Democratic Rep. Kimberly Monaghan, a three-term incumbent, faces Republican challenger George Van Syckel on Nov. 8 in a race for the House District 30 seat, representing part of Cape Elizabeth.

Monaghan, 57, is a project manager for the Common Dreams progressive news website and an adjunct professor of tourism and hospitality at the University of Southern Maine. As a legislator, she has served on the Judiciary, Veterans and Legal Affairs, and Ethics committees and is co-chairwoman of the Maine Right to Know Advisory Committee. She also served on the Cape Elizabeth school board from 2010 to 2011.

Van Syckel, 57, works in sales and management with Prime Motor Cars of Scarborough, is an ordained American Baptist minister and serves as chaplain of the Cape Elizabeth Police Department. He has never been elected to public office.

Monaghan received $6,750 in state funding through the Maine Clean Election Act and had spent $5,431 through Oct. 25, for costs including brochures, postage, advertising, and coffee for meet-and-greet events, according to campaign finance reports.

Van Syckel received $6,734 in Clean Election funding and had spent $1,656 through Sept. 20, including $632 for political consulting services from Whistlestop Strategies in Scarborough.

Monaghan said she’s seeking re-election because she wants to “continue to make a progressive difference for Cape Elizabeth and for Maine,” she wrote in response to a Portland Press Herald survey. “I will continue to work together with fellow lawmakers to improve our economy, create jobs, strengthen public education, help our veterans, protect our environment and provide affordable housing and healthcare to all Mainers.”

Monaghan said she opposed Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s efforts to reduce and eventually eliminate the state income tax because it “would create a large budget hole that would likely lead to cuts or increases in other taxes, such as education, health care and property taxes.”

Monaghan said she supports the November ballot initiatives to require background checks for private gun sales and raise the minimum hourly wage to $12 by 2020. While she said she hadn’t made up her mind on the question of legalizing recreational marijuana use, she said Maine should expand treatment programs to address the heroin and opiate addiction crisis, including medication-assisted treatment.

Van Syckel didn’t respond to the newspaper’s written survey. However, on his personal Facebook page, he posted a public explanation of his reasons for running, saying that he was asked to seek office “by a Cape Elizabeth resident of over half a century and a lifelong registered Democrat.”

Van Syckel said overregulation is unhealthy for Maine’s economy and he wants “politicians to get out of the way of Maine businesses (because) businesses create jobs, not the government.”

Van Syckel said he understands the guiding principles of the Constitution and believes that “the continual compounding of laws must be stopped. If we enforced the laws we already have, we would not continue to want more laws. Our politicians have stepped out of the role of being our voice in Augusta and Washington, D.C., and have taken it upon themselves to decide how we shall then live.”

In a brief interview, Van Syckel said he opposes all of the November ballot initiatives, largely because of “wording.” He didn’t respond to an additional request for his positions on eliminating Maine’s income tax or whether the state is doing enough to address the drug crisis.

 

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