Guide can be viewed at:http://www.theballot.org/2008/juneprimary

2008 Portland Primary Voter Guide

Portland, ME

June 10, 2008

The League of Young Voters is a youth-driven organization that finds creative ways to engage our peers in the political process by reframing politics as positive, accessible, and directly related to the lives of young people. We integrate traditional and non-traditional organizing tactics to build power and achieve purposeful results.

The League is proud to introduce our 2008 Primary Election Voter Guide. We've never endorsed in a Primary before, so we're really excited! Unlike our past voter guides where we cover all races, we’ve chose only to feature contested primary races. If your party or district isn’t represented in this guide, don’t worry—you’ll see them in our fall voter guide.

In order to receive endorsement, candidates and issues needed to win a simple majority using an Instant Runoff Voting ballot. Our multi-partisan Elections Committee then spends up to 8 hours a week researching and interviewing candidates. Committed League members who have racked up 8 hours of volunteer time are allowed to then vote on their favorite candidates. We are focused and committed to ensuring that our endorsed candidates have the skills and background necessary for elected office and would be excellent advocates on the issues affecting young people.

House District 114: Democratic Race

Peter Stuckey

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Peter is a genuine progressive who puts the long hours into helping the most disadvantaged people in our community. He’s worked in Kennedy Park since the 70’s developing programs, partnerships, and policy. He became an advocate for underprivileged Mainers with groups like PROP, Community Action Network, and HeadSTART. Peter offers uncommon insight into important issues, such as the value of programs like Opportunity Maine for citizens of all ages and the importance of nutrition as preventative health care. Peter has the fundamental and sophisticated understanding of all the right issues, as well as the connections and experience needed to translate this into sound law.

Justin Costa

Endorsed Vote: No

The League is impressed with Costa’s candidacy as one of the youngest candidates running for the legislature. Costa cites working on progressive issues like minimum wage increases as motivation to run. He is currently a fundraiser for Maine People’s Alliance; previously he’s worked for the Maine Democratic Party and Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq. Major priorities include creating more high-paying jobs, increasing affordable healthcare, and investing in education. While The League likes it when young people step up to the plate, we look forward to seeing Costa run again when he has gained more life and work experience indicating effective leadership in our community.

House District 120: Democratic Race

Diane Russell

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Diane has broad political experience that includes founding her own media and public relations firm, organizing and political advocacy with FairVote in DC—and she’s even drafted policy as a founding board member of Opportunity Maine! She proposes protecting the HOME Fund for affordable housing constitutionally so it would never be raided. Diane wants to solve our transportation crisis with creative solutions such as leveraging toll increases during the most traffic-heavy season to ensure that out-of-staters pay their fair share for increased road maintenance. She’s also down with constituent engagement and proposes coffee hours as a way to bring people together and share ideas. Diane’s experience working strategically to ensure that grassroots campaigns like Opportunity Maine are successful is definitely what our legislature needs.

Ed Democracy

Endorsed Vote: No

Ed has been a passionate progressive activist for 25 years, working on various peace and grassroots causes. As a Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Organization organizer and co-founder of the Portland Tenants Union, you can count on Ed to show up and make his opinion known. His top three priorities are housing, health care, and tax reform. He has a bit of policy background as well, by drafting the City of Eliot’s recycling plan in the late eighties and working on the Clean Elections law. While we’re sure Ed would vote with us on all the issues, we question his ability to work effectively and strategically towards concrete change.

Senate District 8: Democratic Race

Justin Alfond

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Justin’s candidacy to represent the youngest, most diverse Senate districts in Maine makes The League proud! He has a diverse work background that gives him the right skills to be a leader in our legislature. For the last five years, he’s organized young people to be active and passionate leaders as the former State Director of The League. His work as a board member for Opportunity Maine demonstrates his ability to bring people together in untraditional alliances to promote sound policy. As an entrepreneur and real estate developer, he believes in creative policies to improve Maine's economy and create more jobs. Justin’s priorities are right-on: he supports more affordable and comprehensive health care in Maine, green economy and development, and environmental protection.

