Political Perspectives #276

Harold Pachios:

It's anti immigrant. It's giving me back the old job I had. Technology has now made me obsolete and we've had that before. We had it in the industrial revolution. So this is not anything new. And when society is disrupted as we have been by globalization, it's here to stay. But it's disruptive. And when people are disrupted, they look for any port in a storm and somebody promising them the old days is going to be somebody they follow. Some dangerous politicians have done that and been successful for a time.

Severin Beliveau:

Yeah, I think that the strength of our country is with the freest, the most open society in the world. And I think we'll continue to be that way. I think that Mr. Trump has defined himself fairly well during the campaign, but now we're finding that when he deals with the real world, whether it's national security or economy, his position is changing a lot of these issues.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine radio show. Now 276 Political Perspectives airing for the first time on Sunday, January 1, 2017. This month we inaugurate a new president of the United States which is certain to create change in both the nation and our state. Today we speak with two attorneys who have long had a passion for politics and have contributed greatly to our government. Harold Pashas is one of the founding partners of law firm Creddy Flaherty. His prior career in politics dates back to the Kennedy administration. Also a Pretti Flaherty founding partner Severin Bellevoe directs the firm's government affairs practice in Augusta and Washington, D.C. thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

My next guest is an individual who is very well known on the main scene. This is Harold Patius, who is one of the founding partners of the law firm Pretty Flaherty. Prior to practicing law, he had a career in government and politics. He served as an associate White House press Secretary under President Johnson, was nominated by President Clinton to the U.S. commission on Public Diplomacy, and was appointed by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the State Department's Special Advisory Group on the Arab and Muslim World. And he now lives in Cape Elizabeth. Thanks for coming in today.

Harold Pachios:

My pleasure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been around a long time doing this work.

Harold Pachios:

I'm old. I've been around a long time. Yeah. I've done a lot of different things simply because I've survived.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's interesting to think back to President Johnson, press secretary under President Johnson. Like, how'd you even get that gig?

Harold Pachios:

Oh, that was a different era. I went to law school. I went in the United States Navy after college. I got a commission when I graduated and went aboard a ship two weeks later in the North Atlantic in the campaign of 1960. On election day 1960, I came off watch and I went to the radio room. We were out in the North Atlantic and I began pulling sheets off the AP and UPI tickers, reports from various states, and I kind of got hooked. The next morning it became apparent that Kennedy had won. And I thought to myself, I want to go try to be part of what Kennedy is doing. I got very excited about John F. Kennedy. So I applied to Georgetown Law School and he had a choice between day school and night school. I took the night school. I showed up there in mid August of 1961. Kennedy had been president for five months. I got a job I didn't know, so in Washington, got a job in a restaurant as a waiter. And after 10 days in school one night at a contracts class, guy sitting behind me in a striped suit tie and I'm in my coffee stained khakis, said to me at the break, where'd you go to school? I said, I went to Princeton. He said, so did I. What do you do? I said, I'm a waiter. And he kind of frowned at that. And so it really upset me. And I said, what do you do? And he said, I work for the President's brother in law. Sergeant Shriver was starting a new agency called the Peace Corps. Do you want a job? And this is no kidding. Now, a day later, I went there before school, a young man came out to interview me from this Peace Corps study group. His name was Bill Moyers. Nobody had ever heard of him. I'd never heard of him. And Moyers said, dick Nelson told us, you want a job, we'll give you a job, just like that. I'm just telling you that's the way it happened. And so I became associated with Bill Moyers at a very young age. And he was very young. He was in his 20s. And I worked with him at the Peace Corps headquarters. All of the most interesting people that came to Washington because of John Kennedy worked in the Peace Corps. Very small staff. We got to know each other well. Moyers was one of them. Moyers was a good friend of the Vice President's, Lyndon Johnson. So he was from Texas. And when Kennedy was assassinated, Moyers was in Texas, came back on the airplane with Johnson and didn't leave his side really for the next two to three years. And so in the campaign of 64, Moyers got me to come on the staff and work in the campaign. And then I went full time in the White House following the campaign when Moyers became the press secretary and I became his deputy. So that's it in a nutshell.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So if this was a different time that you're describing, and the way that one gets involved in politics was slightly different back then, do you think that that has translated into what's going on in the modern day? Do you think that that's translated into a different way of approaching politics?

