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Rick Bennett- Segment 5 · Newsradio WGAN

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  For more than 20 years, Inside Maine has connected you with the
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  state's top voices, diving deep into the political stories
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  shaping our lives on 98.5 FM, AM 560 and wgan.com.
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  And we are back on Inside Maine. I'm Aaron Chadbourne, your host
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  today. Thanks for joining with us.
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  Thanks to all of our guests who've come on.
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  If you've missed any of our interviews with gubernatorial
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  candidates, you can go to wgn.com under podcast.
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  Click Inside Maine and you'll find all of them as you will
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  find the interview we post after.
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  We have it right now with our next guest, no stranger to this
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  show, good friend of the program, longtime State Senator
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  Rick Bennett, independent, running for governor.
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  Rick, welcome back to INSIDE Maine.
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  Thank you, Aaron. Great to be with you today.
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  So Rick, you've got to be sitting back well rested,
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  thinking to yourself what is going on in these primaries?
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  You've had this catbird seat to kind of wash your competition,
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  having their fights amongst each other and I guess amongst the
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  broader field as well. But what are some of your
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  reflections watching these primaries play out?
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  Well, you know, the the parties have become very narrow minded
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  in their approaches and I have had the luxury, although it's
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  not it's, it's certainly a challenge running as an
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  independent because the parties do have a grip on the power
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  structures. But it's been a real it, it's
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  been liberating to me to be able to focus on what I think are the
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  biggest challenges and to focus on actually visiting with
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  everybody all across the state and doing the business tours
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  and, and visiting all the communities in Maine rather than
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  focus down on, you know, likely Democratic voters or likely
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  Republican voters and speaking to that narrow, narrow,
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  increasingly narrow groups of people.
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  And, and so that has been a tremendous and inspiring
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  opportunity for me. I've been been enjoying it,
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  learning a lot and really focusing on what are what are
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  the changes and, and the challenges that Maine is facing
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  and, and how are we going to address them together in a
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  nonpartisan problem solving spirit.
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  To that end, right, people know you as a Republican during the
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  time that you were in the Senate before, during the time that you
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  were the state chair of the Republican Party, and until you
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  got ready to run for governor, you were registered Republican.
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  Talk to me more about why people should think that you're truly
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  an independent, not just a Republican trying to find a
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  different path toward the same office.
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  Yeah, I appreciate that question.
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  You know, I when I returned to the state Senate after a long
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  break in 2020, I did so because I was thoroughly dissatisfied
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  with the politics as it's being practiced tonight.
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  You know, I came in as a reformer and I worked in a
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  increasingly unconventional way across the aisle on big issues,
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  allied with Republicans on some issues, Democrats on others.
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  And for the last six years have been modeling that and with some
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  success. But I've also realized that
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  during that period, the partisanship has gotten just
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  more acute. The problems are not getting
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  addressed. The short termism, you know,
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  lurching from election to election isn't going to solve
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  the long standing generational kinds of challenges and
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  opportunities that main faces. And I, I came to the conclusion
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  that party politics is holding us back and it's also destroying
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  our politics. And so I did take the step of
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  liberating myself from that construct and running as an
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  independent. The essential reason I want to
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  run as an independent is because I want to govern as an
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  independent. And that's a differing governing
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  more debt modality involves things that you don't see much
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  of in politics these days, consensus building,
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  collaboration, communication. And so that's essentially I
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  didn't I I would ask people to look at my voting record over
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  the last six years. I've been extraordinarily
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  bipartisan in my approach, really nonpartisan.
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  Just looking at a document this morning that showed a, a
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  collection of, of seven different ratings for
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  legislators showing that I was like 49% on average.
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  And while you know, it's usually, you know, 90 to 100 if
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  you're a Democrat or you know, 90 to 100 if you're a
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  Republican, depending on the, on the, the instrument.
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  I've been just taking a different approach and it's 1
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  based on getting things done, addressing our challenges in a
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  pragmatic fashion, and setting ideology aside.
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  So let's talk about getting things done because that's been
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  one of my frustrations in this highly partisan environment,
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  right? Where what you've seen play out
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  in these majority budgets and you've seen when Democrats fight
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  with each other behind closed doors, which when they come out
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  on Mike, it's all been worked out.
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  And but behind the scenes, they've been having this battle
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  and you see these trade-offs that happen.
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  We'll let you give away your $300 checks rating the budget
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  stabilization fund, if you let us put a 3% tax or 2% tax
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  surcharge and incomes over $1,000,000.
