John Baldacci
American politician (born 1955)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Elias Baldacci (born January 30, 1955) is an American politician who served as the 73rd governor of Maine from 2003 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented Maine's 2nd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and served in the Maine Senate from 1982 to 1994.[1][2]
John Baldacci | |
|---|---|
| |
| 73rd Governor of Maine | |
| In office January 8, 2003 – January 5, 2011 | |
| Preceded by | Angus King |
| Succeeded by | Paul LePage |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maine's 2nd district | |
| In office January 3, 1995 – January 3, 2003 | |
| Preceded by | Olympia Snowe |
| Succeeded by | Mike Michaud |
| Member of the Maine Senate from the 9th district | |
| In office December 1, 1982 – December 7, 1994 | |
| Preceded by | Constituency established |
| Succeeded by | Sean Faircloth |
| Personal details | |
| Born | John Elias Baldacci January 30, 1955 Bangor, Maine, U.S. |
| Party | Democratic |
| Spouse | Karen Baldacci |
| Children | 1 |
| Relatives |
|
| Education | University of Maine (BA) |
| Signature |  |
As governor, Baldacci promoted the Dirigo Health insurance program, converted Maine's technical-college network into the Maine Community College System, established Pine Tree Development Zones, supported school-district regionalization, and expanded state policies concerning energy efficiency and offshore wind development.[3][4][5] His administration also participated in the creation of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and he signed legislation establishing the Efficiency Maine Trust.[6][7]
During his four terms in Congress, Baldacci served on the House committees on agriculture, small business, and transportation and infrastructure.[8] He later directed a military health-care reform initiative at the United States Department of Defense and worked as an economic-development adviser. He is chair emeritus of the board of the nonpartisan Northeast-Midwest Institute.[9][10]
Early life and political career
Baldacci was born in Bangor, Maine, on January 30, 1955.[2] He grew up with seven siblings in a Catholic family of Italian and Lebanese ancestry.[11] The family operated Momma Baldacci's restaurant in Bangor, where he worked while growing up and while completing his education.[1][12]
Baldacci graduated from Bangor High School in 1973 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of Maine in 1986.[1][2] He was the first member of his family to graduate from college.[8]
Baldacci was elected to the Bangor City Council in 1978, at age 23, and served through 1981.[1][2] In 1982, he was elected to the Maine Senate from a Bangor-area district. He remained in the chamber until 1994, serving for twelve years.[1][2]
United States House of Representatives
In 1994, Senator George J. Mitchell, Baldacci's first cousin once removed, retired from the United States Senate. Representative Olympia Snowe, who then represented Maine's 2nd congressional district, ran for Mitchell's open Senate seat. Baldacci sought Snowe's House seat and defeated Republican state senator Rick Bennett, independent John Michael, and Green Independent candidate Charles Fitzgerald. Baldacci received 109,615 votes, or approximately 46 percent, while Bennett received 97,754, or approximately 41 percent.[13]
Baldacci was reelected in 1996, 1998, and 2000, receiving more than 70 percent of the vote in each election.[13] During his four terms, he served on the Committee on Agriculture, the Committee on Small Business, and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.[8][10] His congressional work included transportation, infrastructure, agriculture, and regional economic-development issues affecting rural and northeastern states.[10]
Governor of Maine
2002 election
Baldacci announced his candidacy for governor after four terms in Congress. In the November 5, 2002, general election, he defeated Republican businessman Peter Cianchette, Green Independent candidate Jonathan Carter, and unenrolled candidate John Michael. The certified totals gave Baldacci 238,179 votes, or 47.1 percent; Cianchette 209,496, or 41.5 percent; Carter 46,903, or 9.3 percent; and Michael 10,612, or 2.1 percent.[14] Baldacci was inaugurated on January 8, 2003, succeeding independent governor Angus King.[1]
First term
Baldacci entered office while Maine faced a projected two-year structural budget gap of approximately $1.2 billion and an empty budget-reserve account.[15][16] His administration and the Legislature closed the gap through spending reductions, agency consolidations, use of additional revenues, and fee increases. Baldacci maintained his campaign promise not to seek an increase in Maine's broad-based sales or income taxes, although individual fees and some targeted taxes increased during his tenure.[17]
Among the major initiatives of his first term were Dirigo Health, the reorganization of Maine's technical colleges as the Maine Community College System, and the creation of Pine Tree Development Zones.[1][4]
Dirigo Health
Baldacci proposed a broad health-care reform plan in 2003. The resulting Dirigo Health Reform Act, signed on June 18, created the Dirigo Health Agency, the subsidized DirigoChoice insurance product, the Maine Quality Forum, and other mechanisms intended to expand coverage and moderate the growth of health-care costs.[3][18] DirigoChoice was offered to individuals, self-employed residents, and businesses with fewer than 50 employees, with sliding-scale subsidies for qualifying participants.[3] The program also included expanded public coverage and emphasized preventive care and quality measurement. Supporters argued that these measures could improve access and reduce avoidable costs, while the program's financing mechanism and estimates of systemwide savings remained politically contested.[3]
