Mitchell’s Reform Plan: Job Creation, Lower Costs and Transparency

September 3, 2010
Contact: David Loughran, david@libbymitchellforgovernor.com

LEWISTON: Focusing on reducing costs, increasing transparency and positioning state government to help create jobs, gubernatorial candidate Libby Mitchell outlined her plan to reform government at a press conference in Lewiston today. Mitchell was joined by the co chairs of her Government Reform Policy Committee; Jeremy Fisher and Elizabeth Reuthe. Fisher is an attorney at the firm Bernstein Shur Sawyer and Nelson and a former Chair of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee. Reuthe owns Elizabeth Reuthe Associates; a consulting company that works with organizations to incorporate new techniques and technologies in order to improve profitability.

“In these challenging economic times, Maine people must take a hard look at how the state delivers the essential services that people rely on,” said Mitchell. “We must focus on our core missions: ensuring a safety net, encouraging private investment and creating opportunities that help people succeed.”

Mitchell’s plan includes:

Job Creation

-    Merge the Department of Economic and Community Development and the State Planning Office into the Governor’s Office of Strategic Initiatives and Job Creation. By consolidating these functions into the heart of the Executive Branch this office will carry out a long-term economic development strategy focused on growing the sectors that will provide the greatest return.
-    Establishing an Office of Business Advocates; a 211-style service that gives businesses a single point of entry into state government. This office will assist businesses as they interact with state agencies. This service will be housed in the Office of Strategic Initiatives and Job Creation.
-    Bringing stakeholders to the table to identify and propose the elimination of state taxes that put Maine at a competitive disadvantage.
-    Maintain tough oversight while directing regulatory agencies to create processes where businesses can demonstrate compliance with state standards by means other than those proscribed by statute or agency rule.

“To succeed in today’s economy we must have a strategy for long-term job growth, rather than focusing on one business at a time,” Mitchell stated. “We need a Governor who will prioritize our efforts on growing sectors that pay the highest dividends. There are things Maine can do that few other places can-offshore wind, composite technologies, forest products- to name just a few. In order for those sectors to achieve their potential, our economic development office will have a clear mission and it will work towards a single goal: create jobs.”

Reduce Costs

-    Require all state contracts to contain claw-back and service level provisions to ensure that outside entities are performing the job taxpayers hirer them to perform.
-    Implement LEAN practices in every department to eliminate duplication, unnecessary cost and practices that do not contribute to the highest level of service for Maine people.

Mitchell continued, “Procurement reform and LEAN management may not be glitzy topics, but they will save taxpayers money and improve the delivery of state services. Mainers will be getting more bang for their buck and state workers will be better able to serve the public.”

Transparency

-    Broadcast executive agency proceedings online and create a searchable, web-based, database containing every line of state spending and every state contract.
-    Require tougher financial disclosures for political appointees. At a minimum make clear that high level employees must disclose if they own property that is leased to the state and various levels of financial interest in publicly traded companies.

“Most of Maine’s public servants are honest, accessible and responsive to the people they serve,” Mitchell stated. “By continuing to improve transparency we can make sure it stays that way and that Maine people have faith that their government is working for them.”

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The Bath event covered a lot of ground, giving those who crammed into the room a good chance to get to know the four candidates who participated — independent Kevin Scott, independent Shawn Moody, independent Eliot Cutler and Democrat Libby Mitchell. Republican Paul LePage was not there, citing a previous engagement in Presque Isle.

Toward the end of the two-hour forum, an audience member asked the candidates whether they thought the Legislature had too many members. Several attempts by lawmakers to cut the size of the House and/or Senate in recent years have failed, as did an attempt to combine the two chambers into one. The House has 151 members and the Senate has 35.

Here’s what the candidates said:

Moody: “Let’s reduce the time they are in session so they’ll prioritize solutions.” He also said they need to spend more time back home with constituents, particularly considering the fact that voters have rejected three recent bills passed in the Legislature (beverage taxes to support Dirigo, gay marriage and tax reform)

Scott said regardless of the size of the Legislature, Mainers are still going to have problems with jobs and education. He said after he’s elected, he’ll study the Legislature and “come back to you with a solution.”