Harold Pachios:

Well, how I got involved is instructive on how other young people can get involved. I always tell young people, college students say, gee, I'd like to get a job in a congressman's office or in politics. And I always tell them, proximity is the key to everything in this world. Proximity, whatever it is, think proximity. So if you're interested and there's a campaign coming up, go volunteer in the campaign. And when you volunteer, make sure that you become indispensable. Because if you're an indispensable volunteer, you're shortly going to get a paid job. They don't want to lose you. So that's the key to make yourself indispensable while you're a volunteer. And then they give you a job, and then it's proximity. And candidates know you people running for Congress, Senate, they know who you are. The best thing is to be the car driver, to drive them around. Nixon had two top assistants. One of them went to jail, Ehrlichman. The other one was Haldeman. They have very bad reputations, but they ran the Nixon White House. And how did they start driving Richard Nixon around when he ran for senate in the 1950s? They were his car drivers. And I can tell you about a lot of car drivers in campaigns who became very important aids to top politicians. So proximity. That's what I would say.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So do you think that this is one of the issues that we have these days, is that we're very connected, but we're very. We're not as connected where we can be connected socially on social networks, but not as much face to face.

Harold Pachios:

Absolutely. But also another difference is the number, the amount of media, the amount of. The number of sources of information. So when we had just three television networks, just three, they had to play to wide audiences, broad audiences, so they couldn't be very partisan. They had to be as objective as possible. Because in order to make money, if you were one of the three, you had to have very broad audiences. Now, you know, msnbc, Fox, they don't need a very broad audience. They don't need a lot of people to make a lot of money. And so they cater to just a sliver of the electorate and that's enough for them to make a lot of money. Just like talk radio. These people on talk radio make a fortune because they get a narrow group of people fired up. Those people can't wait to listen to that talk radio show, whether it's Limbaugh, whoever, and they get rich doing it. So no one has to talk to the middle anymore. That's why ranked choice voting is so important because it requires politicians to think about the broad middle rather than just a sliver of the left or the right. So that's the biggest difference. And we can tune in now to listen to whatever we want in terms of what we agree with. So I have a mother in law that listens only to Fox. There are many people that listen only to Fox. Many. Well, you couldn't do that in the old days. You had to listen to abc, NBC and cbs. Totally different. So I don't know where we're going now. I mean, we have this, not for the first time in American history, this very strong populist movement which Donald Trump has tapped into. It's anti immigrant. It's given me back the old job I had technology has now made me obsolete. And we've had that before. We had it in the industrial revolution. So this is not anything new. And when society is disrupted as we have been by globalization, it's here to stay, but it's disruptive. And when people are disrupted, they look for any port in a storm and somebody promising them the old days is going to be somebody they follow. Some dangerous politicians have done that and been successful for a time.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Didn't Hitler do that?

Harold Pachios:

Hitler did it. I mean Hitler. It began as a populist movement. The Nazi party began as a populist movement. People were. After World War I, Germany had been defeated. The German economy was in tatters. At the end of the 12 years later, there was a global depression. So people did follow that. And people elected. The Nazi party was elected. It didn't just take over. It wasn't a coup. Millions of Germans voted for the Nazi Party because they thought it was a solution to their problems. They later regretted it. I'm reminded I was reading a book about World War II. I read a lot of World War II books. When the U.S. army was going into Munich in April, the end of April 1945, Munich was falling to the Allies. There was a big white sign in the downtown side of a bridge that the US army went across. The sign said, I'm ashamed to be a German. Since that time, the Germans collectively been very introspective. Why did we do this? Why did we as a country elect Adolf Hitler and put the Nazis in power? We don't have anybody being introspective right now. There will. We have a lot of columnists that are warning us, but we don't really have individuals, a lot of individuals being introspective about what's going on in this country.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Is it also problematic that we don't have a lot of time for reflection where the news is so immediate and it's being reported in such an immediate way that there's no greater contextual analysis.

Harold Pachios:

You are correct. That is the biggest problem. No context. And because there's no context, people go on the Internet, you can find and get untruths. Everybody is producing information. Now I can sit in my house tonight and produce information and send it to thousand people. If I had their email addresses, a thousand people or more, I produce the information. Doesn't have to be truthful, doesn't have to be factual. But I can produce it knowing that my audience, the thousand people I'm sending it to, they would love to believe what I'm saying. And they accept it. And you are correct. They give it no context. Most people aren't interested in history. We devalue history. Now we have people saying, why should I study history in college? What good will that do me? I want to go in the insurance business. What good will history be to me? History allows us to put things, as you just said, in context.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I read two books while I was on vacation. One was about the sinking of the Lusitania and the other one was about Pat Tillman, who was the NFL player

Harold Pachios:

who was killed in Afghanistan.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In Afghanistan. And it was. He was a victim of friendly fire. And both of them were so very interesting because it really spoke to how information comes out, sort of the timeline and also who interprets it and why.