Community colleges
At Baldacci's urging, the Legislature redesignated Maine's seven technical colleges as community colleges in 2003. The change expanded their academic mission while retaining career and technical programs.[4] The system added programs and satellite locations and worked with the University of Maine System on transfer arrangements for students pursuing four-year degrees. Enrollment increased by approximately 42 percent during the first three years after the change, prompting an advisory council appointed by Baldacci to recommend further capacity growth.[19]
Pine Tree Development Zones
Pine Tree Development Zones were enacted in 2004. The program offered qualifying businesses substantial state-tax benefits for up to ten years if they created eligible jobs or expanded activity in designated sectors and locations.[1] A 2014 evaluation by the state Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability questioned whether the program's economic benefits justified its cost. Reporting on the evaluation, the Portland Press Herald estimated that the program's first decade had cost the state approximately $457 million and that many claimed jobs could not clearly be attributed to the incentives.[20]
Civil-rights and regionalization policies
In 2005, Baldacci signed legislation adding sexual orientation and gender identity or expression to the classes protected under the Maine Human Rights Act.[21] Opponents invoked Maine's people's-veto process, but voters rejected repeal in November 2005, allowing the law to remain in effect.[21] Earlier sexual-orientation protections had been repealed by referendum in 1998, and a separate proposal had failed in 2000.[21]
Baldacci also promoted regional delivery of municipal and educational services as a means of reducing duplicated administrative costs. His administration supported a Fund for the Efficient Delivery of Local and Regional Services, which awarded planning and implementation grants to local governments pursuing shared services.[22]
2006 election
Baldacci sought a second term in 2006 against Republican state senator Chandler Woodcock, independent state representative Barbara Merrill, Green Independent nominee Pat LaMarche, and independent candidate Phillip Napier. Woodcock, Merrill, and LaMarche participated in Maine's public campaign-financing system, while Baldacci financed his campaign privately.[23]
The certified result gave Baldacci a plurality of 209,927 votes, or 38.1 percent. Woodcock received 166,425, or 30.2 percent; Merrill 118,715, or 21.6 percent; LaMarche 52,690, or 9.6 percent; and Napier 3,108, or 0.6 percent.[24] Baldacci was inaugurated for his second term on January 3, 2007.
Second term
School administrative consolidation
In his second inaugural address and subsequent budget proposal, Baldacci renewed his call for school-administration regionalization. His original 2007 plan proposed consolidating approximately 280 existing school administrative units into 26 regional units, replacing numerous local administrative offices with regional structures.[5][25] Supporters said administrative savings could be redirected toward classrooms and state aid, while school boards and municipal officials questioned the savings estimates and the effect on local control.[26]
The Legislature enacted a substantially modified version as part of the biennial budget. Rather than mandating 26 statewide units, the law established procedures, size standards, incentives, and potential penalties intended to encourage the formation of regional school units.[27] The policy remained contentious and was repeatedly amended in later sessions.[5]
Corrections policy
In 2007, Baldacci's administration proposed sending as many as 125 Maine prisoners to the privately operated North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre, Oklahoma, to ease crowding at the Maine State Prison in Warren, Maine. The Maine Civil Liberties Union and other critics instead urged supervised release for some nonviolent prisoners and commutation for inmates considered suitable for release. The Legislature did not approve the transfer.[28]
In 2009, the administration again considered transferring prisoners out of state. Critics noted that employees and executives associated with Corrections Corporation of America, the operator of the Oklahoma prison, had made campaign contributions and that the company retained Baldacci's cousin and adviser Jim Mitchell as a lobbyist. The administration maintained that it was examining options for addressing crowding and costs.[29]
Energy and environmental policy
Maine remained heavily dependent on heating oil during Baldacci's tenure. His administration promoted weatherization, wood pellets, wind and solar power, biofuels, and research into tidal and offshore wind energy.[30] In 2009, Baldacci signed legislation creating the Efficiency Maine Trust as an independent administrator of statewide energy-efficiency and alternative-energy programs.[7] The statute also established long-term goals for reducing oil consumption in buildings and increasing energy savings.[7]
Baldacci created an Ocean Energy Task Force by executive order in November 2008. The task force developed recommendations for offshore wind, tidal, and wave-energy development, and Baldacci proposed a $6 million bond measure to support the University of Maine's offshore wind demonstration work.[31] In August 2010, United States energy secretary Steven Chu visited the University of Maine's Advanced Structures and Composites Center, where he, Baldacci, and Senator Susan Collins discussed offshore wind research.[32]
Baldacci was one of seven governors who signed the December 2005 memorandum establishing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate cap-and-trade program for carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants.[6] Maine enacted its implementing legislation in 2007, directing proceeds from the sale of emissions allowances toward energy efficiency and conservation. The regional program began operating in 2009.[33]