Cutler said he supports the unicameral idea because the Legislature could then be an “appropriate size.”

And Mitchell, who noted she was the only one in the race who has served in the Legislature, said less than 1 percent of the state budget pays for legislative costs. “Let’s not get lost in the weeds when we need to create jobs.” However, she has voted for bills to reduce the size of the House and Senate. And, she said it’s not up to the governor to tell the Legislature — a separate branch of government — how many weeks it can meet.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Libby Mitchell has pulled out of at least two gubernatorial forums because two unenrolled candidates were not invited to attend.

She is encouraging her competition to do the same.

“By winning primaries or gathering signatures, five candidates earned a spot on the general election ballot. At this early stage, when voters are still learning where the candidates stand and what their visions are for Maine, all of the candidates should be included in the debates,” Mitchell said in a statement Wednesday. “Using artificial thresholds to determine whom to invite to a debate will do a disservice to the voters, especially at this point in the race. Maine people prefer inclusion so that they can make up their own minds.”

Mitchell said she would not attend forums or debates if invitations had not been extended to all five candidates.

Groups that had invited only Mitchell, Republican Paul LePage and unenrolled candidate Eliot Cutler said they had no plans to extend invitations to unenrolled candidates Shawn Moody and Kevin Scott. With a limited amount of time for forums, they said, organizers preferred to hear from candidates they considered frontrunners. It’s not uncommon in primary and general elections for groups to filter out whom they invite, narrowing the field based on whom they consider to be viable candidates.

Mitchell, LePage and Cutler were set to appear in a forum in Bangor this morning. The forum was a “leadership roundtable,” and the three were to answer questions about cross-border economic development. It would have been the first time the three candidates appeared together. Scott and Moody were not invited.

Today’s roundtable discussion was sponsored by the Bangor Region Development Alliance, Bangor Metro and Maine Ahead magazines, with organization support form the Bangor Regional Chamber of Commerce. Chamber President and CEO John Porter said he thought Mitchell’s campaign preferred to have other unenrolled candidates on the stage, beyond just Cutler.

“I think they feel that if Eliot has the stage to himself as the only independent candidate, that just strengthens him as a candidate,” Porter said.

Both Cutler’s and LePage’s camps said their candidates were still attending.

Edward “Ted” O’Meara, Cutler’s campaign manager, suggested that Mitchell’s stand “has nothing to do with principle and everything to do with politics.”

“Groups that sponsor these events have every right to invite the candidates that they feel are the serious candidates,” O’Meara said. “To cancel something the day before with a stunt like this is rude. This would have been the first opportunity for Maine people to hear the three front runners on the same platform. Paul LePage has ducked all the debates this summer. That doesn’t seem to bother Mrs. Mitchell. Tomorrow she’s taking herself out of it.”

David Loughran, Mitchell’s spokesman, noted that his candidate was scheduled to debate Cutler, Moody and Scott in Bath Wednesday night.

“Accusing her of ducking the debates is kind of silly, considering she’s debating tonight, she’s debated twice and she’ll continue to debate throughout the fall,” Loughran said. “Libby’s happy to debate all of the candidates, and has no problem with including any of them.”

LePage’s campaign manager, John Morris, declined to comment on Mitchell’s statement, or to respond to O’Meara’s comment.

“Paul will be there to discuss energy policy and how to lower the electric bills of hardworking Maine people,” was all Morris would say about the forum.

However, a news release from the Maine Republican Party said she was running from today’s forum on economic development.

“Libby Mitchell needs to explain her record on these issues,” said Charlie Webster, chairman of the Maine Republican Party, in the release, with further comments taking Mitchell to task for her “long, sordid record of anti-business activity.”

Michael Pajak, Scott’s campaign manager, said he was glad to see Mitchell “kind of putting this stake in the ground.”

