by Jonathan Reisman

Ronin are samurai without masters — skilled warriors, potentially dangerous, and hard to control. Twenty-five plus years ago my late good friend and older brother I never had Frank Heller and I started advocating as Policy Ronin for school choice and environmental policies based on sound science and sanity. Frank was an entrepreneur/quasi-hippie/savvy operative based in Brunswick. We were both Pennsylvania Jewish boys with some academic and policy chops — Frank in Washington, D.C., and Southern Maine, me in Augusta. Frank was almost 20 years my senior. We didn’t have too much success promoting either school choice or sane environmental policies, but we had some fun, aggravated the Maine Education Association and the environmental left, and brought some smiles to our long-suffering spouses.

I got a phone call about a long-forgotten Policy Ronin web trail Frank and I had set up, and it triggered some memories and reflection. I have been working on a right-of-center response to the flaws that I perceive in leftist climate and election policies. It is a bit presumptuous (a Ronin trait), as I am not the Shadow Secretary of Protecting Maine from Progressive Misinformation and Mischief. That position is currently vacant, although a number of Republicans are auditioning. I am not a candidate. I am a Policy Ronin in that I have no master, but I hope I am acting for the common good. Only time will tell whether that is actual truth.

I am very pleased and grateful that House GOP leader Faulkingham has agreed to sponsor the response. Sen. Moore and Rep. Elect Tuell have agreed to co-sponsor, and we will be looking for as many co-sponsors as we can get. Here are the bill titles with some background and summary:

• An Act to Repeal the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (More Semi-Random Election Notes and Fears | The Calais Advertiser, Nov. 6)

• An Act to Promote Sound Science and Transparency in Climate Change Policy — would direct DEP, when promulgating GHG emission reductions, to issue an estimate based on sound science of the amount of climate change averted and at what cost, particularly to energy prices. (Freedom Studies - Climate Contrarian | The Calais Advertiser, Oct. 23)

• An Act to Cap Public Land (federal, state, local) at no more than 50% of any county. (Freedom Studies - A Picture Worth 3 Million Acres | The Calais Advertiser, Oct. 9)

• An Act to Define and Assess Equity — requires State Agencies and public K-12 and higher Ed to define equity when promoting it in any policy area and to develop metrics to assess it. (Freedom Studies - An Act to Define and Assess Equity | Oct. 16)

Assembling a coalition of Mainers to discuss and pass these initiatives is a daunting challenge. I have always been a sucker for daunting.

I am taking a short post-election break to visit my sisters in the Sierra foothills west of Donner (what’s for dinner?) Pass. I am renting an electric car out of the Sacramento airport because the car rental companies are aggressively discounting them, even in the Capitol of Gavin Newsom’s California Ecotopia. What does that tell you about plans for an EV in every garage in vastly colder, older, and less prosperous Maine?

It is observations and questions like that that make me miss Frank every day.