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  So it's become very partisan. It's become very behind closed
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  doors, become very dysfunctional.
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  You don't see all the the people at the table and then the very
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  good like reform ideas, some of the ones that you've had for how
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  the legislature does its business, they never see the
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  light of day and they never get worked on.
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  How do we break this partisan logjam?
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  How do we get to the stuff that's actually going to make
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  the legislature and make the main government more responsive
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  to those good governance ideas? Yes, thanks for that question to
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  Aaron, because as you observe, I've been working on trying to
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  fix the broken legislative process for a long time.
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  In fact, you know, I tried to get the, the Rules Committee to
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  meet, you know, the, the joint rules of the, of the Legislature
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  say that the Rules Committee needs to meet at least once a
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  year. Until I prodded them into doing
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  it last year, they hadn't met since 2018.
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  So they're not even looking at the dysfunction.
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  As governor, I will take a different approach.
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  I will do it in partnership with the Legislature, but I'm also
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  going to ask the legislature to step up and perform their
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  duties. One of the duties of the
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  legislature is oversight of the executive branch.
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  I served on the Government Oversight Committee, which is,
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  you know, is a unique committee of the legislature, which is
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  bipartisan and looks at things that aren't working in state
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  government and and does a deep dive.
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  I. Think I have.
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  I still have the subpoena to prove it.
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  Yeah, exactly. So I, I think, you know, the
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  governor can insist on a consensus 2/3 budget.
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  I can, I can insist that the legislature actually holds
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  hearings on the budget. Do you know, because of partisan
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  dysfunction, there hasn't been a, a public hearing on the
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  current services piece of the budget, which is, as you know,
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  90 to 95% of the state budget hasn't had a public hearing in
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  six years. And, and, you know, there's it,
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  it's been a, a tragedy. I will, I will as governor,
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  insist that those that the legislature does those hearings
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  because the legislature is in the best position to, in a
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  public forum, hear what is working and what isn't working
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  in state government. When that doesn't happen, we
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  continue programs that are long in the tooth, that aren't
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  getting the work done and our state government ends up
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  spending, you know, has the increases of 70%, which we've
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  seen over the last six years because there is no
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  accountability and no transparency.
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  Yeah, well, you definitely got your work cut out for you there.
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  I mean, you're absolutely right. The fact there aren't public
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  hearings, that you have all this spending, that it's been run
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  away, there hasn't been the accountability.
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  Speaking of accountability, there have been these
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  allegations of Medicaid fraud in the main care program.
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  The Mills administration says, oh, don't worry, we've made one
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  criminal referral on this at all.
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  Do you think that the, the reporting that's been done by
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  the main outlier and other places, do you think it's, it's
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  accurate and it's representative of what's actually happening in
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  the program? Cause a lot of people are
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  concerned about it. Do you think that there's some
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  other story there? And what do you think can
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  actually be done to restore public confidence in the
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  administration of these programs where there there are seemingly
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  these examples that don't pass the straight face test?
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  Yeah, I I find these allegations and this reporting terribly
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  troubling. And as governor, I will root it
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  all out and have a full expose and auditing of these accounts
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  because we're spending millions and 10s of millions of dollars,
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  hundreds of millions of dollars, as you know in these programs.
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  And we don't have a sufficient auditing staff at DHHSI mean
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  people's confidence in that particular department is low
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  already and and for good reason. And I have no confidence, having
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  been a member of the government oversight committee, that DHHS
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  has gotten any control over these things.
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  You know, it's it's really strange.
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  I mean, you have some circumstances where providers
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  are getting licensed and approved and being sent 10s of
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  millions of dollars that may be inappropriate.
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  And then you also have providers of long standing with the state
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  doing public service under contract with the HHS that who
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  can't even get paid on time. So the level of incompetence in
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  that particular agency is pretty extreme.
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  And I don't blame the frontline workers.
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  By the way, one of the things that we learned in the
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  government oversight committee when we were looking at the
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  tragedy of these kids dying under state custody was that the
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  frontline workers know what the problems are.
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  They were trying to address them.
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  They're under the gun under really difficult circumstances,
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  and middle management just wasn't doing its job and
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  listening to them appropriately. So we need to shrink that that
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  department. We need to we organize it, but
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  we also just need to get to the bottom of all of this, all all
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  of these this this potential fraud, which is a deeply
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  disturbing. I mean, we main people are taxed
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  to the gills and they demand and I will demand that every tax
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  dollar is spent appropriately. You know, we can disagree over
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  the programs and all of that, but there's no room for
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  corruption. There's absolute no room for
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  this kind of of of of issue. You're listening to INSIDE Main.
