Presque Isle legislator leaving race

PRESQUE ISLE – A Presque Isle legislator who for the past six years has served a portion of the city’s constituents in Augusta announced over the weekend that he would not seek re-election to the House of Representatives.

Rep. Jeremy Fischer, a Democrat who has served three terms representing District 5 in the House, made the announcement Saturday evening in a written statement.

Fischer, chairman of the Legislature’s budget-writing Appropriations Committee, represents part of Presque Isle.

“After six very rewarding years of public service, the time has come to shift my focus to private life for a period,” he said.

He added Sunday that after serving in the Legislature for six years while working his way through the University of Maine School of Law and marrying his wife, Sarah, last August, he felt that now was a good time to “step back and catch my breath.”

“I have graduated from law school and right now I am studying for the bar exam,” he said. “At this point, I would like to see how I can be useful in the private sector.”

Fischer said he made the decision to withdraw from the race between the end of the legislative session in May and the primary, but did not announce his withdrawal until after the primary so that the party could replace him on the ballot.

Fischer would have faced Republican Elizabeth M. Michaud in November.

Fischer unseated an incumbent to enter the Legislature in 2002 at age 22. He was re-elected in 2004 and 2006. After serving his first term on the Education Committee, he secured a position on the Appropriations Committee, which oversees all state expenditures. In 2006, he was appointed as the committee’s chairman. At 26, Fischer was the youngest person ever to hold the position and the first from Aroostook County in half a century.

Fischer noted that the amount of travel required for the position also played a part in his decision to withdraw. During his time in the Legislature, Fischer has traveled weekly between his district in Presque Isle to Augusta, a distance of nearly 500 miles round trip.

“That was not the only reason, there were several others, but it was a big part of it,” he said.

He said Presque Isle’s Democratic Committee would meet next month to appoint a replacement for the November ballot.

Fischer did not rule out a return to politics in the future.

“I think that someday maybe I will be back in politics,” he said Sunday. “Regardless of what I do in the future, I am still going to keep working on issues that are important to me such as access to affordable higher education and economic development.”

jlbdn@ainop.com

768-5681