Harold Pachios:

I'm glad you raised that point because I think that is critical for everybody to think about. You read those books and it helps you with discernment. There's very little discernment among the American public today. One of the problems, and I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but I don't care what they're going to do to me. One of the problems is not enough education. We need to really push to educate people beyond high school. If you look at polls now of who people support and why, there's huge divisions. It has nothing to do with who the candidates are. It's what they're selling, it's what they're promoting. And so there are huge divisions based on level of education. What does that tell us? Why should education be such distinguisher among people as to how they vote? Why should education be the line? But it is. Look at the polls. There was one in the Portland newspapers a couple of days ago showing, you know, the views of those with only a high school education and the views of those who have been educated beyond high school. Now, in a populist movement like we have now, what people say in response to me is, you're an elitist. You're an elitist, and that's wrong. And we have to bring you down. It's too late to bring me down. Gone along too long.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been with Preddy Flaherty since the beginning?

Harold Pachios:

Well, yeah, kind of the beginning. I've been with Pretty Flaherty since that firm began. I was with another firm briefly for a while called Berman, Berman, Wernick and Flaherty. That's where the Flaherty came from. And so I came to practice in Portland in 1969. So I was born in 1936. So that's a long time ago. I'm 80 years old now and I've been practicing law, let's say 69, almost 50 years to a couple years short of 50 years at pretty Flaherty.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what keeps you doing this? What keeps you showing up every day and being part of this?

Harold Pachios:

Well, I have other things to do, but the things I do relate to my profession, law, and relate to making things happen, solving problems. And I like to read, but I wouldn't want to be home all day reading. I just don't want to do that. So I like to do things and I see things all the time, that I'm a bit of a gadfly that irritate me and I try to do something about it. Most often I fail. I serve around town in Portland, if I see graffiti on buildings, I want to do something about it. I want to go talk to somebody about it. I want to call a city manager or whatever. It's just my nature.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you think that that's unusual in this day and age?

Harold Pachios:

I don't know. It depends on the person. You know, look at George Mitchell. George Mitchell is three years older than I am. And he is the chairman of his law firm, which is the largest law firm in the world. He travels all over the globe. He is a problem solver. People call him up. He is the best, biggest business getter in the largest law firm in the world. He is a very busy guy. He spends an enormous time in Maine because of his Mitchell Institute. He reads all the time, he writes all the time. He writes books, he writes speeches. He's a dynamo. I'm not saying that just because he's my friend. He's a dynamo. He's 83. So you do it, I think, as long as you can. And then when either God thinks it's time for you to check out and end it or you get impaired in some way, you can't do it anymore. But why not do it while you can?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, my father is still practicing medicine. He's 70.

Harold Pachios:

He is.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

He's still got 10 good years ahead of him.

Harold Pachios:

According to your schedule, where does your father live?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, he lives in Yarmouth and he practices. Actually, my mom's still teaching. She's 70. They both do it because they love what they do. Yeah, they both, you know, right in this Portland area.

Harold Pachios:

And it keeps them going and vital. I mean, they don't. They're not just sitting around, they're doing something that they like. They're making a contribution and they're helping themselves.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So is that why you keep doing this.

Harold Pachios:

I keep doing it because I'm interested. I don't say, okay, I'm going to keep doing all this because it keeps me healthy or alert, keeps away dementia or whatever. I do it because I see things that I think are wrong. I'm not always right and I want to correct them. When I worked for Sergeant Shriver, who was President Kennedy's brother in law, who is incidentally the most incredible man I've ever met in all my years. Sergeant Shriver, Kennedy's brother in law. The Kennedys didn't think he was the most incredible guy, but many others who worked with him did. And he invented the Peace Corps. Actually, every detail of it. He invented it. But Shriver was always fond of the quote by Edward Everett Horton. I am only one, but I am still one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I think that's right. And it isn't all for good either. I mean, I'm not saying that I'm altruistic. I'm saying that I like to make things happen. And I'll confess, at my age, it's harder to make it happen.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I wonder if one of the things that you just said is more wise than you realize. And that's I'm going to say this. It may not make me a popular person, people may disagree with me, but I'm going to say it anyway. I wonder if one of the things that is happening is that in this era of political correctness, people feel like they can't say anything for fear of being criticized or ostracized and so they just don't speak.