Cliff Ginn

Endorsed Vote: No

Cliff is the current president of Opportunity Maine. This Harvard Law grad has served as a commissioner for the Portland Housing Authority and staff attorney for the Disability Rights Center. In the last two years he has drafted the Opportunity Maine legislation, worked to repair Dirigo, drafted a minimum wage law, and is currently working to make early childhood education accessible to all Mainers. He is solid on League issues and his top three priorities are to ensure universal access to health care, create more high-paying jobs, and expanding our public education to include affordable childcare and access to higher education. However, we look forward to seeing whether Cliff can innovatively move forward legislation, and how well he can work with others to implement that legislation.

Anne Rand

Endorsed Vote: No

Anne Rand knows her way around the State House. Having served four terms in the State Senate and five in the House, she has over 20 years of experience as a Maine legislator. Occupationally, she’s a nurse and the owner of the only union print shop in Southern Maine. Anne’s campaign focuses on tax reform, universal single-payer health care, and funding for mass transit, specifically rail. When it comes to the issues, Anne's voting record is in line with The League's values every time on taxes, worker’s rights, education—you name it! But we wonder why she hasn't stepped up higher in the ranks after all this time. We believe Portland is ready for someone to shake things up in Augusta.

US Congressional District One: Republican Race

Dean Scontras

Endorsed Vote: No Endorsement

Dean is your archetypical example of a conservative. He likens himself to his ideological hero Ronald Reagan. Among his beliefs are: the U.S.’s moral authority to act preemptively and unilaterally, implementation of Mike Huckabee’s draconian immigration policies, and that “ALL Americans” are now enjoying the best healthcare in the world. His pro-family platform includes the desire to overturn Roe v. Wade and fight any redefining of marriage. He forfeited his right to The League’s endorsement when he cancelled his Candidate Interview.

Charlie Summers

Endorsed Vote: No Endorsement

After The League tried multiple times to get the Summers for Congress campaign to fill out a questionnaire or show up for an interview, they failed to do either and thereby forfeited their opportunity to receive our endorsement. This shows a lack of accountability and that concerns us. It’s unfortunate because Charlie distinguishes himself from his opponent in his belief in a woman’s right to choose and his belief that same-sex couples have as much of a right to be as “miserably tied-down in wedlock as heterosexual couples.” Charlie appears to be a better candidate than his Republican primary opponent, if only he could get his campaign’s act together.

US Congressional District One: Democratic Race

Michael Brennan

Endorsed Vote: No

As a representative in the Maine State House for eight years and a State Senator for four, Michael Brennan has chaired the Education Committee and the Health & Humans Services Committee, in addition to serving as Senate Majority Leader. Michael’s top priority is ending the war in Iraq: he believes we can’t really solve our domestic problems until we withdraw forces. He hits on all League issues: college affordability, the environment, the creative economy, as well as civil rights! His passion and experience in public service and politics would make him a great representative. But our main concern lies in his ability to effectively campaign, and to get his message out to the public.

Adam Cote

Endorsed Vote: No

Adam is a moderate Democrat who has never held an elected office but believes his life experiences are up to the challenge. He’s a Bosnian war veteran with almost a year of first-person experience fighting the war in Iraq. His understanding of the conflict helped him to develop his own diplomatic plan for getting out. His economic policies tend to lean a bit toward the right with tax breaks being the main vehicle of support. Adam says that he supports progressive policies for education, the right to choose, and single-payer healthcare, but we have misgivings that he would not always cast his yeas or nays with the right laws.

Mark Lawrence

Endorsed Vote: No

If you are looking for a civil rights lawyer, you’ve found your man. Current York County D.A. Mark Lawrence is a solid progressive with a platform that focuses on green collared jobs, universal healthcare, and sustainable transportation. He opposes the war, and if elected, would encourage diplomatic intervention with countries neighboring Iraq. Mark is popular in Southern Maine and respected by both sides of the aisle.

Steve Meister

Endorsed Vote: No

Steve is a physician, a Medical Director for a successful pediatric program, and a Navy veteran of the Gulf War. He is passionate about the health care crisis in this country and wants everyone to have basic access to preventative and crisis health care coverage. Having seen the effects of illegal abortions on teenage girls, you can count on Steve’s diehard stance on a woman’s right to choose. For someone who is relatively new to the scene, Steve brings an amazingly nuanced and policy minded approach to the issues we are confronting today, but lacks a coherent vision of what a better tomorrow should look like. This lack of bold vision and qualifying experience makes The League take a pass on Steve.

