Jon Reisman

I said goodbye to my wife and the Maine legislature last week. I will always miss Ernie, but I cannot say goodbye to the freedom-crushing 131st Maine Legislature fast enough. 

Ern’s memorial service was a blessing with friends, family, and community. Our grown-up sons delivered testimony that swelled me with both pride and grace. Testimony of her giving heart and many mitzvahs from friends and community buoyed me. Several suggested that Ernie was a Saint, which prompted me to bless her memory for sticking with me for 44 years.

This painting by Jeffrey “Slash” Coleman was prominent in the memorial service. Slash was an employee, friend, and neighbor. He painted it more than twenty years ago when he left Washington County. I have returned it to the wall above our desktop workstation.

If saying goodbye to Ernie proved therapeutic and full of grace, bidding adieu to the Maine legislature only stopped the increasing mountain of abuse the progressive Democratic majority has inflicted on freedom and prosperity in Maine, and most especially on the stubborn Trump supporters in the unwoke 2nd  Congressional District and throughout rural Maine.

In the first session last year, the legislature amended Maine’s laws to allow abortions up to birth as long as a physician consented. This return to federalism and state-level policy-making was a consequence of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe vs. Wade. Thank you, Donald Trump. 

In the second session this year, the progressives and our own Anne Perry passed a secret last-minute bill protecting trans tourism, “gender affirming” health care, and the woke agenda. As a topper, the legislature passed additional restrictions on gun ownership. 

Progressive leadership’s legislative shenanigans enabled the passage of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPV). Maine now joins 16 other states with 209 electoral votes agreeing to give their electoral votes to the winner of the (media created) national popular vote, regardless of whom their citizens actually voted for. The Compact will not go into effect until states representing a majority of 270 electoral votes have joined.

NPV will be deeply divisive in Maine. The progressives and southern/urban Maine have moved to disenfranchise every right-of-center voter in the 2nd CD and told them their perverted preference for Trump will not be tolerated. Secretary of State and woke progressive Shenna Bellows delivered the same message when she tried to take Donald Trump off the ballot.

Near the Washington/Hancock County border on Route 9, there is a long-standing and maintained shrine to Donald Trump. I don’t know who owns the land near the Beddington/Twp 22 line, but I do know it is a symbol of stubborn resolve and real division across the two Maines over Donald Trump and the woke, progressive anti-freedom agenda. There has been no reporting of the site in the legacy media as far as I know. It is not surprising, because Maine’s legacy media, like National Public Radio, is strikingly lacking in viewpoint diversity and tolerance for conservatives. It does not help that a significant portion of Maine’s press has been bought out by left-wing dark money and converted to “charity” non-profit status.

The solution to this abuse is to elect a Republican majority, repeal NPV, and restore unwoke sanity to Augusta. 

Jon Reisman is an economist and policy analyst who retired from the University of Maine at Machias after 38 years. He resides on Cathance Lake in Cooper, where he is a Selectman and a Statler and Waldorf intern. Mr. Reisman’s views are his own, and he welcomes comments as letters to the editor here or to him directly via email at [email protected].