Throughout his governorship, Baldacci supported state bond issues for research and development in biomedicine, advanced composites, forest products, and renewable-energy technology at Maine institutions.[30][31]
Great Recession and state finances
The Great Recession produced repeated revenue shortfalls during Baldacci's second term. His administration ordered spending curtailments, drew down the state's budget stabilization reserve, and relied partly on federal fiscal-relief funds while continuing to oppose increases in broad-based sales and income taxes.[16][17] By 2009 the reserve account that had been rebuilt earlier in his tenure had again been depleted amid falling revenues.[16]
Maine closed fiscal year 2010 with a surplus of $70.4 million because revenues exceeded projections and agencies spent less than appropriated. Portions of the surplus were directed by law toward reserves, unpaid obligations, and anticipated reductions in federal Medicaid assistance.[34] Baldacci left office in January 2011 amid continuing debate over the state's longer-term structural budget imbalance.[35]
Relations with New Brunswick
Baldacci pursued closer economic and energy ties with neighboring Canadian provinces. In February 2008, he hosted New Brunswick premier Shawn Graham, who addressed a joint convention of the Maine Legislature. Graham discussed cross-border trade, tourism, transportation, energy, and education.[36] The two administrations also worked on electrical interconnection and regional energy planning.[37]
Presidential endorsements
As a Democratic superdelegate in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Baldacci endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton in December 2007.[38] After Clinton suspended her campaign in June 2008, he endorsed Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive nominee.[39]
Same-sex marriage
On May 6, 2009, Baldacci signed legislation permitting same-sex couples to marry in Maine.[40] Contemporary national coverage described him as the first governor to sign a same-sex-marriage law that had neither been ordered nor previously required by a court.[41]
Opponents qualified a people's veto for the November 2009 ballot, and voters repealed the law by a narrow margin before it took effect.[42] In November 2012, Maine voters approved a citizen initiative permitting same-sex marriage, and marriages began the following month.[42]
Baldacci completed his second term on January 5, 2011, and was succeeded by Republican Paul LePage.[1]
Post-gubernatorial career
In March 2011, the Department of Defense appointed Baldacci to a one-year position as director of its Military Health Care Reform Initiative. The initiative examined the organization and cost of health services for service members, military families, and retirees.[9]
In May 2012, Baldacci joined the Portland-based law firm Pierce Atwood as senior adviser for economic development and government relations.[43] He remained with the firm until May 2021.[44] Baldacci also served on the board of energy company Avangrid and as vice chair of its board.[45]
He has served as vice chair and chair emeritus of the Northeast-Midwest Institute, a Washington-based research organization concerned with the economy, environment, and regional equity of northeastern and midwestern states.[10]
Personal life and family
Baldacci is married to Karen Baldacci, a registered dietitian and former kindergarten teacher. They have one son, Jack.[1][46] The family lived in the Blaine House in Augusta, Maine, during Baldacci's governorship.[46] Karen chaired Maine Reads, a nonprofit literacy organization associated with the Read With ME program.[46]
Baldacci's brother Joe Baldacci is an attorney and Democratic politician who has served in the Maine Senate.[47] John Baldacci is a first cousin once removed of former United States senator and Senate majority leader George J. Mitchell and a second cousin of novelist David Baldacci.[11] He was also related to Maine state representative Chris Greeley.[48]
Baldacci held a technician-class amateur radio license with the call sign KB1NXP. The license expired in 2018.[49]
Electoral history
The congressional results below are drawn from the official election-statistics series of the United States House of Representatives; gubernatorial totals are from the certified Maine legislative records.[13][14][24]
| Year | Democrat | Votes | Pct | Republican | Votes | Pct | 3rd Party | Party | Votes | Pct | 3rd Party | Party | Votes | Pct | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | John Baldacci | 109,615 | 46% | Rick Bennett | 97,754 | 41% | John M. Michael | Independent | 21,117 | 9% | Charles Fitzgerald | Maine Green Independent | 11,353 | 5% | * | ||||
| 1996 | John Baldacci | 205,439 | 72% | Paul R. Young | 70,856 | 25% | Aldric Saucier | Independent | 9,294 | 3% | * | ||||||||
| 1998 | John Baldacci | 146,202 | 76% | Jonathan Reisman | 45,674 | 24% | |||||||||||||
| 2000 | John Baldacci | 219,783 | 73% | Richard H. Campbell | 79,522 | 27% |
*Write-in and minor candidate notes: In 1994, write-ins received 55 votes. In 1996, write-ins received 47 votes.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | John Baldacci | 238,179 | 47.1 | ||
| Republican | Peter Cianchette | 209,496 | 41.5 | ||
| Green | Jonathan Carter | 46,903 | 9.3 | ||
| Independent | John Michael | 10,612 | 2.1 | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | John Baldacci (incumbent) | 209,927 | 38.1 | −9.0 | |
| Republican | Chandler Woodcock | 166,425 | 30.2 | ||
| Independent | Barbara Merrill | 118,715 | 21.6 | ||
| Green | Pat LaMarche | 52,690 | 9.6 | ||
| Independent | Phillip Napier | 3,108 | 0.6 | ||