Chellie Pingree

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Chellie is the poster child for a successful non-traditional candidate. As a mother, a farmer and small business owner, Chellie rose through the ranks to become an effective and feisty leader as a former Senate Majority Leader and president of Common Cause. Strengthening the economy is a huge priority for Chellie. She proposes tons of ways to increase wages and bring people out of poverty: greater unionization of industry, education (higher and lower), green jobs initiatives, legislation to lower student loan interest rates, and serious regulation of abusive lenders. With the track record of successful leadership and strong relationships in DC, Chellie is the best candidate to face the enormous challenges in the first two years in office.

Ethan Strimling

Endorsed Vote: No

As Director of Portland West and as a State Senator, Ethan is a reliable, brave and charismatic leader for Portland over the last 11 years. He’s fought to increase the minimum wage, reduce Maine's impact on global warming, and guarantee quality affordable housing. Ethan is also an outspoken advocate for the rights of immigrants, unions, youth, women, and the LGBTQ community. But with so many great candidates running for this district seat, Ethan won’t be able to be as effective on day 1 in office.

US Senate: Democratic Race

Tom Allen

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Tom has plenty of experience under his belt. He has served on the Portland City Council as Mayor, and then served as Representative to the State House for the past decade. In the past, Tom has worked to get things done: he led the first fight to pass the state’s first anti-discrimination law while on the Portland City Council. He supports protecting our environment, ending the war, a woman's right to choose, increasing access to education, and minimizing the strain on middle and working class folks.

Tom Ledue

Endorsed Vote: No

The League is impressed with Ledue despite his lack of political experience. He backs up the high-minded language of his campaign with genuine ideas: shifting 2.5% of the military budget into funding renewable energy and developing green industries; a national service, teaching, and medical corps that would fund education for a term of commitment to serving rural and inner-city communities; and redirecting tax breaks for agribusiness to farm co-ops, food stamp, and school food programs. But this grass-roots progressive has no voting record, and we’d like to see him implement his ideas more locally, gaining more experience under his belt in the process.

Statewide Bond Question:

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Do you favor a $29,725,000 bond issue for natural resource, agricultural and transportation infrastructure that will leverage $29,780,000 in other funds?

The League loves bonds, and this one leverages matching funds and addresses much needed priorities! It’s a three-part deal, giving money to the following projects and departments: Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife for small dam repairs and hatchery rehabilitation; Department of Environmental Protection to target water pollution in rural Maine, investigate uncontrolled hazardous waste sites, and to investigate public health threats left by landfills; and Department of Transportation, where a significant money is budgeted toward improving rail systems, repairing existing bridges and highways, passenger rail and bus improvements, and bike-ped trails. The League knows these are important areas that need funding to ensure a cleaner environment and improve our existing transit and transportation infrastructure.

Municipal Bond Question:

Endorsed Vote: No Endorsement

Shall the order entitled “Order Authorizing The Design, Construction And Equipping of Ocean Avenue Elementary School With Total Project Costs Not To Exceed $20,164,591 And Authorizing The Issuance of General Obligation Bonds In An Amount Not To Exceed $19,690,417 Therefor,” with provisions for early redemption as set forth in said Order be Approved?

The League has No Recommendation. The debate on this has been long with no easy answers about the best way to help our school system in the face of a difficult financial climate. A “yes” vote would approve the construction of a new elementary school at 150 Ocean Avenue and allow the city to take out a bond for $20 million that would be reimbursed by state funds. A “no” vote would reject the new school and state money to pay for the costs of the construction.

Supporters of the new school state that careful strategic planning was involved: A committee was formed in '06 that had two years of research, architecture and design consultants, as well as many public forums and opportunities for public engagement. At a straw poll taken in March 2008, residents voted to support a new school by 2-1. Supporters also suggest that if we don’t solve this problem through state money, it will come out of city money while we’re facing difficult financial times.

Opponents have suggested that the city does not have a comprehensive facilities plan that would determine what we should do with other existing facilities if the new school is built. It is suggested that it doesn't address the problem of Portland's decreasing revenue for schools and declining student population. If more schools are consolidated into the new school, there won't be enough seats in the long term to fit all the students. There may be hidden costs like the rising costs of materials and construction, which won't be reimbursed from the state.

For feedback on this guide, or to report an inappropriate guide, send an email to: voterguides@theleague.com

This guide uses the Cityscape - colorful design by Nica Lorber