Sarah Gideon is a two-term speaker of the main house representatives and a Democratic nominee for the US Senate. Gideon today remains dedicated to improving access to education, health care, and economic opportunity by continuing her work to lift families out of poverty. Gideon spent her years in public service working with both Democrat and Republican governors and during times of divided government. Her legislative focus included bringing people together to reduce health care costs, expanding access to reproductive health care, improving education and training for families living in poverty, and tackling the opioid crisis. She lives in Freeport, Maine with her husband, Ben, and their three children.
This interview, conducted by Allaura Osborne and Saswato Ray, has been edited for length and clarity.
Harvard Political Review: Can you talk about some of the most influential events that have taken place in your life? Ones that showed you the public service was where you were needed?
Sara Gideon: From the youngest age I can remember, I always really thought of government as being a tool for good. A way that we can improve the lives of people around us. As an adult, living in Freeport, Maine, with three kids, I spent a lot of time volunteering in our schools. And as part of that volunteerism, I wasn’t just in the classroom, but also serving our free breakfast program, and really saw firsthand the correlation between the kids who were showing up every day for breakfast, even though breakfast was available for all kids. It was a small group of kids who were showing up and they weren’t hungry just because they had raced out of the house that morning. But because there wasn’t food in the refrigerator or pantry for breakfast that day, and sometimes dinner the night before. And you could also see how that was affecting their learning in the classroom. Now, these were grades three through five. By this time, that impact was already so deeply felt by them and really affected their entire track of learning through their school years, all the way through 12th grade or further. And so for me, that was a real call to action, I had to ask myself, what are you going to do about it? And that was really the moment that I decided to run for state representative rather than remaining just on the town council in my hometown of Freeport.
HPR: You have consistently supported increasing health insurance coverage mainly through Obamacare. In recent years, you’ve also supported adding a public option to the ACA. How do you think the ACA can be improved?
Gideon: I think there are quite a lot of ways as we know, healthcare is absolutely still a crisis for people, it is not affordable. I think, first of all, there are ways that individual states can improve by adopting Medicaid expansion if they haven’t done so already. I do think that we could look at how we are able to increase subsidies for people who are buying healthcare on the exchange and make sure that we’re holding healthcare companies accountable as well. And maybe most importantly, we are continuing to focus on how lower-income people in this country can have access to excellent medical care.
HPR: What do you make of President Biden’s campaign trail plan to add a public option to the ACA?
Gideon: I ran for US Senate, for Maine in 2020. That was actually something that I supported as well creating that public option and allowing anybody to purchase Medicaid in that way.
HPR: Going back to your work in Maine to expand healthcare access is commendable, especially when it comes to women’s rights and the right to abortion. In 1973, the US Supreme Court with four Nixon appointees affirmed that the right to abortion is a constitutional right, which is protected under the 14th Amendment as a right to privacy and under the Ninth Amendment as a right delegated to the people by the Constitution. It was reaffirmed in 1992 by a six to three conservative majority in Planned Parenthood versus Casey. Now Roe is in real danger, especially given the court’s decision to hear Jackson V Women’s Health Organization in their shadow docket refusal of the Texas law. So what do you make of this ongoing debate on abortion restrictions?
Gideon: I think what we’re seeing right now, with the Supreme Court agreeing to take up the Mississippi case, is really foreshadowing what they might do. The very fact that they agreed to put that case on their docket means that they did not agree with the lower courts. And I think, unfortunately, we need to be prepared to see Roe versus Wade overturned or changed significantly, down to some different number of weeks, restricting access after a certain number of weeks. I think it’s really terrifying what we’re seeing here and unbelievable that we are in this place today.
HPR: Going off of that, what is your view on the Hyde Amendment?
Gideon: Income should not be a barrier to a person’s access to health care, end of story, and that includes abortion. The Hyde Amendment really penalizes poor people. And one thing that we did in Maine was we said that public or private insurance has to cover abortion, abortion care. And so we did that in Maine getting around the Hyde Amendment. I do not support the Hyde Amendment.
HPR: What has been your biggest obstacle throughout your career? And what have you learned about yourself through it?
Gideon: One’s biggest obstacle is actually oneself. And in determining number one, what is and what are the best paths to actually getting good work done, is figuring out how you can be most effective and most helpful and then doing that work. For some people, it might be in the world to organize for others, it might be running for office and working with people, to bring them together at a table and make new policy decisions. I have found personally that each step of the way I always question “Do I have enough experience?” Have I put all the building blocks onto my resume to do something. And what I realize actually, through practice is that it is the caring and the determination and the ability to be a good listener, and then to relentlessly pursue solutions. That actually, is how we are effective. So yes, I would say my biggest barrier has actually probably been me holding myself back. But it’s something that I work on every day. And I encourage others to as well.
HPR: What do you hope to pass on to young people who aspire to follow in similar footsteps to you?
