Seacoast Online - "Lawrence: Next 4 Years Crucial"

News Article

Seacoast Online - "Lawrence: Next 4 Years Crucial"

Editor's note: This is one in a series of articles profiling candidates for the Maine District 1 congressional seat, in advance of primary voting on June 10.

There will be a narrow window of opportunity, said Maine District 1 congressional candidate Mark Lawrence, for great measures to be taken in Washington — measures that will rival the New Deal and the social advances made by the Kennedy administration; measures that will have implications for the next 40 years.

The window opens next January with a new president and a new Congress, he said, but it will only remain open for four years at most. If nothing happens, if more of the same stagnation continues, that opportunity will be lost.

Lawrence said Maine and the rest of the country hunger for change, as evidenced by massive voter turnout at polling places and caucuses, and he wants to be in Washington to ensure those voices are heard.

"There's a great sense among the public that they have to take control, that Washington is just not delivering," he said.

He lays blame for much of this squarely at the feet of his own Democratic Party, which he said "has not done the things we had hoped for them to do."

For example, he said, Democrats did not start impeachment proceedings against President Bush and they backed off withdrawal from Iraq.

Both were mistakes, said Lawrence. As the York County district attorney, an elected position he's held since 2003, "I see an erosion of constitutional rights on an everyday basis." Data mining, warrantless wiretaps, suspension of habeas corpus are all erosions of the Constitution — and all reasons to have investigated impeachment.

As for the war in Iraq, Lawrence is unequivocal. "We have to end it now," he said. "In my opinion, it's done nothing for us as a country. It's damaged our foreign relations, it's detrimentally affected our economy and I can't see how it's in America's interest to stay longer."

He said he believes the Pentagon already has a plan for pullout that is only waiting for a president to give the word. And if the new president decides to stay in Iraq? "We (the Congress) hold the purse strings. We vote to defund it."

Ending the war is one of the bold initiatives that needs to be taken immediately next year. Another is health-care legislation. Lawrence said the only solution is a single-payer system, "and I'm not afraid to say it. We spend 16 percent of our gross domestic product on health care, and it's 9 percent in every other industrialized country that has a single-payer system. It's a tremendous drag on our economy."

Lawrence is extremely concerned about that economy, a concern that he says stretches back to his childhood growing up in Kittery, the son of a Portsmouth Naval Shipyard worker. He said his mother apportioned every dime of his father's income, including setting aside money for a college fund for Lawrence and his brothers.

"When I graduated Bowdoin College in 1980, it cost $7,000 a year. Now it costs $50,000," he said. "There's been a slow nickel-and-diming of the middle class, with wealth transferring to an elite."

That elite is made up in part of oil company magnates who make huge salaries, he said, due to erroneous federal policies. "We're subsidizing oil companies to look for the last drop of oil, when we should be subsidizing alternative energy companies."

Lawrence faces a challenge from five other contenders for the Democratic nomination in the June 10 primary: former State Rep. Michael Brennan, Portland attorney Adam Cote, Augusta doctor Steve Meister, former state Sen. Chellie Pingree and state Sen. Ethan Strimling.

As a former state representative and senator from Kittery and now as district attorney, he said he feels he has "a huge advantage in southern York County because I have a unique understanding of this area.

"People know me. They know what I stand for. They know how hard I fought for the shipyard. I've been through two base closure lists."

He said he's making inroads in other parts of the district, as people hear his message.

"Winning an election isn't the end, it's the beginning," he said. "You have to deliver on your agenda."

Source