Transcription of Severin Beliveau for the show Political Perspectives #276
Lisa Belisle: My next guest is an individual well-known, really, in the state of Maine. This is Severin Beliveau, who is one of Maine’s best known attorneys and has significant experience in legislative and regulatory issues. He is a founding partner of Preti Flaherty and directs the firm’s government affairs practice in Augusta and Washington, D.C. I know this is a very short, we’ve shortened the bio, but yours is very long and….
Severin Beliveau: I’m humbled.
Lisa Belisle: Impressive and… I mean, you’ve been around doing stuff with the state of Maine and really nationally, maybe even internationally, for a long time.
Severin Beliveau: Many years, yeah. Fifty years. Think about it. Fifty years since I…. When I graduated from law school, returned to Rumford where I was born and raised. We’re from there, my father had just retired from our State Supreme Court, and my brother came from the justice department. We started a law firm with no clients, and we built on that, and I was elected district attorney at the time and that was kind of the beginning and then I was a state legislator. House, Senate. Eventually after I was married, we moved to Augusta, to Hallowell, where we’ve been for the last 25, some odd years, and a few years ago, after our children, our four boys left, after they were educated, three of them whom were out of state, one of whom is here, we moved here to Portland where we live in a condo on Munjoy Hill. Yeah.
Lisa Belisle: So, you saw a lot of change in Rumford, I would imagine, given what Rumford used to be and what Rumford has evolved into. What was your family’s interaction with the mill?
Severin Beliveau: That’s a good point. When I was a kid in the 50’s, the mill was thriving. The paper mill at that time employed over 3,000 men and women. It was a strong sense of community, where the company was owned by a family from Connecticut. Strong unions. Good pay, the salaries, the hourly wages were very high, one of the highest in the state, and there was, again, a strong sense of community there. Since that time, the mill, which is currently in its fifth iteration I think, fifth or sixth owner since then, now employs around 700. They reduced, declined the employment from 3,300 to 7,000; that’s fairly representative of what’s happening in all the mill towns in Maine today. That can be attributed to a number of factors. I think one is competition, ironically from the Far East, where paper’s manufactured there, and Canada as well because of cheap energy prices. We visit Rumford mill market, Jay, and all these mill towns, it’s sad because you’ve seen… It’s the end of an era, and despite what certain politicians are suggesting, there’s no prospect of returning to those days.
As I said, when I was a kid, Rumford had a population of around 10,000, it’s down to around 6,500. We were one of the first families, my grandfather McCarthy, Matthew McCarthy graduated from the University of Maine Law School in 1900, and he was one of the first lawyers and the first judge in that town. My father, he was a prosecutor. I was, my uncle and my grandfather, we were the four DAs in that county for a number of years. We had a strong presence in that part of Oxford County. Unfortunately, no family members are there today. We have a home in Rangeley, and I travel through Rumford, and I have friends and all, but it’s fairly representative of what’s happening in Maine today, and I think that this last election kind of reflected that. You look at the voting patterns. The areas which were predominantly, strongly Democratic because of the unions and the workers, have voted for Trump in a big way because people are unhappy and angry and saw the economy floundering and thought that maybe there’s some way out of it. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I’ve lived through all of it, and one statistic I like to cite is that in Maine, in the last five years, our population has increased by 900 people. Were it not for the influx of immigrants and refugees, we would be in tough shape. That’s not a political statement, it’s just a realistic statement.
Lisa Belisle: You have actually a family background that’s not that dissimilar from many people’s family backgrounds. In fact, the three of us sitting in the studio including Spencer Albee, our audio engineer, we all have this French-Canadian, Irish-Catholic thing going on. We’ve talked about this with actually the Lewiston coach, soccer team coach, and his family background also had that French-Canadian, Irish-Catholic. That used to be the dividing line. That used to be… You have one side, the French-Canadian Catholic, other side Irish Catholic. It seems like it’s just again, the same story. It’s been going on for a long time. It probably will keep going on for a long time.
