Barbara Bagshaw: Unelected bureaucrats are restricting our freedoms

By State Rep. Barbara Bagshaw

It doesn’t take a return to lockdowns, business closures, mandated vaccinations, and firing of health care workers during COVID to see our steady march toward authoritarianism.

State Rep. Barbara Bagshaw

Unelected bureaucrats trying to take away your right to choose a political candidate and what kind of car we can drive.

Those are the most recent and blatant examples.

Little by little and in full public view, our rights and freedoms are being stripped away.

This past month unelected Board of Environmental Protection bureaucrats were on the verge of using copy-pasted “California Rules” mandating electric vehicles sales to achieve the goal of eliminating gas engines. Electric vehicles that, despite being available in Maine, have faced slow adoption due to limited range, high entry costs, upstream environmental costs, and the reality of living in a rural state like Maine.

Reality was unavoidable for the board last week when their vote was delayed by widespread power outages that prevented BEP members from driving to the meeting amidst a public emergency. It still appears that the radical idea, opposed by over eighty percent of the public, is on track to limit your options, in both the new and used car market in the future.

This past week Maine’s Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, unilaterally decided to remove the leading candidate for president from the Maine ballot. She took this partisan action knowing fully that her decision is unconstitutional and will be struck down.

It doesn’t matter if you love or hate a candidate. If you’re a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, your right to choose should not be taken away by any one individual seeking national media attention.

Maine people have the right to have their elections overseen and administered impartially and fairly. The fact that Shenna Bellows was a Presidential Elector for Joe Biden in 2020 calls her ability to be impartial into question. Our election officials should be above reproach and avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

The underlying theme in Augusta is: Government knows what is best for you.

This frightening message is one that can be advanced due to a lack of due process and an overabundance of discretion and power afforded to unelected bureaucrats. These bureaucrats, emboldened by unsubstantiated claims their rules and actions are necessary to save lives, or the environment, or even Democracy itself, are increasingly attempting to quietly advance agendas not supported by Maine people.

Liberty is fundamentally about the freedom to make decisions. Restricting choices, from energy to political candidates, is not the answer. It flies in the face of our Declaration of Independence which states: “--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.”

Our constitutional republic was set up to protect our rights not to dominate us. Increasingly, we no longer have a government that works for us. People must be able to decide for themselves who to vote for and what type of car we want to drive.

It is an honor to represent part of Windham in the Legislature. If there is any way that I can be of assistance, please contact me at barbara.bagshaw@legislature.maine.gov. My office phone number is 207-287-1440. You can find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BagshawForMaine. To receive regular updates, sign up for my e-newsletter at https://mainehousegop.org/ <