| Nathan R.L. Burnett

Why run?

I believe in education, technology and respecting the will of the voters. I'd like to see our state ensure a living wage for anyone who works 40 hours a week. I'd like to see healthcare decoupled from employment, so that if you can't work 40 hours a week you still have access to healthcare, whether through a nationwide medicare for all approach or a statewide mainecare approach.

I also want to bring more voice to the legislature to ensure they are held accountable for honoring the will of the voters. Session after session bills are passed through the citizens initiative process, a difficult process (that should be viewed as legislative failure for the need to get that far) and then the legislature still doesn't honour the vote. In recent memory, in 2016, Question 2 (3% tax on the 1% to fund pre-k expansion and meet education funding at 55% as per state law since 2004) and for not immediately enacting ranked choice voting when it was passed.

Emerging from the Pandemic, we need broadband expansion across the whole state. Telecommuting, an approach many workplaces are still employing, is not possible without better internet infrastructure. Additionally, as the oldest state in the nation, we have a set of residents in our community that are unable to rightsize their living situations because their homes aren't connected to the internet and that makes them unsellable.

Lastly, and on a slightly larger scale, I am concerned about the future of work in our society with respect to automation and the efficiencies that it brings. I teach AP Computer Science Principles and would like to see more requirements for our students to be made aware of the possibilities in their future. Everyone should be learning to code.

I'd like to see our students all exposed to actual 21st century curriculums that require skill development relevant to the jobs of today and tomorrow. We are already well into a technological revolution that is being as disruptive to the 20th century model of work and life as the industrial revolution was to 19th century work lives.