Harold Pachios:

Political correctness is a very interesting term. I even myself have over the years, you know, frowned on, quote, political correctness, end quote. But what is political correctness? Being nice to people? Is it being civil? Is that political correctness is if you think another politician or somebody running for office is a jerk, if you fail to call them a jerk and say, well, they're all right, you know, try to be civil. Is that being politically correct? I think people think that's being politically correct. What they like about Donald Trump. A lot of people tell me what they like about Donald Trump. And you've heard it, we've all heard it. Is he tells it like it is. So that if he says that Jeb Bush is weak and a fool, if he says that Hillary is a crook, if he says some gives some horrible other insult to somebody, he insults people every day, people love it. Some people love it. Some people, I better be careful. Some people Love it. And they say, ah, look at that. He's candid. He's telling it the way it is. He's not politically correct. People who say that, in my judgment, and I hope they're listening, are fools to think that. Are fools.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think that I meant. Well, I know this. Not just. I think that I meant this. I meant the situation where people. I agree we should be nice to people. I agree that we should understand where people are coming from and that we don't have to go out of our way to say things that are insulting. I think that what I'm talking about is college campuses where there's evidence of microaggressions and nobody feels like they can say anything.

Harold Pachios:

I think it's ridiculous. That's what I mean by pro aggressions. You know, at Yale, they've had Calhoun College for 100 years and students protested because Calhoun was a slaveholder. Well, every signer of the Declaration of Independence south of Maryland was a slaveholder. Every one of them. Jefferson was a slaveholder. Should we tear down the Jefferson Memorial? Is that offending people? I'm the son of Greek immigrants, and there are a lot of offensive things said about Greek immigrants. So it's over. So what? I'm not offended. I can't go around being offended by everything. And these people on college campuses, if they're going to be so easily offended, are going to have a very tough time in life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I would have to agree with you there. I'm hoping that people can. We can get a little beyond that so that we can be nice to people and we can understand where everybody's coming from, but we can still have an open dialogue so that we can move forward.

Harold Pachios:

What do we do about it? I guess maybe it's a fad. I don't know.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, we'll see.

Harold Pachios:

Yeah, we'll see.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, you've been very gracious to spend time with us today, and I know you're a busy person, so we're going to take this time that we spent with you and wrap it up. Is there anything, one. One thing that you hope to see as you continue your days on this planet?

Harold Pachios:

Most of what I think about when I drive around and think about I'm looking forward to something in the future is Portland, Maine, and what it's becoming and what it can become. To me, it's the most exciting thing that's happen to me is to live in this city through a period of enormous change. I've lived here in the bad days, in the down days, and now I lived long enough to see this renaissance of Portland, Maine and its potential is so much more and that's what really excites me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been speaking with Harold Patius, who is one of the founding partners of the law firm Pretty Flaherty and has a long and distinguished career prior to that in the political world. I really appreciate your taking the time to come in and offer these perspectives and to have this conversation with me today.

Harold Pachios:

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

individual well known really in the state of Maine. This is Severin Bellevo, who is one of Maine's best known attorneys and has significant experience in legislative and regulatory issues. He is a founding partner of Pretty Flaherty and directs the firm's government affairs practice in Augusta and Washington. I know this is a very short we've shortened the bio, but yours is very long and impressive and I mean you've been around doing stuff with the state of Maine and really nationally, maybe even internationally for a long time.

Severin Beliveau:

Many years. Yeah, 50 years. Think about it. 50 years since I, when I graduated from law school returned to Rumford where I was born and raised from there. My father had just retired from our state Supreme Court, my brother came from the Justice Department. We started a law firm with no clients and we built on that and I was elected District Attorney at the time and that was kind of the beginning and then I was the state legislature, House Senate and then eventually after I was married, we moved to Augusta to Hallowell where we've been for the last 25 some odd years. And a few years ago after our children, our four boys left after they were educated and three of whom are out of state, one of whom is here, we moved here to Portland where we lived in a condo on Munjoy Hill.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you saw A lot of change in Rumford, I would imagine, given what Rumford used to be and what Rumford has evolved into. What was your family's interaction with the mill?

Severin Beliveau:

That's a good point. When I was a kid in the 50s, the mill was thriving. The paper mill at that time employed over 3,000 men and women. It was a strong sense of community where it was. The company was owned by a family from Connecticut. Strong unions, good pay, the salaries, the hourly wages were very high, among the highest in the state, and there was again, a strong sense of community there. And since that time, the mill, which is currently in its fifth iteration, I think fifth or sixth owners since then, now employs around 700. So they've reduced or declined the employment from 3,300 to 7,000. That's fairly representative of what's happening in all the middle towns in Maine today. And that can be attributed to a number of factors, I think. One is competition, particularly from, ironically from the Far east, where paper is manufactured there in Canada as well, because of cheap energy prices places. And so we visit Rumpf and Millinock at Jay and all these mill towns. It's sad because you've seen it's the end of an era. And despite what certain politicians are suggesting, there's no prospect of returning to those days. As I said, I was a kid. Rumpin had a population around 10,000. It's down to 6,500. We were one of the first families that my grandfather, McCarthy, Matthew McCarthy, graduated from from the University of Maine law School in 1900. And he was one of the first lawyers and the first judge in that town. And my father was. He was the prosecutor. I was my uncle, my grandfather. We were the four DAs in that county for a number of years. And we had a strong presence in that part of Oxford County. Unfortunately, no family members there today. We have home in Rainsey and I travel through Rumford and I have friends and all. But it's fairly representative of what's happening in Maine today. And I think that this last election kind of reflected that. We look at the voting patents at areas which were predominantly and strongly Democratic because the unions and the work has voted for. For Trump in a big way, because people were unhappy and angry and saw the economy floundering and thought that maybe that there's some way out of it. But unfortunately that's not the case. So I've lived through all of it. And one statistic I like to cite is that in Maine in the last five years, our population has increased by 900 people. And were it not for the influx of immigrants and refugees, we wouldn't be in tough shape. And that's not a political statement. It's just a realistic statement. Yeah,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have actually a family background that's not that dissimilar from many people's family backgrounds. In fact, the three of us sitting in the studio, including Spencer Albee, our audio engineer, we all have this French Canadian, Irish Catholic thing going on. And we've talked about this with actually the Lewiston coach, soccer team coach, and his family background also had that. That French Canadian, Irish Catholic. And that used to be the dividing line. That used to be like, you have one side, the French Canadian Irish. I mean, the French Canadian Catholic, other side, Irish Catholic. It seems like, you know, we just. It's just, again, same story. It's been going on for a long time. It probably will keep going on for a long time.

Severin Beliveau:

Yeah, I think you're right. And those communities, particularly. I mean, particularly in the 40s, 30s, 40s and 50s, as they migrated from Ireland and from Canada and Acadia, they each had their own culture and the language. And that was reflected in the schools of the churches and all those communities in Loweston and Betterfit and Saco and all these. And Rumphin, Matawas, all these communities had two churches and two schools. You had the Irish school, the Irish church, the Irish priests and the French priests. And I went to French school in Rumford, spoke French at home to my father. And we were very much aware of the cultural differences, but we didn't experience that in Rumford. I mean, that tension between the two cultures didn't exist. Again, because you had a strong economy. When things are going well, people get along well. It's when they're under economic stress that all these other issues surface. As we have a strong economy, much of the problems we have in Maine today wouldn't exist. I think people would be complaining as much about the immigrants and others who were coming here. But you're right. When you see the evolution here in Maine, where all the economic activity is really in two counties, York and Cumberland counties north of Brunswick. The populations of 14 counties beginning from Anderskoggin, Oxford, Somerset, Franklin county is known. The population has not increased by 1% in 50 years. As a matter of fact, it's the converse. It's declined. And so the real challenge for all of us who are committed to this state find ways of dealing with it. And I don't know what the solution is, but we're out there struggling, trying to find a solution to it. That's why we all moved to Cumberland County, I guess.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you think that part of what needs to happen is that people who live, and I'm one of these people, I grew up in Cumberland County, I've lived here most of my life, would benefit from understanding the perspective of people who live in other counties in the state. Because the assumption tends to be, well, we all live in Maine, so we all must think alike, but that's just not really true.

Severin Beliveau:

You couldn't be more right. There's a big bubble here in Cumberland County. I mean, this area does not reflect. Reflect in any way what's occurring in the rest of the state. And I can cite a number of examples. I think probably the best example is I inject politics into it because that's the way life is on the Democratic side. During the Democratic caucuses this spring, you had a clear division between the limousine liberals from Cape Elizabeth, Falmouth, Cumberland, so forth. They all supported Hillary Clinton, and the rest of the state was with Bonnie Bernie in a big way. And so. And they've dominated it. And they wonder why poor Emily Kane lost the second district. The problem that we have is the problems are not the social issues which certain people love to focus on, but it's economy, it's jobs, and that's what people are concerned about. You see this happening in all these other counties where people aren't worried about Planned Parenthood. I mean, it's important and we all support it. But all these social programs don't solve anything. We have some underlying fundamental issues we have to deal with as how do we strengthen our economy, how do we create more jobs? And with all due respect to my neighbors and friends and colleagues and my law firm who live in this part of the world, they don't understand they culture the dynamic in the rest of the state. And until that happens, that's why, again, I hate to be political about. That's why the Republicans do so well, because they connect and people feel somehow that they'll. At least they're focused on it and may in fact produce a result. It remains to be seen, but at least they're looking in that direction.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I noticed even in my practice in Brunswick, which is still Cumberland county, so it's still. But it's actually a somewhat diverse medical practice. And we have people from the military who work at biw, we have people who are fishermen and farmers. And our catch area is kind of is larger than just Brunswick. There are a lot of different people with a lot of different political views who come through the doors of our office and that I am able to have conversations with. And I. And I don't think that that is something everybody has access to.

