Sportsman's Alliance of Maine
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205 Church Hill Road, Augusta ME 04330

Telephone: 207-622-5503

FAX:  207-622-5596

SAM PAC Questionnaire

Maine Legislative Candidates

Please return by August 1, 2006

Congratulations on your candidacy for the Maine legislature.  Your willingness to serve is commendable.  You are invited to apply for an endorsement from the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, the state’s largest conservation organization representing 14,000 members. SAM was founded in 1975 to promote conservation of Maine’s wildlife resources and to be an advocate for hunters, anglers, trappers and gun owners. We have a full time office and staff in Augusta and lobby at the legislature each session.

SAM PAC is SAM’s political action committee and endorses candidates for the legislature. This questionnaire is an important part of the endorsement process. SAM PAC’s Board of Directors scores each questionnaire and considers other relevant information – including the records of incumbents – to  establish a grade for each candidate, and then makes the endorsements. The process will be completed by mid-September and all applicants will receive a letter reporting their grade and the endorsement decision.  SAM’s members are informed of the endorsements and grades, as is the media and other interested parties.

A completed SAM PAC questionnaire is required to receive an endorsement. The questionnaire is divided into two sections: biographical information and issues.  You may skip questions if you are undecided but you will receive no points for unanswered questions and they will not contribute to your score.

If you have questions about any of the issues, we encourage you to talk to your party’s legislative leadership, SAM’s Executive Director George Smith (email: george@samcef.org, telephone 622-5503), or SAM’s lobbyists, Ed and Cate Pineau (email: pineaupolicy@adelphia.net, telephone 623-2355).  Feel free to add additional comments on a separate sheet of paper. We want to know as much about you and your views and plans as possible. We are grateful for the time you will spend on our questionnaire and look forward to reading your response.

↓PLEASE COMPLETE↓

SECTION ONE:  Biography

1) List outdoor activities that you personally participate in (hunting, fishing, trapping, shooting, snowmobiling, ATVing, hiking, bird watching, kayaking, canoeing, boating, biking, etc.).

2) Are you a     a) consumptive user or            b) nonconsumptive user of Maine’s outdoors?

3) List any specific outdoor activities you enjoy (examples:  turkey hunting, bass fishing, skeet shooting).

4) List your memberships in groups representing sportsmen, conservationists and environmentalists, and any committees that work on outdoor/conservation issues and projects.

5) List experiences that shaped your thinking about our sportsman’s heritage.

6) What legislative committees are you interested in serving on?

□ Fish and Wildlife     □ Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry     □ Appropriations

□ Natural Resources    □ Criminal Justice     □ Judiciary    □ Other (please list)    Undecided

SECTION TWO:  Issues

7) Do you support any additional state restrictions on ownership, possession, sale or use of firearms? 

□ Yes   (please explain)   □ No

8)  The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has lacked public funding due to an inability to compete at the legislature with compelling education and health care needs - even though hunting, fishing and wildlife watching deliver more than $1 billion of economic value every year.  Dependent on the sale of licenses, permits, and registrations, DIF&W fails in many aspects to achieve its important mission.  A special commission studied the funding problems of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and recommended that the department receive a small percentage of the sales tax.  SAM believes this is a good idea.  Without doubt, DIF&W desperately needs a new, reliable, permanent source of public funding.

a)  Will you work with SAM to identify and enact a new source of public funding for DIF&W? Yes No.          b)  Would you support dedication of a small percentage of the sales tax to DIF&W?   Yes    No

c)  Do you have some other suggestion for funding of DIF&W? (Please list)

9) Good relations with landowners is a critical component of most outdoor activities including hunting, trapping, and fishing in Maine.  SAM’s Deer Task Force recently recommended that a strong partnership be created between SAM and the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, including a full-time DIF&W position dedicated to landowner relations (currently only 10% of one position is dedicated to this task), and a program led by SAM in partnership with other sportsmen’s groups to mitigate landowner/land user problems as they arise.  Would you support creation of a full-time landowner relations position at DIF&W?  Yes   No

10) A fierce debate is going on about the future of Maine’s north woods.  The debate includes questions about who will own the land, what uses will be allowed, and how the land will be accessed.  SAM supports continued acquisition of conservation easements that leave the lands in private ownership, undeveloped, and accessible to the public for hunting, hiking and other outdoor activities.  We also advocate for continued use of these conservation lands by all Maine citizens for traditional and other activities.

Some want to create a Maine Woods National Park.  Others are working to establish “wilderness” areas that often exclude sportsmen.  In fact, the Department of Conservation has a working group that has identified large areas of public and private land for designation as “wilderness.”  The state has also designated large publicly owned lands as “eco-reserves,” where motorized access, including snowmobiles, is banned.  This makes much of this land impractical to hunt and fish (limited to those who are hearty enough for long hikes).

