Full name: Deborah Simpson

Address: 551 Turner St., Auburn

E-mail: deborah.simpson4@verizon.net

Deborah Simpson is the Democratic challenger in Senate District 15, which includes Auburn, Durham, Poland and New Gloucester. Simpson is currently serving her fourth term in the House of Representatives representing House District 69.

Simpson has lived in Auburn for over 40 years. In the Legislature, she was a two-term chairwoman for the House Judiciary Committee, and serves on the National Conference of State Legislators Executive Committee.

Tax reform and small business growth are interconnected, Simpson said, and are the two main issue she would like to address if she is elected to the Maine Senate.

Maine has the seventh highest income tax rate in the nation, she said. That makes the state unattractive to both high earners and small business owners. In order to lessen the income tax rate, Simpson would like to see the sales tax broadened to get more from non-residents and tourists while lowering the burden on residents.

A broader sales tax would also stop the boom-and-bust cycle that occurs in this state because the tax focuses on things like construction, which increase in good times and decrease in bad, she said.

“There are too many exemptions,” said Simpson. “It creates instability in the system, and it’s unfair. Why go after construction and people who want to build a house?”

Simpson would also like to promote the use of alternative energy by establishing small grants that would help individuals complete projects such as winterizing homes. She also supports an expansion of the rebate program for solar and wind power.

“The cheapest kilowatt hour is the one you don’t have to use,” she said.

Simpson would not only like to see alternative energy technology used in Maine, but manufactured here as well, as a way to replace some of the jobs lost in that sector.

“You have a skilled workforce in manufacturing,” she said.

During her time as a committee chairwoman in the Maine House, Simpson said she learned how to come to compromises in order to pass laws both sides could agree on.

“I can bring that kind of bipartisan approach to the Senate,” she said.

Rep. Deborah L. Simpson