Pattershall Contributed photo
FREEPORT — Freeport resident, Brunswick business owner and political novice Brad Pattershall says he’s “up for the challenge” of running for the Maine State Senate District 24 seat.
Pattershall, a lawyer for 20 years, has run the Law Offices of Bradford A. Pattershall LLC on Pleasant Street in Brunswick since 2014. Despite his lack of political experience, he said his law background has allowed him to work with people from all walks of life.
“I’ve worked with criminal defendants, civil plaintiffs, rich clients, poor clients, and I think I’m attentive and I have a good ear,” he said Friday.
He served on the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices, an independent state agency that, according to its mission statement, was established to guard “against corruption and undue influence of the election process,” until last week when he resigned in order to run for election.
Pattershall is so far the only Republican who has announced plans to run to represent the district, which comprises Brunswick, Freeport, Harpswell, North Yarmouth and Pownal.
Sen. Everett “Brownie” Carson announced his legislative retirement in December after serving two terms. “Our state is in capable hands, and I have every confidence that voters will find the right person to represent this district,” Carson wrote in a letter to The Times Record at the time.
The seat has been occupied by a Democrat for more than a decade and two democratic candidates, Mattie Daughtry who has served in the Brunswick House of Representatives for the past eight years, and Stan Gerzofsky, who was termed out in 2016 after four terms in the house and four in the senate, already have announced their candidacies.
Pattershall sees this as an “uphill challenge,” and said he is not a hyperpartisan person. Instead, he hopes the voters will elect him based on his merits as a candidate, not just based on his party affiliation— a self-described Republican with a “significant Libertarian bend.”
“Rather than voting by category, I’d love to see people for the individuals, what they like about the person rather than the party,” he said, adding that he laments the fact that the political climate has become toxic.
“Every single thing is bifurcated; it saddens me that everything is ad hominem and belittling,” he said, “It really is frustrating.”
If elected, Pattershall hopes to be a “voice of reason” in the senate.
“(Yelling) doesn’t get anybody anywhere. It never works, and it’s not going to advance the cause. You don’t have to be mean about it,” he said.
Pattershall said he plans to wait to hear from constituents before taking particular stands on issues.
“Before I start thinking about solutions, I want to hear what the problems really are,” he said.
“I don’t have an opinion on every issue yet. I’m going in open-minded. I want to listen and I want to solve,” he said.
One issue he said he hopes to solve, however, is the number of empty storefronts on the retail center’s Main Street.
Whether a direct cause of online retail giants like Amazon taking business from brick and mortar stores or something different, Pattershall said it was “sad to see” and he would like to “look into that and see how to get those stores back open.”
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