Severin Beliveau: Yeah, I think you’re right. In those communities, particularly in the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s as they migrated from Ireland and from Canada and Acadia, they each had their own culture and language. That was reflected in the schools and the churches in all those communities, in Lewiston and Bedford and Saco and all these and Rumford and Madawaska, Jay, all these communities, had two churches and two schools. You had the Irish school and Irish church and Irish priest and the French priest. I went to French school at Rumford. Spoke French at home to my father. We were very much aware of the cultural differences, but we didn’t experience that in Rumford. I mean, that tension between the two cultures didn’t exist, again, because you had this strong economy. When things are going well, people get along well. It’s when they’re under economic stress that all these other issues surface.
If we had a strong economy, much of the problems we have in Maine today wouldn’t exist, I think. People wouldn’t be complaining as much about the immigrants and others who are coming here. You’re right. You see the evolution here in Maine where all the economic activity is really in two counties, York and Cumberland Counties. North of Brunswick, the populations of 14 counties, beginning from Androscoggin, Oxford, Somerset, Franklin Counties and all, the population has not increased by 1% in 50 years. As a matter of fact, it’s the converse. It’s declined, and so it’s a real challenge for all of us who are committed to the state are to find ways of dealing with this. I don’t know what the solution is, but we’re out there struggling, you know, trying to find a solution to it. That’s why we all moved to Cumberland County, I guess.
Lisa Belisle: Do you think that part of what needs to happen is that people who live, and I’m one of these people, I grew up in Cumberland County and have lived here most of my life, would benefit from understanding the perspective of people who live in other counties in the state because the assumption that tends to be, “Well, we all live in Maine, so we all must think alike.” That’s just not really true.
Severin Beliveau: Oh no, no, no. You couldn’t be more right. There’s a big bubble here in Cumberland County. This area does not reflect in any way what’s occurring in the rest of the state. I can cite a number of examples. I think probably the best example is… I don’t want to inject politics into it because that’s the way life is. On the Democratic side, during the Democratic caucuses this spring, you had a clear division between the limousine liberal side from Cape Elizabeth, Falmouth, Cumberland, so forth, they all supported Hillary Clinton, and the rest of the state went with Bernie in a big way. They dominated. They wonder why poor old Emily Cain lost the second district. The problem is not the social issues, which certain people love to focus on, but it’s the economy. It’s jobs. That’s what people are concerned about.
You see this happening in all these other counties where people aren’t worried about Planned Parenthood. I mean, that’s important, and we all support it, but all these social programs don’t solve anything. We have some underlying fundamental issues that we have to deal with that is how do we strengthen our economy, how do we create more jobs. With all due respect to my neighbors and friends and colleagues and my law firm who live in this part of the world, they don’t understand the culture, the dynamic in the rest of the state. Until that happens, that’s why, again, I hate to be political about it, that’s why the Republicans do so well because they connect, that people feel somehow that they’ll…. At least they’re focused on it and may in fact produce a result. That remains to be seen, but at least they’re looking in that direction.
Lisa Belisle: I noticed even in my practice in Brunswick which is still Cumberland County so it’s still… It’s actually a somewhat diverse medical practice, and we have people from the military who worked at BIW, we have people who are fishermen and farmers and our catch area is larger than just Brunswick. There are a lot of different people with a lot of different political views who come through the doors of our office that I am able to have conversations with. I don’t think that that is something everybody has access to.
Severin Beliveau: No, no. You’re right. Brunswick is somewhat part of that limousine liberal crowd because of Bowdoin and others. You have Bowdoin, you have Brunswick and naval air stations… On the government side, I consider that to be an artificial economy. Augusta and Kennebec county thrives well because it’s the seat of government. You’ve got thousands of state employees there. Ironically, in most of the state, I’d say at least 13, 12 or 13 counties, the best jobs are government jobs. They’re not private sector positions. I can cite examples all over the state. I love people that say, “Keep government off our backs.” If we took government out of our economy, this state would collapse. Literally collapse. Not so much in this part of the world, in Cumberland and York counties, but also here to a great extent. Some of the better jobs are, particularly with the federal government, state government. The private sector can’t compete in many ways with…. Even in the healthcare side. That’s government for all practical purposes. It is.