Severin Beliveau:

No, no, you're right. And Brunswick. Well, Brunswick is somewhat part of that limousine liberal crowd because of Bowdoin and others. That's in the. You had Bowdoin, you had Brunswick and Naval Air stations. Those are on the government side. I consider that to be an unofficial economy. I mean, in Augusta, Cannabis county thrives well, because it's the seat of government and you've got thousands of state employees there. But ironically, in most of the state, I'd say at least 13, 12 and 13 counties, the best jobs are government jobs. They're not private sector positions. I mean, I can cite examples all over the state. I love people who say, can government off our backs? If we took government out of our economy, this state would collapse. Literally collapse. And not so much in this part of the world in Cumberland and York counties, but also here to a great extent. Some of the better jobs are particularly the federal government, state government, private sector can't compete in many ways with. Even in the health care side. That's government. And for all practical purposes, it is. So the private sector has ways to go. In Maine and to your point about whether the people who live in Culver and New York counties can connect or relate in any way to the rest of the state, I see it in a number of ways. For instance, in creating the state park, that monument up there in Boo's Head Lake, and the Katahdin region. The resistance, the opposition came from the locals because they were fearful that somehow this would affect their economy. Where'd the support come from? Southern Maine. So people grew up there, spend a week there a year, but not dependent upon that area for livelihood. So that dynamic is there. And I think the greatest opportunities, and also one of our great, greatest risk is the fact that we haven't capitalized completely on our forest products economy. You know, we have 14 million acres of forest lands here in Maine, and we're still sending wood to Canada to be processed and returned here in a better farm. So I know I'm probably expanding a little more, but I think the one big issue that would change Maine in many ways is if we had our energy costs. We have the highest energy costs, particularly electricity costs in the country. We have 75% of our people dependent upon electricity. We have very little natural gas. And there's been a real attempt to bring gas in from Pennsylvania and New York here, and there's been tremendous Resistance from people who don't depend upon the. If our paper companies had natural gas, that's a big factor is the energy cost. Because over the last 25 years, paper companies have been acquired and purchased by out of state investors, primarily investment groups, a lot of them from New York City, who have disposed of all the land. Paper companies do not own any forest lands today. When I was a kid, years ago, they had their own source of raw materials so they could control it. They also own their own energy. They had their own hydro projects in Rumford, Jay in Lewiston, Millinock, all the middle towns. But all those energy generating facilities have been sold to third parties. So now they're paying market rate and it's very uncompetitive.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So this is interesting for me because, because you have many years of personal perspective, but you also have family perspective. If your grandfather graduated from the University of Maine School of law in 1900, you obviously have had this familial exposure to Maine history and politics. Do you have any solutions for these problems that you're bringing?

Severin Beliveau:

I don't have any, any solutions, but you're right about the history is Maine is still a very young state, very small state. My grandfather, my father read law in his office. My father never went to college, but he ended up in the state supreme Court. You know, those things happened, happened back then. Again, there's no simple solution. I think that energy is a big factor. I was in. Last week, I was in, in Austin visiting my oldest son and talking to Emmett about it. I said, what is there about Emmett about Austin that's so attractive to people? He said, the climate, the culture and taxes. He said those are the three issues now. We've got the culture, we have the climate to some extent. Tax structure. As a result of his most recent referendum, we're going to be probably the second highest in the country. None of us enjoy paying taxes, but we recognize we have to pay taxes. Prepare to do it. It's a price of civilization. So we have a lifestyle here that is the envy of the world. And publications from your company, for instance, kind of reflect that. I suspect most of your members or buyers are from out of state. They'd love to have something that connects to Maine on their table so they can show it to people. To answer your question, I don't know. I think energy, energy. If I were to identify one issue, it would be energy and taxes. Energy being priority. Taxes is a big factor. Our law firm, we represent a number of businesses and we know clients of ours who are looking carefully at Maine right now and who are having second thoughts about either remaining here when you have a tax rate of over 10%. Think about now that it's. Our incremental tax rate will be the second highest in the country for those making over $200,000. Now, should we complain about it? Probably not. But they're the ones, the people who are earning that type of. They're the ones who lead the companies and create the jobs and strengthen our economy. You can criticize them all they want, but that's the way it is. So. And you see the other issue here, and I have to give some people credit, we do have an expanding government. And why? Because there's a vacuum there and people want goods and services. But that's not the long term solution. Adding more government jobs, having more people hanging around isn't the solution. Maybe for the short term, but I think that. But the health care is another big, very big issue here which cannot be neglected any longer. As you know, we have over 65,000 people who are without insurance here because the administration refuses to support the expansion of Medicaid in Maine. And I mean, those are the things that we have to talk about because Forbes magazine just listed us as the 50th, 50th worst place to do business in the country. We went up from 47th to 50th. Think about it. What kind of a message does that convey to people? And all kinds of factors contribute to it, but I think taxes is one. And the fact that we have, we're the oldest state in the country, non expanding economy, paper companies that are struggling, three or four of them have shut down in the last four or five years. We have probably four or five functioning, productive, successful companies, two of which went through bankruptcy in the last three or four years. So I don't know. I think the solution is getting radio business, you know, like yourself. Yeah, that's where the future is. Well,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think there is something to be said actually about the possibility of improving communications. I mean, I think, you know, I'm sure that you're somewhat kidding about getting into the radio business. But there is something that I, that I think that I see happening that is encouraging and that is that there, there is a greater opportunity to communicate with people that maybe we don't live right next to. There is a greater opportunity if we're willing to listen. There are more people who are at least the people that I interview for the show and for the magazines and even people that I see as patients. There is a sense that it is Possible to try to address the problem oneself.

