Mark Dion

Democrat

Office Sought: Senator – District 28
Age: 61
Occupation: Lawyer
Education: BA USM, Master in Human Services Administration Antioch College, Juris Doctor, Maine School of Law
Family: Married, Cheryl; two adult daughters, Ashley and Brittany
Hometown: Portland

Political experience

Twelve years as Cumberland County Sheriff
Six years as a State Representative

Why are you running for office?

I want to build upon my six years in the House of Representatives and continue to advance sound and reasonable public safety and energy policies for our state. I have served as Chair of both the Criminal Justice and Energy Committees. I also intend to work on issues that will promote affordable home health care for our seniors and policies that can help reduce the burden of student debt. Another key policy issue will involve creating economic conditions that will promote income growth among blue collar and middle class families.

• Income Tax: Gov. LePage would like to lower Maine’s income tax rate and eventually eliminate it, by increasing the state’s sales tax and expanding it across a broader range of goods and services. Do you support this proposal?
  • Other

    Income taxes can be reduced, but likely not eliminated, if we can agree to a graduated expansion of services and goods eligible for sales tax. Cutting or eliminating income taxes without a rebalancing of sales tax schedules could disrupt the revenue necessary to maintain essential core services.

• Background Checks: Do you support background checks for privately sold firearms in Maine?
  • Yes

    The lawful possession of firearms engenders an individual responsibility to insure the prudent and reasonable exercise of that right. Background checks are a common sense balancing of community expectations and the interests of individual gun owners. Background checks encourage the exercise of ethical and responsible decisions by individuals involved in the private sale of firearms.

• Minimum Wage: In light of the ballot question facing voters this fall, do you support raising the state’s minimum wage from $7.50 to $12 an hour by 2020?
  • Yes

    The working poor should have access to a wage floor that is tied to the cost of living index.

    A living wage will allow those individuals to more fully participate in the economic activity of their community with a sense of security that an adequate and sustainable base income can provide.

• Marijuana: Do you support legalization of marijuana for recreational use?
  • Yes

    Forty plus years of prohibition has resulted in placing otherwise law abiding individuals into the criminal justice system for the expressed purpose of controlling access to a plant that presents no demonstrable threat to the common good or the public’s safety. It would be better to legalize cannabis and collect the resulting taxes than continue to see marijuana as a contraband whose continuing illegality does nothing more than add to the cost of our justice system and promote unnecessary adverse civil or criminal consequences for our citizens.

• Addiction/Overdoses: Do you believe the state is doing enough in response to the rise in heroin/opiate addiction and overdoses? If not, what else should be done?
  • We are not doing enough. We continue to cling to law enforcement as the primary strategy in responding to what is largely a public health crisis. We must insure that investment of tax dollars for supply side drug enforcement is balanced with similarly aggressive investments in programs intended to enhance medical interventions and therapeutic treatment of addicts in both our rural and urban communities.