A system of checks and balances. This is our Republic. A government for the people, by the people. While the musical strands of “Schoolhouse Rock” dance through our memories, it’s easy to forget that all the participants within the Republic are subject to these checks and balances, including the people by and for which the government derives its power. Yes, even the citizen cannot have liberty without responsibility.

The makeup of legislators in Maine’s current 129th Legislature is almost identical to Maine’s 115th Legislature. I was first hired as a legislator staffer for the second session of the 114th Legislature. The 115th was my first experience working for a full two-year session of the Maine Legislature.

Dear Gov. Janet Mills, By the time you read this, the word "elect" will have been dropped from your title, and you will be our new governor. I say "our" new governor, because too many politicians of both parties forget that they have been elected to represent everyone, including those who love them and voted for them, and also those who do not and did not. Believe it or not, I actually think that fact will not stray far from your mind, and that you actually will remember.

It’s a new day -- and a new year -- for more than 70,000 Mainers who have been waiting years for health care coverage. New Gov. Janet Mills has vowed that she will begin to implement Medicaid expansion as soon as possible. She has tapped Jeanne Lambrew, a national recognized expert on health care, as commissioner for the Department of Health and Human Services to reform and revitalize the department.

Disappointment is the understated term of choice at the news that Bruce Poliquin will not continue his challenge to the travesty of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). If need be, the voters of the 2nd Congressional District (CD2), who voted in a strong majority against the RCV, were keen to have their interests represented, to its fruition, at the highest levels of court in our Nation. This is not to be.

I had a stroke during the early hours of Feb. 14, 2018. I couldn't get off the bed without falling. My speech was extremely slurred and I was throwing up. To say the least, I was in trouble. My wife called 911 and the ambulance came from Milo and picked me up and transported me to Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft. The EMTs were extremely professional and caring.

My grand uncle Charlie Fish was one of my paternal grandfather’s two brothers. What little I know of Grand Uncle Charlie is mostly from my father. Uncle Charlie could play any musical instrument, and he was his family’s black sheep, my father said. That is all I know of a relative I would have liked to have known. I started thinking of relatives who were part of my life. What firsthand details of them will my future family members have?

As 2019 looms many people will think about making resolutions.

Oh Lord, thank you for the Christmas of my youth. The Christmases were so beautiful and heartwarming. Thank you Dad and Mom, Gramps and Grams, brother and sisters, aunts and uncles, and cousins for making my childhood Christmases so special and the memories so bright.

Christmas is a time for giving, and boldly predicting what will happen next year has been my gift to you every year since 2011.

For much of the 2018 campaign, Democrats ran hard on the issue of health care, determined to hold Republicans accountable for their efforts to take coverage away from millions of Americans. Republicans, reading the tea leaves and the polls, had a death-bed conversion, particularly when it comes to protecting people with pre-existing conditions and ensuring that they are still able to get health care coverage.

Bruce Poliquin will, and must, continue his challenge to the Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) system and the constitutionality of the results. He will, because it is his choice as a citizen of this Republic and he has the freedom to do so. He must, because he is a Representative of the voters in the 2nd Congressional District (CD2) who, 20,000 strong, voted against the RCV and feel disenfranchised by the results of the new voting system.

Have I told you how Eileen met Santa Claus? December 9, 2016 (Was it that long ago?) Eileen and I were in Augusta, Maine shopping, browsing, and visiting her parents’ gravesite at Central Maine Veterans Cemetery. The day was overcast, sunshine breaking through the clouds now and then, but not enough to mitigate the chilly mid-20s temperature, 12 mph wind combination.

The more I read about the relationship of the White House press corps with recent US Presidents, the more I appreciate President Trump’s use of Tweets to communicate with Americans.

At what point in your life are you most likely to spend extravagantly? When are you most likely to waste? When are you most likely to purchase the thing you don't need, or indulge yourself on the thing that you want, or eat out more often, at more expensive restaurants?

From time to time, all of us should take a look at ourselves and the things that we do, say and care about and re-evaluate them. Traditions, heritage, ideas and images that mattered to us in the past are all important. They help to form who we are as people. But that doesn’t mean that these things are free from challenge or that we shouldn’t be willing to look at them with new eyes.

We've come some distance from where we started. The destination has none of the trappings advertised and, it seems, we are nowhere near the place we were promised to be. This was not in the brochure.

I was primarily working in politics throughout the 1990s. In the early ‘90s, with the introduction of email, a growing internet, internet accessibility, and affordable computers, I saw potential for the legislators I worked with to have communications networks with their constituents. Actually, I envisioned legislators’ email communication networks branching in all directions: legislator to constituent; constituent to legislator, and all the networking variations therein.