March 29, 2024
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Maine veterans move to form political party

As far as Mark Bounds is concerned, it’s about time that military veterans in Maine had a political party to call their own.

That’s why he and nine other people have filed paperwork with the state declaring their intent to establish the Veterans Party as an official party in Maine.

Bounds, 42, is a disabled Navy veteran who lives in Winter Harbor, where he finished his military career in 1999. He and his colleagues are trying to get more than 25,000 signatures from registered Maine voters by December 2005.

“That gives us 11/2 years to get a good foundation under us,” Bounds said Tuesday. The fledging party hopes to compete in 2006 elections for the Legislature and Congress as well as the next gubernatorial and presidential races, he said.

Veterans have an obvious personal investment in the country’s well-being and make a natural constituency, but the Veterans Party is not just for veterans, according to Bounds. He said it is for anyone who is unhappy with the status quo.

“It is time for a change,” Bounds said. “The way it is right now, it is corporate America versus the people, who don’t have the resources.”

Bounds is one of 10 people who, as a group, officially notified the Maine Secretary of State’s Office earlier this month that they intend to qualify the Veterans Party as an official party in Maine. Other members of the group include residents of Aroostook, Kennebec, Knox and Lincoln counties, according to Bounds.

Deborah Cabana, Maine’s director of elections and commissions, said Tuesday that the 25,260 signatures of registered voters that the group must collect represent 5 percent of the number of voters who participated in the most recent gubernatorial election. That 5 percent figure is the minimum requirement for political parties to receive official status in Maine, she said.

Cabana said the group did not notify the state of its intent to qualify as an official party in time to field candidates in the elections this fall.

“It’s too late for them to participate this year,” Cabana said. “They are a party trying to qualify.”

Nationally, the Veterans Party has organized in 10 states and is trying to form organizations in 27 more, according to Bounds. He said there are 30 million veterans in America and 160,000 living in Maine.

Education, health care, jobs, taxes and the wars being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq are among the issues in which the Veterans Party has an interest, Bounds said. He said because the party is so new, it does not have an ideological slant in either a liberal or a conservative direction.

Once the group collects the qualifying number of signatures, it will hold caucuses in each county and will work on fielding candidates for office, Bounds said.

“We’re trying to go about it the proper way and show that there is a demand for change,” the veteran said. “It’s our turn up to bat now.”


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