Severin Beliveau:

Yeah, I think the other thing I failed to mention was the importance of the University of Maine and the University of Maine system itself. The fact that we have five different campuses, we still have essentially not uneducated, but the percentage of students going on to college from high school has remained flat and matter of fact declined a little bit. I think what's happening here at USM I think is very encouraging. It's been revitalized. The new leader, I think he's doing a very good job and I think education is critical. I do think that, and I agree with the referendum as to its objective in providing additional funding for secondary schools. But what the real need is in the college at university level because we no longer are a public university, the legislature, the government only contributes I think like 36, 40% of the funding for the University of Maine. So the rest of it comes from private sector. So it's no longer a public school. And history has shown us in those countries, in those states where they have a strong education system, the economy thrives. And my thesis is inject more money at the University of Maine, subsidize these kids, get them to school. And that plus the immigrant. Now when you think about it, here in Portland, there are 7,000 students in the Portland school system and I'm told that 2000 of whom are immigrants. Where would we be without them? In Lawston almost 5,000 people are there and they're now starting to contribute a lot of resistance to it. But as you know, your family, my family, years ago they all migrated here from Quebec or Acadia, Ireland, some other country. It took us a while to act, but we adjusted and produced something. And so I think we have a. They're doing great things here in Portland in terms of welcoming immigrants and inject them into the economy and to the school systems. So I think the future here, but for the immigrants, we'd have a negative population, negative growth. In terms of live births in Maine, the last two years we've had more deaths than births. I think we have to welcome the immigrant community. I think we have to do it like Canada's doing. Canada's open arms here we think that they're all terrorists or something, but in fact they have a great deal of contributing. We know the Burundi's for instance, there are a number of former French speaking colonies which where their immigrants are now refugees, are now moving to Maine. And all of a sudden even the church is saying we go to this Sacred Heart Church in Portland. The mass is in French now, you know those institutions will be gone even during high school. Look at the number of Portland High School. 26, 28 languages are spoken that, believe it or not, I think is the future of our state. Because these people want to be successful. They're grateful to be here. They don't want to be dependent upon the government for the most part. So it's not all bad, I guess.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You were part of the. You worked on the Kennedy campaign back when you were a young man. So this was probably one of your early exposures to politics. And that was a time of great hope. That was a time of great change. Things were happening. Do you think it's possible that we will come to that place again?

Severin Beliveau:

