Maine small business owners endorse Gideon for Senate

Members of the Maine Small Business Coalition (MSBC), a group that represents 4,000 small businesses across Maine, endorsed Democrat Sara Gideon for U.S. Senate at a virtual forum on Tuesday.

The small business owners said that Gideon earned their support over Sen. Susan Collins because of the incumbent’s insufficient record on addressing climate change, her votes imperiling health care through the Affordable Care Act, and her role is passing tax cuts that tilted the playing field in favor of large corporations over small businesses.

Eleanor Kinney, a farmer and owner of River House, a farm-to-table restaurant on the Damariscotta River, said Collins has not taken action on keeping fossil fuels in the ground.

Cathy Rasco, owner of Arabica Coffee in Portland, says she endorses Democrat Sara Gideon because Sen. Collins has undermined the Affordable Care Act, which she and her family rely on.

“We are very, very focused on sustainability,” Kinney said. “I want a champion in the Senate who shares those values. And I do not feel that about Susan Collins, I do not feel that she has been a consistent advocate for combating climate change. She does say that she believes climate change is real and that she supports job creation and renewable energy. But those are the easy positions.”

Kinney continued, “The tough votes are the votes that limit the creation of new fossil fuel infrastructure. We cannot combat climate change if you keep drilling for oil and building new pipelines that will lock us into decades of burning fossil fuels. Susan Collins voted for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. She voted for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.”

Kinney said she supports Gideon because she has been endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. She also cited the fact that Gideon has worked with Gov. Janet Mills to create the Maine Climate Council, which she said is helping Maine communities to develop climate resiliency and adapt to climate change.

MSBC director Adam Zuckerman said that the coalition (a partner of the Maine People’s Alliance, which operates Beacon) organizes small business owners to advocate for responsible economic development, environmental stewardship, and investment in community.

A major factor in their decision to endorse Gideon, he said, is Collins’ consistent record of supporting corporate interests that conflict with the interests of many small business owners in the state.

“It’s really about who is she helping — small businesses on the Main Streets across Maine, or big businesses, many of which are out of state,” Zuckerman said.

Jim Wellehan, owner of Lamey-Wellehan shoe stores, said he supports Gideon because of Collins’ decisive 2017 vote for the GOP’s $1.5 trillion tax bill, which cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy and failed to spur growth and raise wages, despite Collins’ promises.

“It’s already hard enough for us to compete against giant monopolies like Amazon, but when Senator Collins puts her finger on the scale for them it makes it nearly impossible,” Wellehan said. “We need a senator who stands up for Main Street instead of Wall Street. We need Sara Gideon.”

Gale White, co-owner of Lubec Brewing Company, said that Collins’ vote for the GOP tax bill also endangered the Affordable Care Act, which he depends on being self-employed. The vote effectively eliminated the Obama-era health care legislation’s individual mandate, which required every American to enroll in a health insurance program. Eliminating the mandate gave the Trump administration and a group of Republican state attorneys general the legal justification to prosecute a lawsuit against the ACA, alleging the law is unconstitutional.

“For small business owners like me, killing the Affordable Care Act would be crippling. I’m really worried about what I would do without insurance,” White said. “Thankfully, Sara Gideon has promised to strengthen the ACA. She supports a public option, which will help bring down costs.”

Cathy Rasco, owner of Arabica Coffee in Portland, says she could not afford health insurance prior to the ACA, instead relying on the cheapest coverage she could find, which only covered catastrophic emergencies. The ACA banned insurance companies from selling “junk” insurance that offered only minimal coverage, but those regulations were rolled back by the Trump administration.

“One out of every five enrollees in the Affordable Care Act is a small business owner. It has also helped us to hire and retain the most qualified employees regardless of whether or not those employees have pre existing conditions,” Rasco said. “I can say without a doubt that my family and I are only able to afford decent health care coverage because of the subsidies built into the ACA.”

Photo: Sara Gideon campaign