“It’s an inherent unfairness to members of groups hosting forums and the electorate who are allowed to see or hear from three-fifth of the slate that have earned a spot on the ballot,” said Pajak. “It’s certainly unfair to the candidates.”

Moody said he supported groups’ right to limit forums however they choose, but gave credit to Mitchell for making a stand on including all candidates.

“To get a balanced, objective forum, to me, you need all of them,” Moody said.

Moody said he didn’t believe Mitchell’s decision was politically motivated.

“People can second-guess the motivation, but I see her motives as being pure,” he said.

Mitchell said she also had informed organizers of a forest products forum scheduled for Sept. 2 that she would not be attending, for the same reason. Organizers of a tourism-industry event set for Sept. 9 had invited only Cutler, LePage and Mitchell, though the Democratic candidate had not contacted them yet to cancel.

Porter said organizers of today’s event had invited only the three because they considered them the frontrunners in the race. John Williams, president of the Maine Pulp & Paper Foundation, said his group organized the Sept. 2 forum, along with the Maine Forest Products Council, the Small Woodlot Owners Association and the Forest Resource Association. The groups decided that with a limited amount of time — about an hour and a half — for the forum, they wanted to limit it to three candidates, “one of whom was most likely to win in November.”

“It certainly wasn’t a reflection on the other two candidates,” Williams said. “We felt we really needed to use our time the best we could.”

Williams said the group discussed the issue again Tuesday, after the Mitchell campaign asked it to consider including the other two candidates.

“We made a decision, it’s too late to make changes, and we’ll stick with what we’ve decided,” Williams said. “You do have to make these kinds of decisions, so we did.”

Vaughn Stinson, CEO of the Maine Tourism Association, said the six member groups of the Hospitality and Tourism Alliance decided to invite only Cutler, LePage and Mitchell because of time constraints. Mitchell’s campaign hadn’t yet contacted the alliance, said Vaughn. If she does pull out, Stinson said, his inclination would be to continue with Cutler and LePage, adding that it was a decision the group would have to make.

In the statement sent Wednesday, Jesse Connolly, senior adviser to the Mitchell campaign, made the case for groups to include all five candidates.

“The public polling shows that this is a two-person race between Libby and Paul LePage. If organizations want a debate with the frontrunners, then they would invite those two. If they want to include the independents, they should invite all three of them,” Connolly said. “This race has a long way to go before the voters select the next Governor. At some point it may make sense to invite only the frontrunners, but at this early stage, doing so is a disservice to Maine voters.”

Mitchell held a press conference just before the board’s hearing on a proposal to ban the sale of certain children’s products that contain bisphenol-A, a chemical that some say is harmful to children.

The board is a 10-member citizen panel, appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature, that interprets and enforces laws relating to environmental protection.

“I believe it’s a very important piece of our democracy,” Mitchell said. “Our Board of Environmental Protection gives everyday people the right to approach their government.”

On Monday, Cutler released a plan to restructure government that included the elimination of the board. He argues that investors can spend “million of dollars and several years” trying to get approval from the Department of Environmental Protection and then must defend the proposal in front of the Board of Environmental Protection.

“The way it is set up now is something that sends up a red flag to anyone who wants to make a major investment in Maine,” said Cutler Campaign Manager Ted O’Meara.

Instead, Cutler would create a three-judge appellate court to review decisions made by the department and other state rulemakers. O’Meara said citizens would have input as decisions are made by the department.

But Mitchell said that’s not enough.

“I think a good corporation is not going to be discouraged about a public process where the issues can be discussed by ordinary citizens,” she said. “To totally eliminate this opportunity for public input is unacceptable.”

O’Meara said Cutler is putting out new ideas to make government work better for citizens and potential investors.

“She is the champion of the status quo in this race,” he said of Mitchell. “Eliot is putting bold ideas on the table.”

Mitchell and Cutler are joined by Republican Paul LePage, and independents Kevin Scott and Shawn Moody, in the Nov. 2 race for governor.