The private sector has a ways to go in Maine, and to your point about whether the people who live in Cumberland and York Counties can connect or relate in any way to the rest of the state, I see it in a number of ways. For instance, in creating the state park, that monument up there in Moosehead Lake in the Katahdin region. The resistance, the opposition came from the locals because they were fearful that somehow this would affect their economy. Where did the support come from? Southern Maine. People who grew up there, spent a week there, a year, are not dependent upon that area for a livelihood. That dynamic is there, and I think the greatest opportunities and also one of our greatest risks is the fact that we haven’t capitalized completely on our forest products economy. You know, we have 14 million acres of forestlands here in Maine, and we’re still sending wood to Canada to be processed and returned here in a better form.
I know I’m probably expanding a little more, but I think the one big issue that would change Maine in many ways is if we had… Our energy costs. We have the highest energy cost, particularly electricity cost, in the country. We have 75% of our people dependent upon electricity. We have very little natural gas, and there’s been a real attempt to bring gas in from Pennsylvania and New York here, and there’s been tremendous resistance from people who don’t depend upon the… If our paper companies had natural gas, that’s a big factor, is energy costs because over the last 25 years, paper companies have been acquired and purchased by out of state investors, primarily investment groups, a lot of them from New York City, who have disposed of all the land. Paper companies do not own any forestlands today. When I was a kid years ago, they had their own source of raw materials, so they could control it. They only own their own energy. They had their own hydro-projects in Rumford, Jay, in Lewiston, Merrimack, all the mill towns. All those energy generating facilities have been sold to third parties so now they’re paying market rate, and it’s very uncompetitive.
Lisa Belisle: This is interesting for me because you have many years of personal perspective, but you also have family perspective if your grandfather graduated from the University of Maine School of Law in 1900. You obviously have had this familial exposure to Maine history and politics. Do you have any solutions for these problems that you’re bringing?
Severin Beliveau: I don’t have any solutions. You’re right about the history is, Maine is still a very young state. We’re a small state. My grandfather and I didn’t make… My father read law in his office. My father never went to college, but he ended up on the State Supreme Court. Those things happen. It happened back then.
Again, there’s no simple solution. I think that energy is a big factor. Last week I was in Austin, visiting my oldest son and I was talking to Emmett about it, I said, “What is there about Austin that’s so attractive to people?” He says, “The climate, the culture, and taxes,” he said. Those are the three issues. Now we’ve got the culture, we have a claim to some extent. The tax structure as a result of this most recent referendum, we’re going to be probably the second highest in the country. None of us enjoy paying taxes, but we recognize we have to pay them. Prepare to do it. It’s the price of civilization. We have a lifestyle here that is the envy of the world, and publications from your company for instance kind of reflect that. I suspect most of your members or buyers are from out of state, they’d love to have something that connects to Maine on their tables so they can show it to people.
To answer your question, I don’t know. I think energy, if I were to identify one issue, it would be energy and taxes, energy being a priority. Taxes is a big factor. In our law firm, we represent a number of businesses, and we know clients of ours who are looking carefully at Maine right know and who are having second thoughts about either remaining here or when you have a tax rate of over 10%, they would think about another…. Our incremental tax rate would be the second highest in the country for those making over $200,000. Now should we complain about it? Probably not, but they’re the ones, the people who are earning that type, they’re the ones who lead the companies and create the jobs and strengthen our economy. You can criticize them all they want, but that’s the way it is.
The other issue here, and I have to give some people credit, we do have an expanding government, and why, because there’s a vacuum there and people want goods and services, but that’s not the long-term solution. Adding more government jobs, having more people hanging around, isn’t a solution. Maybe for the short term, but I think that health care is another very big issue here which cannot be neglected any longer. As you know we have over 65,000 people who are without insurance here because the administration refuses to support the expansion of Medicaid in Maine. Those are things that we have to talk about because Forbes Magazine just listed us as the 50th worst place to do business in the country. We went up from 47th to 50th. Think about it. What kind of a message does that convey to people? All kinds of factors contributed to it but I think taxes are one and the fact that we’re the oldest state in the country, a non-expanding economy. Paper companies that are struggling. Three or four of them shut down in the last four or five years. We have probably four or five functioning, productive, successful companies, two of which went through bankruptcy in the last three or four years. I don’t know, I think the solution is getting radio business, you know, like yourself. That’s where the future is.
