Maine State Grange

By Steven Haycock, Legislative Director
(207) 329-6835

Spring has sprung and Primary Elections are coming right up on June 9.  Participating in the primary is important step in our election process.  By participating in the primary process, you have the best opportunity to choose the candidate that best represents your personal point of view.  As always, do your research and vote your conscience.  I mentioned at a meeting one day during refreshments that we here in Maine politically are a purplish blue state, and one of the members didn’t understand what I was referring to.  She had heard the terms “red” states and “blue” states, but didn’t understand what they meant.  It started with the 2000 Presidential election, the major networks agreed when calling the various states in the Presidential elections that states won by a Republican candidate on the maps would be colored red, and those won by the Democratic candidate would be colored blue.  Apparently, major networks had been using color-coded maps on Election night since the 1970’s, but in 2000 agreed that, across all networks, red would represent Republicans and blue Democrats.  There are states that almost always vote Republican or Democratic during most elections.  The other states, according to political commentators, are purple or swing states as they tend to change from election to election.  We here in Maine are mostly in a blue state with a weird red streak, so we are purple(ish) in my view.  What does this mean for every Mainer?  We are going to spend the next six months or so getting bombarded by political ads, signs, and mailings.  It is nice to have an independent streak, but it comes with a lot of political noise.

So, I hope everyone is thinking about and writing resolutions for the State Grange session this fall, the deadline for resolutions to be considered at theState Grange Session is August 15.  As a reminder, the whereas sections of a resolution outline the problem or issue you want to address, and the resolved section more or less covers the solution to the problem.  This is resolution writing in an extremely small nutshell.  Please reach out if you need some help getting your ideas into resolution form. I have some significant experience with this.  I might not necessarily agree with your resolution, but I promise to help you get the correct form for presentation to your Grange.  All resolutions must be passed or adopted by a Subordinate or Pomona Grange to be submitted to the Maine State Grange for consideration.  (Note: certain Maine State Grange committees can also submit resolutions.)  I also wanted to note that hundreds of resolutions are submitted to the National Grange every year for consideration. Resolutions regarding public policy, not internal Grange policy, do not automatically become the policy of the Maine State Grange unless adopted by the delegates at a session of the Maine State Grange.  Until next time….