Now, a lawsuit has been filed in federal court to put “big money” back into our democratic process. The Maine Heritage Policy Center, along with out-of-state, big-money advocates, have filed suit in the U.S. District Court to overturn Maine’s Clean Elections Law, a law already ruled constitutional by that same court in 2000.

I am proud to be the first Democratic nominee for governor to run as a Clean Elections candidate. As such, I spend my time talking with Maine voters, not big donors. I listen to these Mainers’ stories of struggle and triumph. We share ideas about how to brighten Maine’s future. There is a real sense of emancipation in this experience — counting opportunities instead of corporate donations.

The law Maine voters created works well. When I signed up to run as a Clean Elections candidate, I did so with the understanding that a set of rules was in place.

Now, out-of-state think-tanks and my conservative opponents want to change the rules in the middle of the campaign.

Let me tell you, I believe politics — not any reverence for the rule of law — motivates this lawsuit. Just look at the timing: I am 75 days away from Election Day with no apparatus to change from candidate to contribution solicitor. Clean Elections means limited spending: I agreed to a cap on my spending, even while my wealthy opponents spend all they want.

But fair is fair, and it is not fair to change the rules at the last minute.

The perpetrators of this lawsuit claim the Clean Elections system somehow “chills speech,” whatever that means. If this were their true concern, why did they not file the court challenge in 2006 when Republican Chandler Woodcock ran as a Clean Elections candidate? Why did they not file the suit when candidates began qualifying for Clean Elections funding last spring or immediately after the primary?

They chose to wait until the general election was in high gear and their case, if successful, would be most disruptive to my campaign.

These opponents of Clean Elections had another chance to address their problems with the system: in the Legislature.

Republican Rep. Andre Cushing of Hampden, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, claims his rights are being limited by Clean Elections. This must be a new concern of his. In June 2009, he had the opportunity to vote against a bill that addressed the Clean Elections system; he didn’t. Instead, he remained silent and the bill passed the House, 131-0.

Maine voters created the system to reduce the influence of money in politics, and it has worked. Clean Elections candidates are free from special-interest contributions.

Furthermore, the law is rooted in Maine values — grassroots campaigning, direct accountability and accessibility to those who seek your vote. Candidates spend their time with voters at festivals and fairs, going door to door, and walking in parades.

The system allows candidates to get out of back rooms and into their communities.

Those pushing this lawsuit want to do three things:

• Remove the limit on contributions to privately financed candidates, now $750.00, so the wealthy can give more to their chosen candidate.

• Lift restrictions on independent expenditures.

• Eliminate state matching funds that allow Clean Elections candidates to have some parity with the wealthy or privately funded candidates.

I prefer to focus on other things. People cherish Maine’s quality of place; they want opportunities to keep their jobs, to build their own businesses, to educate their children, and to own their homes. My campaign is about how we increase those opportunities.

The plaintiffs’ goal, evidently, is to increase the influence of the wealthy. Interestingly, no voter has suggested that as a burning concern during my campaign conversations. Changing the rules in the middle of the game, and opening campaigns to big money, caters not to the voters, but to those wealthy enough to divert themselves with filing suits such as this. It does not promote democracy, but rather plutocracy. It is contrary to the very values that make Maine a special place.

Senate President Libby Mitchell of Vassalboro is the Democratic nominee for governor. She is the only Clean Elections candidate in the five-way race.

The event was held at the Strand Theatre on Main Street in Rockland; sponsors included The Maine Islands Coalition and The Island Institute.

The candidates discussed energy, affordable housing, education, and fisheries as well as other issues facing Maine’s islands.

“Our island and coastal communities embody the values that Maine people cherish,” Mitchell said. “My granddaughter goes to the Peak’s Island Elementary School. She gets her education there, but the school also serves as a focal point for the community.”

Mitchell continued, “The reason this school has flourished is because the community is involved. Parents and neighbors volunteer to make it work. There is a sense that they are all in it together and a recognition that their kid’s fortunes rise and fall with those of the greater community. These values are replicated on islands and in coastal communities across the state. They are the values that make Maine special.”