Lisa Belisle: I think there is something to be said, actually, about the possibility of improving communications. I’m sure that you’re somewhat kidding about getting into the radio business, but there is something that I think that I see happening that is encouraging, and that is that there is a greater opportunity to communicate with people that maybe we don’t live right next to. There is a greater opportunity if we’re willing to listen. There are more people who are… At least the people that I interview for the show and for the magazines, and even people that I see as patients, there is a sense that it is possible to try to address the problem oneself.
Severin Beliveau: The other thing I failed to mention was the importance of the University of Maine and the University of Maine system itself. The fact that we have five different campuses. We still have an essentially… not uneducated, but the percentage of students going onto college from high school has remained flat, it may in fact have declined a little bit. I think what’s happening here at USM, I think, is very encouraging. It’s been revitalized under the new leader. I think he’s doing a very good job. I think education is critical. I agree with the referendum as to its objective in providing additional funding for secondary schools, but the real need is in the college and university level because we no longer are a public university. The legislature, the government only contributes I think like 36%, 40% of the funding for the University of Maine. The rest of it comes from the private sector. It’s no longer a public school. History has shown us in those countries, in those states where they have a strong education system, the economy thrives.
My thesis is, inject more money into the University of Maine, subsidize these kids, get them to school, and that plus the immigrants. When you think about it here in Portland, there are 7,000 students in the Portland school system, and I’m told that 2,000 of whom are immigrants. What would we be without them? In Lewiston, almost 5,000 people are there, and they’re all starting to contribute. You get a lot of resistance to it, but as you know your family, my family years ago, they all migrated here from Quebec or Acadia, Ireland or some other country. It took us a while to acclimate, but we adjusted and produced something. I think they’re doing great things here in Portland in terms of welcoming immigrants and injecting them into the economy and into the school systems. I think the future here, but for the immigrants, we’d have a negative growth in terms of live births in Maine. For the last two years we’ve had more deaths than births. I think we still have to welcome immigrant communities. I think we have to do it like Canada’s doing. Canada’s open arms. Here we think that we’re terrorists or something, but in fact they have a great deal to contribute.
We know the Burundis for instance. There are a number of former French speaking colonies where their immigrants are now refugees, and they’re moving to Maine. They’re all of a sudden, even the churches there, we go to the Sacred Church in Portland. The mass is in French now. Those institutions would be gone. Even during high school. Look at the number of, in Portland high school, 26, 28 languages are spoken? That, believe it or not, I think is the future of our state because these people want to be successful, they’re grateful to be here. They don’t want to be dependent upon the government for the most part. It’s not all bad I guess.
Lisa Belisle: You worked on the Kennedy campaign back when you were a young man, so this was probably one of your early exposures to politics. That was a time of great hope. That was a time of great change. Things were happening. Do you think it’s possible that we will come to that place again?
Severin Beliveau: Hard to predict in light of what happened November 8, what’s going to happen, but I have a lot of confidence and faith in our system. I think the checks and balances are there. I think some extreme statements by politicians will… I don’t think they’ll be executed in that sense. You’re right, I’ve been involved in a number of campaigns over the years. I was involved in Watergate. I was deeply involved in the Watergate. It was my phone that was tapped at the Watergate, and I’ve been involved in lawsuits with… the Nixon committee, I’m totally familiar with that. Even back in ’73 when Nixon, when he resigned pending his impeachment. Everyone thought that that was the end of democracy as we knew it and as a matter of fact, it strengthened it. I think we clearly have some challenges ahead of us in the next four years and only time will tell, but I think that the strength of our country is we’re the freest, the most open society in the world, and I think we will continue to be that way. I think that Mr. Trump has defined himself fairly well during the campaign, but now we’re finding that when he deals with the real world, whether it’s national security or economy, his position is changing on a lot of these issues because he ultimately has to act responsibly, and the Congress I think will be a good check for him as will the judiciary.
You’re right. 1960 was a challenge because of the religious issue in many ways, particularly in West Virginia and that part of the country. Here we have a broader one. We have just a group of unhappy men and women who really believe that there’s a group of elitists who’ve been running the country and they have been forgotten, they have been marginalized. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, but that’s the way they feel, that’s how they voted. Even in Maine, a good example of that. Southern Maine was strong liberal, support for Chellie Pingree, second district went for Poliquin, very conservative. I think we have it all here in Maine. Again, it’s the economy, it’s jobs, and you can talk about anything else, I think it’s secondary.