This year the legislature approved the Katahdin Lake purchase that includes 4,000 acres going to Baxter Park with a ban on hunting, trapping, and snowmobiling.  SAM opposed that ban while supporting the purchase.  We have worked with our conservation allies for more than a decade, supporting every single land conservation project, adding more than 2 million acres of conservation lands.  Never before has a project banned traditional uses.  That’s the wrong approach, unnecessarily dividing us on a project that deserved the support of all of us.

10a)  Did you or do you support the Katahdin Lake project which banned hunting and snowmobiling on 4,000 acres?  □ Yes   □ No

10b)  Would you oppose acquisitions of public land that exclude hunting and trapping in the future?

  □ Yes   □ No

10c)  Do you oppose creation of a national park in Maine’s north woods?  □ Yes  □ No

11)  To resolve long-standing disagreements over access to the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, the legislature this year enacted a law that fixes motor vehicle access at six current locations, trail access at five current locations, and snowmobile access at 19 current locations, and establishes that the six existing bridges on the Allagash River are permanent.  SAM strongly supported the bill, sponsored by Senator John Martin.  Did you or do you support this Allagash law?  Yes    No

11b) Would you oppose legislation to repeal the new Allagash law?  Yes   No

12)  Mainers lose more water access sites than they gain every year, for a variety of reasons including local opposition to any new boat launch.  SAM supports a proposal to allow state conservation agencies to construct new boat launches without obtaining municipal permits, as long as the construction follows DEP best-management-guidelines.  These waters belong to all of us and local opponents, intent on keeping a body of water to themselves, should not be able to stop state agencies from providing access for all Mainers.  Would you support this proposal?   Yes    No

13) Would you support SAM’s proposal to consolidate state water access programs at the Department of Conservation with an aggressive effort to identify and secure high priority water access sites? □Yes □ No

14)  Will you oppose any proposal to merge the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife into a large natural resource department?  Yes   No

15)  SAM and DIF&W have an official partnership in the Hunting Heritage Program, aimed at educating the public – particularly in southern Maine – about why they need hunting and hunters.  In its first three years, the program has sponsored paid advertising and free media focused on the problems caused by an overabundance of deer:  Lyme disease, motor vehicle/deer collisions, and the loss of vegetation and crops.  Will we have your support for this partnership and program?   Yes    No

16) Do you support trapping?   Yes   No

17) Other states have enacted laws to assure no net loss of public hunting grounds, requiring that if public land is closed to hunting, an equal amount of public land must be opened to hunting.  Would you support a no net loss requirement for public lands in Maine?   Yes     No

18) SAM and its allies intend to organize an independent Sportsman’s Caucus in 2007, consisting of legislators who have a special interest in the issues of concern to Maine sportsmen.  The caucus will focus on discussion and advocacy on key outdoor issues.  Would you join the Sportsman’s Caucus?  Yes   No

19)  Maine fails to invest in its resources such as fish hatcheries and habitat, negatively impacting an outdoor economy that is far short of its potential.  Would you work with SAM to identify and fund key investments in outdoor resources? □ Yes   □ No

20) Right now the only things you can’t do in Maine on Sundays are sell cars and hunt. Our friends in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire all hunt on Sundays, making it difficult for Maine to compete for nonresident hunting dollars.  Many Maine workers get only a day off a week to enjoy their hunting heritage during the hunting seasons. Would you be willing to support some Sunday hunting opportunities?

□ Yes  □ No

21) Coyote predation on adult deer limits the ability of wildlife managers to rebuild the deer herd in northern Maine.    Three years ago DIF&W stopped its coyote snaring program focused on protecting deer in their wintering yards, in the face of a threatened lawsuit by an animal rights group.  SAM’s Deer Task Force has recommended a comprehensive approach to limiting deer predation, including reactivation of the department’s animal damage control program with intensified coyote harvests around wintering yards from December through March and in coyote denning areas from March to July, with or without snaring.  Do you favor a vigorous program to limit coyote predation of deer in the areas of the state where the deer herd needs to be rebuilt?  Yes    No

22)  Maine anglers are not able to consume freshwater fish from many waters because of mercury contamination.  Will you support efforts to reduce the presence of mercury in Maine’s air and water?  Yes   No

23)  An interesting initiative proposes to tax extractors of bottled water.  Based on what you know at this time, do you favor this proposal?  Yes  No

24)  Sprawling development patterns fragment wildlife habitat, close good hunting ground, threaten natural resources, and undermine Maine’s special character.  Hunters are probably the most impacted by sprawl which is compounded by state policies, laws and subsidies.  SAM supports the efforts of Grow Smart to address this critical problem.  At this time, do you have any ideas for addressing this problem? (List)