Governor Peter Shumlin of Vermont

10/27/14

Governor Peter Shumlin

Executive Office of Governor Peter Shumlin

109 State Street, Pavilion

Montpelier, VT 05609

Dear Governor Shumlin,

My name is Matthew Winick from Ann Arbor, Michigan.  I find your ideas very inspiring to me and your ideas are important for history and our country.  Governor Shumlin, I myself like studying history, political science, criminal justice, and some business with some science. I enjoy learning these subjects because I want to learn on how to improve society by understanding the need for reform like Health care reform to help people with pre-existing conditions or who need care to get access to a health care with not getting rejected by insurance companies, a need to fix the criminal justice system by reforming sentencing for non-violent offenders with extending more rights for juveniles, advance on Civil Rights to end discrimination for people who are different, the need to better protect the environment by using renewable energy with environment protection to reduce pollution, and many others. Learning and studying these different subjects gets me interested on working with creating new ideas.  

In my winter semester last year I took Intro to Criminal Justice class and I really enjoyed learning about how the system works, the court system, civil liberties, and the need for reform to have checks and balances in the system.  My instructor got me interested in looking up on different alternative ways to fix the system.  I did some research and it helped me generate ideas like the need to extend rights for juveniles, a strong need for alternative sentencing for non-violent offenders like community service, more treatment programs with counsel to help drug addicts or drug users from being addicted to drugs, some regulations on gun sales by having background checks, and education programs to address the need to reduce drug abuse with gun violence. I enjoyed learning about the system and the strong need to reform the system. Governor Schumlin, I decided to do some research about you and I find your work with idea to reform the criminal justice system inspiring to me. I am amazed by your approach by finding ways to reduce non-violent offenders from serving a jail sentence by having programs to help rehabilitate them, more treatment programs to help reduce drug addiction with drug abuse, and having checks with balance on legalizing marijuana with some regulations like fines or treatment programs instead of facing harsh sentencing.  I find your approach to be common sense.

Besides your work on reforming the criminal justice system I find your other work with stance inspiring to me like advocating for a better health care system like single payer system to help people get the health care they need, supporting environment protection by using renewable energy to reduce pollution with staying away from fracking, advancing on Civil Rights to end discrimination for people who are different, and finally support same-sex marriage and equal partnership to even make Civil Rights stronger.  In my opinion from a history perspective I believe that you are making a great difference with leading great examples for our country to learn new ideas with common sense reform.  I wish you well on continuing your role as Governor of Vermont and to continue working on new reforms to make a great difference not only for your state, but your our country, and for me. Thanks for taking the time to read my letter.

Sincerely,

Matthew B. Winick