“I personally believe democracy is not a spectator sport,” said Everett “Brownie” Carson, who is running for state Senate in District 24, which includes Brunswick, Freeport, Harpswell, North Yarmouth and Pownal.

Carson’s own career is a testament to that belief. While he’s never served as a legislator, Carson has been involved in politics for most of his life. Following a tour of duty in Vietnam, Carson would become involved in Vietnam Veterans Against the War and active in the anti-war movements of the early 1970s. His political activities at the time even involved a brief run for Congress, although he lost in the primaries to the incumbent Democratic representative.

After graduating from University of Maine School of Law, Carson joined Pine Tree Legal Assistance, a group dedicated to providing free legal assistance to low-income Mainers. Following that, he joined the staff of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, a nonprofit working to conserve and protect Maine’s environment. Shortly after joining that group, he was promoted to executive director, a position he would hold for over a quarter of a century before stepping down in 2010.

“If you care about what happens in the future, if you want to build a better future for your kids, you get involved, whether it’s knocking on doors — which I’ve done for years — or doing the kind of work that I did at Pine Tree Legal Assistance or with the Natural Resources Council of Maine,” said Carson.

After decades of working from the outside to shape Maine’s environmental policy, Carson is ready to change Maine’s laws on a host of issues from the inside. Carson is running against Tristam Coffin of Brunswick, a veteran who entered the race at the last minute when placeholder Eric Lusk withdrew his name. The winner in November will replace current state Sen. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, who is term-limited.

For Carson, there are two major issues that the next Legislature must address.

“Our children and our natural environment are the two fundamental foundation blocks for Maine’s future,” said Carson.

Carson wants to broaden accessibility to pre-K education in Maine. He points to Family Focus in Brunswick Landing, a nonprofit early education center, as an example of the type of program he wants available to all Maine families.

“That is the kind of program that I think need we really need to make broadly available to kids in Maine,” he said.

Moreover, Carson wants to increase education funding across the board. He’s a supporter of the Stand Up for Students referendum that Mainers will vote on in November. That ballot question would help state government reach its obligation of providing 55 percent of education funding by adding a 3-percent surcharge tax on Mainers with incomes of more than $200,000. While he’s not certain where he would draw funds to support an early childhood education effort on top of that, he insists that the Legislature could find the money to make what he considers to be a critical investment in Maine’s future.

“We not only can afford that — we can’t afford not to,” said Carson.

On a whole host of issues, Carson contrasts himself with Gov. Paul LePage’s policy proposals.

“When we cut taxes in this state, we generally cut them more for the people who have the greatest ability to pay on the theory that that will keep people as residents here, that somehow that will somehow attract business,” said Carson. “In doing that we do two things: We shift the burden onto families that are in many cases least able to pay and we also cut programs that are absolutely essential, or we don’t fund those programs at all.”

Moreover, Carson thinks it is absurd that Maine rejects federal funding for programs that could help Maine’s neediest citizens. Perhaps the most obvious example is Medicaid expansion, which LePage has vetoed multiple times. Under the Affordable Care Act, states that expand Medicaid within certain criteria could have the federal government cover all of the costs for new enrollees for the first few years. Proponents of Medicaid expansion in Maine say that’s a deal too good to pass up on.

“It is just plumb backwards, and frankly stupid for the governor to reject Medicaid expansion,” said Carson.

Still, Carson admitted that bipartisan, veto-proof support will be needed to pass legislation over LePage’s opposition. While Carson hopes for a strong Democratic majority in the Maine Senate next year, he knows that he’ll need some Republican support to enact legislation over the next two years. He thinks that a bipartisan coalition can be built around three major issues: The solar energy bill that just barely failed in the last session; increased funding for education, be it pre-K of university level; and a jobs bill. Carson hopes that legislators and voters will support a new direction for the state.

“With two years left (in LePage’s term) you ask the people of the state of Maine and everybody in the Legislature, fundamentally which direction do you want to go in?” asked Carson. “Do you want to make the critical investments and develop the important policies that will set this state on a positive course, or do you want to stay with the governor’s, what I believe to be backward, approach to the future?”