Remember 1968 — the year of political turmoil, campus riots, anti-war protests. Much closer to home, it was the last year Piscataquis County had a state senator. The county has been effectively shut out of the Maine Senate ever since.

Proponents of the present district system (adopted in the 1960s) would argue that the old county system (each county was guaranteed at least one senator) violated the principle of one person-one vote. If that is the case, then the U.S. Senate should be abolished. Wyoming has close to 1/100th California’s population, but just as many senators.

No, the problem is one of practicality. Because Piscataquis has a smaller population than the other counties, it must share a senator. For a while, the county was ludicrously districted with the St. John Valley, 200 miles away. The senator in those days was a Democrat beholden to the Valley’s heavily Democratic majorities. In the 1970s, Piscataquis was thrown in with Millinocket and East Millinocket. Both senators who have served the district since then have come from the Millinocket area, and Millinocket, the largest town, home of a giant paper mill, has ended up with the clout.

What’s worse, the current senator, Charles Pray, is also Senate president. After he serves those duties and takes care of Millinocket (whose votes are crucial to his victories), he has little real time for Piscataquis. I am sure he does his best, but Piscataquis, like too many families, is not getting the “quality time” it deserves.

The only way Piscataquis has any real chance to be represented in the Maine Senate is to either redistrict the county with nearby Penobscot towns like Dexter, Charleston, Corinth, and Bradford, that are similar geopgrahically, or revise our Senate district system to guarantee Piscataquis and the other “smallest-populated” counties at least one senator.

Show me a “do-good” 1960s government reform hostile to rural Maine and I will show you a liberal University of Maine professor behind it. Messrs. Pray and House Speaker John Martin learned their government from such professors, so I do not expect much sympathy from their corners. But behold! — today’s UM professors have discovered rural Maine (Stewart Doty and the Acadians is a prime example), so maybe there is hope!

In the meantime, Piscataquis County should stand up to be counted — in the Maine Senate! Charles Horne Jr. Brewer