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  I'm your host, Aaron Chadbourne. We're speaking with Rick
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  Bennett. He's an independent candidate
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  for governor, not on the ballot during the primaries, but he'll
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  be there in November. Speaking of which, Rick, if you
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  were to get into a situation where you saw the Democrats
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  nominate someone reasonable and the Republicans nominate someone
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  reasonable, is there ever a situation where you'd say, oh,
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  I, I don't think I need to be there, Or are you going to be in
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  it to the end no matter what? I'm in for the duration.
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  People are counting on a different approach.
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  And, you know, I just don't think the partisan approach
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  works anymore. Aaron, I, you know, it was a
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  reluctant conclusion that I drew after years of service and under
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  a party banner. But I, you know, it's holding us
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  back. I mean, you know, I'm thinking
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  back to times in the legislature just in the last session where
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  leaders in both parties were not even picking up the phone and
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  talking with each other because of, you know, if you do that,
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  well, maybe it's a sign of weakness.
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  We need to start having conversations again.
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  Leading as an independent is a different way of doing it.
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  I will insist that leadership talk with each other.
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  In fact, I'll do something very basic.
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  It sounds almost silly, but as governor, I will, during the
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  legislative session, have a standing dinner with the
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  President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, the
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  Minority Leader of the House, Minority Leader of the Senate,
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  just the five of us every week at the Blaine House with no
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  agenda, just to break bread and treat each other as human
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  beings. Undoubtedly issues will come up,
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  but it will be a conversation, and we need to start opening
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  more lines of communication and having those conversations
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  rather than just assuming the worst of each other from behind
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  closed doors and party caucuses. And as governor, I can break
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  that logjam and get to a better place for government in Maine.
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  No, you know that it reminds you that what Governor LePage did in
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  his first term, you talked to Barry Hobbins.
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  He and Emily Kane used to go over to the Blaine House for
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  breakfast. They would sit down, they'd
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  figure out how to work together. But we've we've certainly lost
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  that. And I think there's no better
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  example than the example you cited a minute ago about Senator
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  Bill Diamonds proposals for a forum for for child welfare to
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  make sure that our most vulnerable kids are protected.
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  And then you see that, you know, even the legislature voting to
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  give itself more authority to even see the records and the
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  documents runs into this partisan buzz saw of the
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  governor of your same party. We've got to close ranks and
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  protect, which is just how do they sleep at night?
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  Like really, how do they sleep at night standing in the way of
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  that? Well, you know, I as governor, I
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  made it clear that if that bill hits my desk, I will sign it.
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  And I hope it will because that's the bill that would allow
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  government oversight committee to do its job.
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  In fact, as I said, I'm going to turn to the legislation to make
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  sure it's doing its job. It's a little easy, you know,
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  sometimes to fall back on and point fingers at each other and
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  say all the Democrats are the blame, the Republicans are the
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  blame. Well, guess what?
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  We need to have a a system where everybody takes responsibility
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  and has ownership, not just points fingers.
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  Yeah. No, I think we'd all like to say
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  that, Rick, we're coming up on our final minute.
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  What's kind of the biggest thing you want people to think about
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  as the the focus turns to the primaries for the parties?
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  What is the thing that you want voters to keep in mind?
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  Well, actually, Aaron, since we only have a short time, I just
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  want to make a note. You know, last week, it was just
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  nine days ago, I announced my energy policies for reform and
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  cost control at Robbins Lumber in Searsmont.
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  And it's, you know, and then just a week later we have this
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  tragedy there. And I visited them and I know
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  the Robbins family and my heart breaks for the family, for the
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  employees, for the community around Searsmont.
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  And I just want to just share that.
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  And I know that they're in our hearts and prayers across this
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  state. But you know, it's times like
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  this that Mainers pull together, and we're always best when we do
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  that. Yeah, I know it's a big,
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  horrific explosion. I know a lot of people are
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  thinking of them. The the loss of the loss of life
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  with the first responder, Mr. Cross and the firefighter, the
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  ten other people who are in their families who are suffering
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  there, they all need our our, our prayers.
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  Well said. And Rick, if people want to
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  learn more about your campaign, where can they?
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  I encourage folks to go to bennettforgovernor.com.
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  That's Bennett with two NS and two TS, and I'm really laying
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  out a lot of policies there for you to look at.
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  Rick Bennett, thanks for being back with us.
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  Good luck. Troy Jackson.
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  When we come back, this is inside Maine.
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  I'm Aaron Chadbourne.