one a Republican and the other a Democrat, finally agreed on one thing: 90% of what is done in Augusta is bipartisan. The rest becomes fodder for attacks during elections. At the time, I couldn’t help but stifle a scoff. I mean, these two guys couldn’t seem to agree on anything! Back then it was about taxes on soda and now it’s about expansions on sales tax to reduce the income tax. As I sit at my desk responding to the eighth attack against me from a special interest group since getting elected, I think back to our work in Augusta during these past two years. Can our work be simply boiled down into a series of four-line attack mailings? Absolutely not.

The truth is that the real policy work happens in committee and when it came to the budget, our committee of Republicans and Democrats was darn near unanimous on every line of the budget. For example, we all agreed that support for dairy farmers needed to be ensured, state parks could not forego spring maintenance, and that, given their workload, we could not afford to cut the number of meetings of the Land Use Regulation Commission. On some issues we had to organize bipartisan working groups to find a solution to unacceptable budget proposals, such as cuts in aircraft support for fighting forest fires. The committee’s unanimous budget recommendations were then sent to the Appropriations Committee, who wove them into a final budget that was unanimously approved by both Democrats and Republicans. That’s not to say we didn’t have our committee spats, particularly over issues such as GMOs, pesticides, and land use in the unorganized territories, though those were only about 10% of the bills we handled. However, even after the most intense committee battles, we were all able to have lunch together afterwards.

A legislator’s job doesn’t end in Augusta though. In late 2008, my wife began letting the answering machine go when I wasn’t around, because there was a 50/50 chance it was a constituent call. Sometimes it’s something simple like pressuring the Bureau of Labor to update me on a constituent’s unemployment application or contacting our US reps to ensure a permit for the building of a fire station. Other times I’ve traveled out to the back of my district to take pictures of crumbling roads for constituents to send to the DOT. I’ve had meetings with our state senator, local selectmen and the DOT commissioner to draw attention to a deteriorating bridge. I’ve met with constituents to intervene on hunter/landowner relations and invited constituents over to my house to talk about their ideas that they felt were being ignored by politicians.

Other times it’s not so simple. The state representative is often the last person to call when other avenues fail. When the phone rings I often say a little prayer that this call isn’t about a child custody case involving the Child Welfare Department, cases that seem to call for a King Solomon kind of judgement. I sometimes feel like the de facto switchboard operator for the Department of Health and Human Services. By far my favorite constituent calls are from inventors. Over the past few years constituents have invited me out to their homes to look at such items as a friction heating device and a super vacuum pump. Although I certainly don’t have the capacity to finance these ideas, I’ve done extensive research to try to connect these folks to the right people.

As the 2010 campaign comes to a head, and the messages from both parties become more strident and negative, it’s important to remember what those two legislative incumbents from 2008, now competing for the Waldo County senate seat, said in a moment of clarity two years ago. The economic nor’easter that crept up from Wall Street a few years back still hasn’t let up, and we have a lot of work ahead of us. This will require lawmakers who are willing to work together, as well as be responsive to their constituents and do everything they can to help them through this turbulent time.

As your state representative, I feel I have gleaned great knowledge and understanding of this complex system during these past two years and feel confident I am up to the task. I respectfully ask for your vote on November 2.