Gideon: What do I hope to pass on? First of all, a sense of hope and belief, even when things feel a little hopeless. I noticed really yesterday around campus, and at my study group, in FSG, that there was a real sense of melancholy, I think, after election day on Tuesday, for many people who just felt that their results, particularly in Virginia, maybe left them feeling a little defeated. And what I really wanted to express to them and others is, we can never lose our optimism and belief in our ability as human beings, and here in this country, as Americans, to continue to make progress. It is not always a linear journey to get there. Sometimes there are setbacks, and most often, things are muted. We don’t just come up with a policy idea or a plan and are able to pass it in its entirety, or the way we originally conceived it. We have to have the patience to keep working on coalition building, to compromise, and to continue at it until we really improve things and make life better for everyone around us.
HPR: You’ve worked a lot on the issue of climate change, going as far as to call for the US to re-enter the Paris Agreement, which was one of the first things President Biden did when he became president. But it is also true that the climate that climate change is also a very political issue in the US, for instance, Ted Cruz, who said that after the US joined the Paris agreement, that Biden cares more about Paris than Pittsburgh, given these statements made by politicians in power, what hope do you think there is for future generations to live in a world that is free of carbon?
Gideon: This is such an emergency issue as and that has been for a long time. But finally, I think we are in this place where virtually everyone can look around them, what’s happening, floods, fires, storms, the infrastructure damage that comes from the migration of people, the fair fear about dwindling water supplies, and ultimately food supplies. And I think there is a changing awareness and willingness to acknowledge the changing climate, and also the impact of carbon emissions on that. The big question, I think, is whether there is a willingness to take the economic the steps that are sort of painful financially and economically in order to reduce those and as we watch what’s happening right now in GlaGideonow, and we see country after country, Platt making their pledges to get carbon emissions to zero by the years 2050, 2060 and 2070. Now, I think that’s good. It’s encouraging. It’s still not enough, even those pledges don’t get us down to a one and a half percent increase in temperature, that which we know we need to be at in order to sort of preserve life as we know it. So, I think that what needs to be done is something Much more drastic and, and it will cost money. And people will feel that and there has to be a willingness for the general public and policymakers to take that on. And until we do, I think we are headed unfortunately down this same path. And it’s really incredibly scary. And I think there are so many pressing issues of our time, but this is literally an emergency issue for our survival. And one I just have to tell you, I, I think about non stop and feel sort of a feeling of desperation to do something about personally.
HPR: During your time working with governor’s on both sides of the political spectrum, you’ve worked often in the spirit of bipartisanship, to get things done for the people of Maine. So given the current situation with the infrastructure bill, where a handful of senators are basically blocking most sources of legislation in the name of bipartisanship and compromise. Do you believe that you think compromise and bipartisanship as possible if we continue going the way we are the way we are being divisive?
Gideon: First of all, let’s start with the ideas of bipartisanship and compromise. To me, that means that you identify the issue that exists, and then you make a decision together about how to actually solve those issues. I think when we look at the reconciliation bill, or the build back better, Bill, however, you want to think about that. Right now, I think one of the challenges is that Democrats have proposed all of these numbers of policy solutions to really get at the major issues that American people are facing today. Right, whether we’re thinking about childcare costs, whether we’re thinking about climate change, whether we’re thinking about education, and so much more. And instead of proposing other solutions, or, or instead of just changing maybe the dollar amounts that are in there, we’re not really seeing counter-proposals from Republicans on that, I would say the same thing is true of the Voting Rights Bell, instead of hearing from Republicans, maybe that they didn’t want election day to be a holiday or any number of other things. And to find a compromise there, the answer was just No. So bipartisanship and compromise, I think, really, it’s not just about the only things that you agree on, or only about how you show one another up before the election, but actually about identifying the real problems that Americans are facing today and coming up with solutions to them. And I just, I just, I don’t see that happening right now.
HPR: You used to serve on the Town Council, how did that experience influence your transition from local issues to statewide issues? Do you think it helped prepare you for the obstacles and problems you face as a state representative, then a speaker of the house?
Gideon: Serving on the Town Council, in my hometown of Freeport, definitely helped prepare me in so many ways that as a matter of fact, I think that if every member of Congress actually started off on the most local level, and spent time in local government and state government, that there are a number of lessons to be learned. I mean, number one, just in terms of understanding where the limitations are in terms of What you can do and what policies you can write on each level of government, how you can leverage the help, for example, if you’re on the local level from state or federal government, etc. But I think there are additional lessons to be learned. And for me, they were really the most valuable as I moved from being a town councilor to being a state representative, assistant leader, and then Speaker of the House when I was on our free port town council. And this is true of many small towns across America, there were no partisan affiliations that you ran with. So you might be a Democrat or a Republican, but you do not run as a Democrat or Republican and you do not have that seat as a Democrat or Republican. Consequently, when you sit around this Dyess with six other people, you tend to be unburdened by that affiliation by literally just having a letter next to your name. And so your way of approaching each problem that comes in front of you, or thinking proactively about how you can actually improve people’s lives, it just flows in a much smoother way, which is not to say everything is easy on the local level. It’s very personal for people because it often has to do with their children or their property or things like that. But those were the best lessons I possibly could have learned. Definitely, what I took with me to the State House, I think it’s why I was successful, passing really difficult and large pieces of legislation as a freshman legislator, and ultimately, I think it is why my colleagues voted to put me in leadership as assistant leader and then a speaker for two terms.