Over the two hours, Mitchell discussed her economic plan, focusing on education and job creation as the way to move Maine forward while keeping the state a place where everyone is able to stay, work, and raise their family.

The next candidate forum will take place on August 19 at the University of Maine at Machias.

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Those are the keys to reviving Maine’s economy, Libby Mitchell, Maine’s Senate president and Democratic gubernatorial nominee, said during a meeting Monday with the Waterville Rotary Club.

Mitchell, who spoke for about 20 minutes before taking questions from the audience, told about 30 people that she can “bring people together” to address the state’s problems.

“I am running to create opportunity not only for (my children) but for future generations, and also to make sure that we keep jobs for all of us; and for those people who are afraid of losing them, to bring a sense of security to the jobs they do have,” she said.

The Waterville Rotary Club will host lunch meetings with three of the five gubernatorial candidates. Republican nominee and Waterville Mayor Paul LePage is scheduled Aug. 23; independent candidate Eliot Cutler of Cape Elizabeth is expected Aug. 30.

Also running are independents Shawn Moody of Gorham and Kevin Scott of Andover.

Mitchell’s speech on Monday focused largely on Maine’s economy. She reiterated her support for recommendations of “Making Maine Work,” a report drafted by the Maine State Chamber of Commerce and the Maine Development Foundation.

“We know we need 40,000 more people with education beyond high school in the next 10 years,” Mitchell said, referring to the report. “I am told that there are 4,000 qualified young Maine people, or old Maine people, that are waiting to get into the community colleges. They offer programs that fit the needs of the business community and, if we can get these people through the doors, we can make sure that they are ready for the workplace.”

But accommodating more students costs money, Mitchell said. So she suggested one possibility for additional funding: renegotiating the state liquor contract.

The state privatized its wholesale liquor business in 2004, selecting a Massachusetts company to run it and subcontracting with Pine State Trading Co. of Augusta for warehousing and delivery in a 10-year, $125 million contract.

“Maybe it’s time for us to redo that contract a little early, take the monies from that and put it into a trust fund and use that money for higher education to train our young people and older people for the Maine work force,” she said.

Acknowledging that health care costs are too high for many small businesses, Mitchell said she would work to increase wellness programs.

“There’s not a person in this room that does not know that prevention is a lot cheaper than treating sickness,” she said. “So why not do what we know is right and what is better for people? And the work force is more productive anyway.”

During the question-and-answer period, Mitchell indicated she would revisit the idea of reducing Maine’s income tax rates. Lawmakers enacted such a change in 2009, but it was repealed by voters in June.

The law reduced the income tax rate for most Mainers from 8.5 percent to 6.5 percent. The reduced revenue would have been covered by increasing the meals and lodging tax from 7 percent to 8.5 percent and expanding the state’s 5 percent sales tax.

“We must go back to lowering the income tax,” she said.

Doug Carnrick of Winslow, who posed the income tax question, said Mitchell answered honestly.

“Something needs to be done,” he said, “so at least she said she would still look to reduce it.”

A lot’s happened since her arrival in 1971.

Besides raising a family, Elizabeth “Libby” Mitchell became the first woman to serve as majority leader in the Maine House of Representatives, then its first female speaker. Later, she gained the distinction of being the first woman in America to serve as a legislative House speaker and Senate president.

Self-effacing and bubbling with enthusiasm and charm, Mitchell, 70, downplays all that and looks ahead to her next quest: governor. The Vassalboro Democrat faces Republican Paul LePage and independents Eliot Cutler, Shawn Moody and Kevin Scott in the race to be decided Nov. 2.

With more than two decades in the Legislature — currently as the No. 2 elected state official as Senate president — plus experience on public finance and housing boards and agencies, Mitchell says she’s the best fit for chief executive. She’s undaunted by a looming budget deficit that could amount to $1 billion, saying she’s been through that before. “It’s not going to be easy. But I’m someone who understands government, who makes sure the cuts are strategic and the investments are strategic, rather than just saying we’re going to cut state government. I don’t even know what that means,” Mitchell said in an interview at her law office in Augusta.