How to predict, in light of what happened November 8th, what's going to happen? But I have a lot of confidence and faith in our system. I think the checks and balances are there. I think some extreme statements by politicians will. I don't think they'll be executed in that sense. You're right. I've seen, I've been involved in a number of campaigns over the years. And I mean, I was involved in the Watergate. You know, I was deeply involved in the Watergate, was my phone up, was tapped at the Watergate, and I'd been involved in lawsuits with the Nixon committee. I'm totally familiar with that. Even back in 73, when Nixon, when he resigned and pending his impeachment, I mean, everyone thought that that was the end of the democracy. We know it. Matter of fact, it strengthened us. So I think we have clearly have some challenges ahead of us in the next four years, and only time will tell. But, yeah, I think that the strength of our country is with the freest, the most open society in the world, and I think will continue to be that way. I think that Mr. Trump has defined himself fairly well during the campaign, but now we're finding that when he deals with the real world, whether it's national security or economy, his position is changing a lot of these issues because he ultimately has to act responsibly. And the Congress, I think, will be a good check for him, as will the judiciary. So you're right, 1960 was a challenge because of the religious issue in many ways, particularly in West Virginia and that part of the country. But here we have a broader one. We have just a group of very unhappy men and women who really believe that there's a group of elitists who've been running the country, and they have been forgotten, they've been marginalized. And whether that's true or not, I don't know, but that's the way they feel. That's how they voted even in Maine. A good example of that Southern Maine was strong liberal support for Shelley Pingree, second district, went for Poliquin. Very conservative. I mean, I think we have it all here in Maine. But again, it. It's the economy, it's jobs and you can talk about anything else. I think it's secondary.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I guess the reason I keep pushing for the possibility of hope is like you, I have children, so I have this son who's 23, a daughter who's soon to be 21, another one who's 16. And I guess I want to believe as someone who's lived in Maine all of her life and has several generations behind me and hopefully many generations ahead of me, living in me. And I want to believe that we're still continuing to evolve and there's still possibility here. And it's just gonna. We don't want to be overly optimistic, but I think that the possibility that we can put work into this and have some success, I think that's important for me.

Severin Beliveau:

I think you're absolutely right and getting back on me again. I have four boys, oldest son moved to Austin. Wife for job. He worked the White House for seven years. He was assistant to the president. He was head of the military office and he had one of the best jobs in the White House. He'd like to come back to Maine. He was a lawyer but didn't want to practice law and looked around and not many opportunities here. My second son is a teacher at a charter school on the West Coast. He loved to come back here to find work. He's desperately. My third son lives here in Portland and he's happiest man in the world. Got married recently. He's loves the environment. He's totally engaged, totally committed, works very hard. I mean, there aren't too many easy jobs here for young men and women. Sometimes you have to have several jobs in order to survive. But I share your concern about. We all want our families to be here. We want to continue whatever we've contributed to the state. But again, it gets back to the economy. I agree with you. I think that almost by default, Maine going to do well because we have the lowest crime rate in the country, strongest environmental laws, the culture is very strong and there's still a sense of community here. I mean, we don't have the extremes. We have politicians who are fairly verbal and they express themselves, but beneath that veneer, I think they're all concerned about the good of the state, and they view it differently that some of us do. But I think we're all involved in a common cause in that sense. I think you want your children to stay here and I'd like to get my kids back here if we could. But I was in Austin last week and talk about a thriving community. I mean, a million people, just excitement everywhere, just sense it. Baldwin has some of that here, York county has some of that here, but, boy, it's lacking in the rest of the state.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I guess we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens in the upcoming years. But I do appreciate the time that. Not only the time that you've spent with me today, but also the time that you've spent in the state and really working to create a place that's good for our children, grandchildren, generations to come. Any last words for us?

Severin Beliveau:

No. I think this program that you have here, I think contributes a great deal to what you were talking about, communication and that people, people want to express themselves. You know, they want to feel that their opinions mean something significant. They carry some weight. They don't want to feel that they've been dictated to. And that was what I think happened this past campaign. I'm not being partisan about it, but, you know, the Democratic side, you've got the Clintons who've been around for a long time, and you have the. I think there's a lot of resentment as to whether they should dictate to us as to 330 million people. Do we need two families? Do we need the Clintons and the Bushes as the only ones who could lead our country? I mean, that's undemocratic in many ways. And I think we saw a lot of that. And I think that's. That's ending. It's ending. It has ended. And I think unbalanced is a good thing. I think, as I said, cited the example of divisions within the Democratic Party and to some extent the Republican Party. But people who, from Cumberland county haven't the slightest idea how people are struggling in the rest of the state. They don't relate to it. Where do they go when they travel? They don't go north. They go south. They go to Boston, New York and Florida. Right. Except for you and me, we still stay here and struggle, try to get by.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, thank you for coming at us, having this conversation with me. I've been speaking with Severin Beliveau, who's one of Maine's best known attorneys and who has significant experience in legislative and regulatory issues and is also the founding partner of Pretty Flaherty. Also father of four and married to, I'm sure a very wonderful person now lovely lady Flamin. Oh very.

Severin Beliveau:

How's that? That was a spiritual attraction.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Very good. And now living here in Portland. So thank you for spending time with us today and thank you for the work that you're doing.

Severin Beliveau:

Thank you Elisa. This has been enjoyable. I really had a great time talking to you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to Love Maine radio show number 276, Political Perspectives. Our guests have included Harold Patience and Severin Beliveau. Follow me on Twitter as DrLisa and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that the they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our political Perspective show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. Happy New Year and may you have a bountiful life.