Issues
Economy
Governor Mills does not want to talk about how many Maine businesses and jobs did not survive her civil-emergency monarchy. To date, nobody in Mills administration will even publicly count the economic casualties, much less actually identify which businesses and individuals were hit hardest during the pandemic or in the economic conniptions.
We can’t recover, much less thrive, by relying on aid checks paid for with dollars pulled from other hard-hit states. That money is running out. Instead, our state (and local) governments should be encouraging entrepreneurs and experienced business owners with resources and opportunities, so they can generate the higher wages and profits we'll need to pay for the essentials – food and housing and heat – through the rest of this pandemic-induced recession.
As your representative, I will push for legislation which empowers Maine's small businesses, not cripples them. I will not allow Maine’s Department of Economic and Community Development to forget that our economy is what keeps our community fed, clothed and even warm through our legendary winters.
Healthcare
It’s been a decade since the “Affordable Care Act” was passed, but medical care is still the leading cause of personal bankruptcy and medical insurance is more expensive than ever. It’s time to take a fresh approach.
Instead of letting hospitals and insurance companies obfuscate the costs, let’s start requiring binding cost estimates from care providers and insurers for all non-emergency procedures, so you have a realistic idea of what your actual out-of-pocket cost will be before you commit to treatment.
Another sensible reform would be to change hospitals’ role in billing so that they act as a primary contractor for all in-patient procedures. Doesn’t it make more sense that the folks who coordinated the work also consolidate the bills than sticking individual patients with that burden?
Schools
I believe that parents should work with their children’s teachers, and teachers should work with parents. Reversing the damage done to our education system will be hard enough without playihng blame games.
I encourage concerned parents to work with their school boards to keep their schools on track. If the school board seems non-responsive to your concerns, run for a seat on the board (how do you think I wound up running for Representative?)
I also believe that school superintendents need to be more deferential to the students' parents (and taxpayers, in general). Superintendents who deliberately withhold information from concerned parents, whether administrative policy or by explicity refusing to answer legitimate questions, need to be held accountable.
As a legislator, I also intend to question an office under the Attorney General which has been actively pushing gender politics into pre-pubescent grade levels.
LD 1438 and Protecting Privacy
I believe we all have a right to privacy. That means we’re free to mind our own business as long as we’re not harming or endangering anybody else. It also means what you do to your own body is nobody else’s business. Absent any provable harm, it also protects parents’ rights about what does or doesn’t get done to their children.
It's important. It’s so important that we should have spelled it out long ago instead of demanding that judges squint just right while reading the law.
I persuaded Rep. Justin Fecteau to sponsor LD 1438, a straightforward proposed amendment which would have simply added "enjoying personal privacy" as an inalienable right in Maine's Constitution.
In May of 2021, I testified in support of LD 1438 before the Judiciary Committee. Rep. Moriarty asked a few relevant questions, which I answered. Three weeks later, the Democrat majority in the Judiciary Committee - Rep. Babbidge, Rep. Cardone, Rep. Galgay-Recket, Rep. McCreight, Rep. Moriarty, Rep. Sheehan, and Sen. Sanborn - voted unanimously that LD 1438 "Ought Not To Pass."
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has reversed a half-century of judicial squinting, I will continue to push my "Nunya Business" amendment so that, at least in Maine, our Constitution says we have a right to privacy.
Competent and Transparent Government
Details coming Real Soon Now.
COVID-19
Geography protected Maine from the worst of the pandemic, but COVID-19 and its aftermath is a fact of life which isn’t going away soon.
We can’t let fear of this disease push us into needlessly crippling our society. Uninformed decisions aren’t “science based”, no matter what anyone says.
We need to openly discuss what measures are backed by real evidence, and what costs we can endure.
Here's a tidbit of truth you probably won't hear from the Mills administration: All the way through 2021 and well into 2022, there was no (as in none, zilch, zero) evidence supporting the claim that COVID vaccines reduced transmission of the virus. In fact, one of the earliest research-backed studies published (in February of 2022) found that "breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people can efficiently transmit infection."
Yet Governor Mills still insisted on forcing out an estimated 1 in 10 healthcare workers who did not believe that there would be enough of a reduction in infectiousness to justify the personal risks associated with a pair of completely new vaccines. That tipped an already critical staffing shortage into an unneeded crisis.
We need a set of rules that won't keep changing from week to week or day to day, and which are the subject of open debate before we make changes. That's what legislatures do, and Governor Mills didn't.