Mitchell said a variety of factors and influences brought her from her youth in Gaffney, a small city in South Carolina, to a step from becoming Maine’s first woman governor.

The daughter of a father who was a salesman and a mother who taught in a one-room schoolhouse, Mitchell said politics was part of the family tradition. Her grandfather was sheriff and later became a legislator.

Her eyes widened when, as a college student, she spent a summer as a counselor at a Fresh Air camp in upstate New York, where inner-city youths got a taste of rural life.

“That was a game-changer for me in understanding how other people live,” said Mitchell. She was further influenced by the social changes taking place around her as the civil rights movement unfolded. Mitchell said she’s admired her sister, who as a teacher helped to integrate local schools.

Mitchell graduated from Furman University in South Carolina in 1962, and taught high school English for a couple of years in North Carolina. Feeling a yen for travel and having some knowledge of French, Mitchell went to Switzerland in 1965 to teach at a high school for students living overseas. Mitchell finished master’s degree work the same year from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

She became engaged and married James Mitchell, a Princeton graduate who later served as a Marine in Vietnam. While her husband was based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., in 1966-67, she taught at a middle school there.

Both Southerners, they chose Maine for their honeymoon.

“Maine was just a place that seemed very beautiful. Neither of us had been there before,” she said.

The couple later headed back to New England where her husband earned his law degree. Through connections at Yale, James was invited to work as a federal-state coordinator in Maine for then-Gov. Kenneth Curtis. James Mitchell, now a probate judge, and Libby settled on a small farm in Vassalboro, where they raise horses and use their red barn as a big campaign billboard for Libby or her children when they run for office. Of their four grown children, two have served in the Legislature. In the wake of Watergate in 1974, Libby Mitchell won her first election, for an open seat in the state House of Representatives, starting a five-term skein that saw her rise to majority leader. In 1984, she ran in her first statewide race as she challenged popular Republican U.S. Sen. William Cohen. After a crushing defeat, some questioned Mitchell’s political future.

After a stint as head of the Maine State Housing Authority, Mitchell was back in 1990, this time in a five-way primary race for the 1st District congressional seat. She finished third.

It was back to state politics after that. Mitchell served four more Maine House terms, capping it as speaker in 1997-98. Since 2004, she’s served in the Senate, rising in leadership to the presidency. And after years of making laws, she earned her law degree in 2004 from the University of Maine School of Law.

Almost as a footnote to her resume, Mitchell sat on the select board of Vassalboro from 2000 to 2009.

Her big challenge as a candidate will be the counter her characterization by other candidates that she’s out of the political mainstream — some observers say she’s too liberal — and convince voters she can work across the partisan aisle to solve the state’s problems, said L. Sandy Maisel, professor of government at Colby College in Waterville. Ideology aside, Mitchell and LePage are both appealing people, said Maisel, who’s also director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Colby.

“Those who don’t care about the swamp of partisan politics genuinely like them,” Maisel wrote in an e-mail. “Cutler has not yet made that kind of emotional connection to Mainers.”

Mitchell points to her service as housing authority director from 1986 to 1990, and on the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, a post she held from 1994-2000. Mitchell, who was appointed to the board by then-President Bill Clinton, was the first woman to chair the bank.

Her past as a teacher shines through Mitchell’s legislative portfolio, which includes sponsorship of a bill that made Maine the first state in the country to used state funding to expand the Head Start program. She’s played instrumental roles in difficult budget deliberations amid vanishing revenues and helped guide through bipartisan borrowing plans.

PORTLAND- Libby Mitchell, Democratic candidate for Governor, today endorsed many of the recommendations contained in the “Making Maine Work” report that was issued last month by the Maine State Chamber of Commerce and the Maine Development Foundation.

“The Maine business community deserves congratulations for the thoughtful analysis and recommendations contained in the July report,” Mitchell said. “Many of the provisions are at the core of my vision for making Maine a place where our children have greater opportunities to live, work and raise a family. To do that we have to strengthen our economy and protect the quality of place Maine is famous for. Eleven of the recommendations in this report do just that.”

