Former Governor John Baldacci of Maine

2/13/15

Governor John Baldacci

Pierce Atwood LLP

Merrill’s Wharf

254 Commercial Street

Portland, ME 04101

Dear Governor Baldacci,

My name is Matthew Winick with an interest in studying history, government, and the criminal justice system.  I like studying these subjects because I am interested in learning about how different ideas can make a great difference in improving society; a strong need to make Civil Rights stronger to protect people who are different from discrimination, a strong need to protect the environment by using renewable energy with environmental protection from pollution, a need for checks and balances to make the criminal justice system by having reforms to protect people’s civil liberties while finding ways to reduce crime,  have a healthcare reform to help people with pre-existing conditions or who can’t afford insurance to get the care they need,  a need to reduce corruption in elections with public officials by having government reform with campaign finance reform,  and many others.  I plan in the future from what I learned from these subjects especially History to teach people on the need to improve society with common sense ideas with finding ways to make history a better tool to help people understand better with creating different ideas to make society better. Governor Baldacci, I find your work as Governor of Maine to be very inspiring to me with your common sense ideas with approach on dealing with different issues on the criminal justice system, government reform, healthcare, and Civil Rights.

When you were Governor of Maine from 2003-2011 I liked on how you worked on creating Dirigo Health Care Act which helped businesses by assisting them to help cover workers with health insurances by providing subsidies and expanded preventative care to assist people who don’t have insurance or have pre-existing conditions get the medical care they need.  On education I really like your approach on improving higher education by making higher education easy for community college students get transferred with their credits easier to a four-year college to further advance on their degrees. Also what I liked about your work on college was supporting improving community college by adding more programs to help students and hire teachers to help teach college students on different subjects. On Civil Rights, I really liked on how you expanded on Civil Rights like improving equal pay for women with minorities, supporting people with different sexual orientation including gender identity to be protected from discrimination, and finally support same-sex marriage to make marriage equal for people. Another thing I liked about your approach on the environment was that your commitment to protect the environment by implementing Renewable Portfolio Standards, a program where it encourage alternative energy companies to invest in your state by assisting on creating clean jobs, supporting renewable energy with alternative energy like solar, wind, biofuel, and energy efficient products as energy sources to reduce high energy cost with pollution, and increasing research funding for ways to protect the environment with promoting technology or alternative energy to make a better future to improve public health with reducing carbon emissions.  I liked on how you worked on reforming the criminal justice system by creating alternative sentencing like treatment programs with community services for non-violent offenders including drug abusers to help them rehabilitate with reducing drug rates instead of strict sentencing, support extending rights for juveniles, support the need for DNA testing to reduce sending an innocent person who is accused of a crime, and legislation to protect people who are different from hate crime.

Governor Baldacci, I strongly believe that you really made a great difference for society and history by working to improve society by finding ways to protect the environment by promoting renewable energy with funding research, improve Civil Rights to end discrimination, make college education easy to access with improving education, making healthcare better for people to afford the care they need, and your commitment to work on reforms for the criminal justice system to have a balance between civil liberties when dealing with crime. Your work on the criminal justice system really inspired me to take a criminal justice class where I got motivated to work on new ideas to reform the system with assistance from my instructor.  Also your work on other issues really helped me get motived to continue learning history with working on new ideas to improve society.  Thanks for taking the time to read my letter, inspiring me to be interested with motivated to be interested in studying criminal justice, government, and history, and making a great difference for society.  I want to wish you well at Pierce Atwood LLP where you can continue making society better for the future and our country with your common sense ideas in energy, education, healthcare, and reform.

Sincerely,

Matthew B. Winick