Progressive, moderate face off in House race

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The race for House District 46 – Camden and Rockport – pits a Democratic challenger against a two-term Republican incumbent who is a rising star in his party.

The Democrat is David Miramant, 51, of Camden, a retired Delta Air Lines pilot who has served on the town Select Board.

The Republican is Stephen Bowen, 37, a social studies teacher at Camden-Rockport Middle School.

While Miramant’s Democratic views are probably closer to a majority of the district’s voters – both towns supported Al Gore and John Kerry in the last two presidential elections – Bowen has earned a reputation as a social moderate and as a bright, articulate and pointed barb in the side of the Democratic-controlled Legislature and Blaine House.

Miramant was a “place holder” candidate for the seat in 2004 until Susan Dorr of Camden, who won the seat in 2000, decided to again seek election. She lost to Bowen.

This time, Miramant said, he was willing and able to devote time to the effort.

“I suddenly had the time to put into this,” he said Friday, because of a retirement from Delta precipitated by the company’s financial woes.

A consistently progressive voice on the Camden Select Board during his service from 2000 to 2003, he believes he can bring fresh perspectives to state debates on economic development, tax reform and preserving Maine’s natural resources and quality of life.

“We need a voice of someone who can see a new picture,” he said.

Miramant has studied the recent Brookings Institution’s report that analyzed Maine’s investment needs, as well as the recommendations of the nonprofit group Grow-Smart Maine, which co-sponsored it. He supports both groups’ call for sustainable prosperity, and what he said is their rejection of “the old way of thinking.”

While traveling around the country as a pilot, Miramant said, he was exposed to new ideas from different regions on such topics as renewable energy and “green” building. He now operates a sightseeing glider business, which he said informs his understanding of what small businesses face in Maine.

If elected, Miramant pledges to work to broaden the sales tax to help ease the property tax burden.

“We have to figure out ways to tax more nonessential things” that are exempt from sales tax, he said. The glider rides he offers in his business are not taxed, a good example of a service that should be taxed, he said.

Miramant also wants to work to protect Maine’s quality of life and the natural resources to which they are linked, which he believes will help bring new businesses and more tourism to the state.

If elected, he hopes to serve on the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee or Natural Resources Committee.

Bowen served on the State and Local Government and Marine Resources committees in his first term, then on the powerful Appropriations Committee in his second term, a testimony to his stature in the Legislature.

If he wins re-election, and if his party gains control of the House, Bowen wants to run for a leadership position.

“I will probably run for majority leader,” he said Friday. If Democrats retain control, he will seek his party’s “whip” post.

“I tend to be pretty fiscally conservative,” Bowen said, but he supported sexual orientation being added to the state’s human rights law, and he was endorsed by the Maine League of Conservation Voters.

“I think I’ve tried to reflect the concerns of these communities,” he said, and noted he won nearly 800 more votes than did President Bush, his party’s standard-bearer in 2004, in Camden and Rockport.

Bowen believes he earned a spot on the important Appropriations Committee in part by serving on two standing committees in his first term and a select group on regionalization.

“It gave me a pretty broad understanding of things,” he said.

In his first term, Bowen formed a caucus for legislators of both parties dealing with the issues of coastal towns, such as high property taxes, development pressure and sprawl.

He worked to expand the circuit-breaker property tax relief program, but believes all levels of government need to look at further consolidation. As an example of what could be done, Bowen suggested that county government might provide payroll services for all of a county’s municipalities, or provide code enforcement services.

He also believes school district consolidation is necessary, though he said Gov. John Baldacci’s push toward that goal may have been too severe.

“There’s a cultural resistance to that,” Bowen said, but he hopes the Legislature can offer incentives to consolidation. “I think there’s a lot more carrots to pass out than sticks.”

“The entire tax code needs to be reworked,” he said, including the income tax. “The sales tax model was constructed in the ’60s,” Bowen added, when the economy was more product-based, unlike the current service base.

Economic development efforts will be hampered until Maine’s high tax rate can be reduced, he said. And Bowen thinks the reach of state government must be reduced.

He recently spoke with a Rockport business owner who said it took all day to compute his business equipment tax, including several calls to Augusta.