Lisa Belisle: I guess the reason I keep pushing for the possibility of hope is, like you I have children, so I have a son who’s 23, a daughter who’s soon to be 21, another one who’s 16, and I guess I want to believe as someone who’s lived in Maine all of her life and has several generations behind me and hopefully many generations ahead of me living in Maine, I want to believe that we’re still continuing to evolve and there’s still possibility here, and that we don’t want to be overly optimistic, but I think that the possibility that we can put work into this and have some success, I think that’s important for me.
Severin Beliveau: I think you’re absolutely right. Getting back, again, I have four boys. My eldest son moved to Austin, after a job he worked at the White House for seven years, he was assistant to the president, he was head of the military office. He had one of the best jobs in the White House. He would like to come back to Maine, he was a lawyer, but didn’t want to practice law. He looked around and not many opportunities here. My second son is a teacher at a charter school on the West Coast. He’d love to come back here and find work. He’s desperate. My third son lives here in Portland. He’s the happiest man in the world. He married recently. He loves the environment, he’s totally engaged, totally committed. Works very hard, there aren’t too many easy jobs here. For a young man and woman, sometimes you have to have several jobs in order to survive.
I share your concern about…. We all want our families to be here. We want to continue whatever we’ve contributed to the state. Again, it gets back to the economy. I agree with you. I think that almost by default Maine’s going to do well because we have the lowest crime rate in the country, strongest environmental laws, the culture is very strong, and there’s still a sense of community here. We don’t have extremes. We have politicians who are fairly verbal, and they express themselves, but beneath that veneer I think they’re all concerned about the good of the state. They view it differently than some of us do, but I think we’re all involved in a common cause in that sense. I think you want your children to stay here, and I’d like to get my kids back here if we could. I was in Austin last week and talk about a thriving community. A million people, just excitement everywhere, you just sense it. Portland has some of that here. York County has some of that here, but boy, it’s lacking in the rest of the state.
Lisa Belisle: Well, I guess we’ll see what happens. We’ll see what happens in the upcoming years, but I do appreciate the time that… not only the time that you’ve spent with me today, but also the time that you’ve spent in the state and really working to create a place that’s good for our children, grandchildren, generations to come. Any last words for us?
Severin Beliveau: No, I think this program that you have here, I think contributes a great deal to what you were talking about, communications, and people want to express themselves. They want to feel that their opinions mean something significant that carry some weight. They don’t want to feel that they’ve been dictated to. That was what I think happened this past campaign. I’m not being partisan about it, but you know, the Democratic side, you’ve got the Clintons who’ve been around for a long time, and I think there’s a lot of resentment as to whether or not they should dictate to us as to 330 million people, do we need two families, do we need the Clintons and the Bushes as the only ones who could lead our country? That’s undemocratic in many ways, and I think we saw a lot of that. I think that’s ending. It has ended, and I think on balance it’s a good thing. I cited the example of divisions within the Democratic party and to some extent within the Republican party, but there are people = from Cumberland County who haven’t the slightest idea how people are struggling in the rest of the state. They don’t relate. Where do they go? When they travel, they don’t go north. They go south. They go to Boston, New York and Florida, right? Except for you and me, we still stay here to struggle. Try to get by.
Lisa Belisle: Well thank you for coming in and having this conversation with me. I’ve been speaking with Severin Beliveau who’s one of Maine’s best known attorneys and who has significant experience in legislative and regulatory issues and is also the founding partner of Preti Flaherty and also a father of four and married to, I’m sure, a very wonderful person.
Severin Beliveau: A lovely lady, a former nun. How’s that? That was a spiritual attraction.
Lisa Belisle: Very good and now living here in Portland, so thank you for spending time with us today, and thank you for the work that you’re doing.
Severin Beliveau: Thank you, Lisa. This has been enjoyable. Yeah, I’ve really had a great time talking to you.
Lisa Belisle: You have been listening to Love Maine Radio, Show #276, Political Perspectives. Our guests have included Harold Pachios and Severin Beliveau. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit lovemaineradio.com. Love Maine Radio is downloadable for free on iTunes. For a preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Love Maine Radio Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter as Dr. Lisa and see my running, travel, food, and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We would love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our political perspectives show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. Happy New Year, and may you have a bountiful life.
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