The report reflects the results of a survey of over 1,000 Maine business people, as well as analysis by the Maine Development Foundation and the Maine State Chamber of Commerce.

Its twelve recommendations include:  limiting health care inflation; expanding wellness programs; using state government’s purchasing power to encourage best health care practices; limiting short-term energy costs, while creating long-term energy alternatives; continuing efforts for tax reform; changing the government’s culture of regulation; creating an integrated state approach to education; supporting lifelong learning; promoting innovation in businesses; creating balanced and affordable transportation and communications systems; supporting quality of place efforts; and increasing capital access for Maine businesses.

“I wholeheartedly endorse eleven of these recommendations, and while I strongly support diversifying our sources of energy by expanding renewable power generation, I do not support the construction of a nuclear power facility in Maine,” Mitchell continued.

Yesterday, Mitchell announced that Charles “Wick” Johnson of Kennebec Technologies and Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree will chair her policy committees. These groups will continue to discuss Mitchell’s policy agenda, including the recommendations made in the “Making Maine Work” report.

The full “Making Maine Work” report can be found at:  http://www.mainechamber.org/images/MakingMaineWork/MakingMaineWork_Report2010WEB.pdf

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AUGUSTA — The three rivals who lost to Senate President Elizabeth Mitchell in the Democratic Party primary will lead policy subcommittees in support of her gubernatorial campaign.

Former Attorney General Steven Rowe, Stanford Management Chief Executive Officer Rosa Scarcelli and former Department of Conservation Commissioner Patrick McGowan have agreed to solicit input from people across the state on topics such as jobs, energy, and education, the Mitchell campaign announced Wednesday.

Also, House Speaker Hannah Pingree, D-North Haven, and Kennebec Technologies owner Charles “Wick” Johnson, of Hallowell, will serve as leaders of the campaign’s overall policy committee.

“By engaging in a discussion with business leaders, citizens and industry experts, these groups will help enhance the policy agenda I am presenting to voters,” Mitchell said in a statement. “I look forward to hearing their ideas on how to create more opportunity for Maine people.”

Mitchell said her central themes include creating jobs by providing tax incentives to attract investment, reducing health care costs by providing incentives for prevention, establishing a small-business “ombudsman” and requiring all political appointees to file financial disclosures.

Regarding the latter of those themes, spokesman David Loughran said Mitchell wants to enhance the public’s trust in government by expanding financial reporting requirements to more top level government officials.

“She thinks that people who make policy at the highest levels should disclose their finances in a meaningful way to avoid any conflicts of interest, and to give the public the information they need to continue to have faith that government officials are serving the public interests,” he said.

Mitchell, of Vassalboro, is one of five people running for governor. She faces Republican nominee Paul LePage, mayor of Waterville; independent Eliot Cutler, of Cape Elizabeth; independent Shawn Moody, of Gorham and independent Kevin Scott, of Andover.

The day after the June primary, which Mitchell won with 34 percent of the vote, all three of her opponents pledged to support her during the campaign.

Rowe will be co-chairman of Mitchell’s education subcommittee with Terry MacTaggart, the former chancellor of the University of Maine system, and Marjorie Medd, a former member of the state Board of Education and current UMS trustee.

Scarcelli will be co-chairwoman of the jobs and economic development subcommittee, with Johnson. McGowan will be co-chairman of the energy and environment committee with Adam Lee, of Cumberland, president of Lee Automalls.

Scarcelli said she has already met with a group to gather ideas to help the state economy.

“We’ve got a really great diverse group of people,” she said, “supporters and nonsupporters. I think Libby sees herself as a consensus builder.”

Mitchell also announced the formation of health care and government reform subcommittees for her campaign on Wednesday.

Dr. Maroulla Gleaton, an Augusta ophthalmologist, will co-chair the health care committee with Pingree, while the government reform committee will be co-chaired by Jeremy Fischer, a former legislator from Presque Isle, and Elizabeth Reuthe, a management consultant and town official in Vassalboro.