Sen. David Trahan may leave his senate seat to become Executive Director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine (SAM).
News of the possible move broke July 15, but Trahan said nothing is set in stone at this point.
“It’s pretty likely that I’ll be the new director of the Sportsman’s Alliance,” he said July 18. According to the SAM website, the organization and Trahan have “agreed in principal” about Trahan accepting the position.
Trahan said he’s set to meet with the SAM board on Aug. 1, and details about his decision will be announced at that time.
Founded in 1975 and based in Augusta, SAM is the state’s largest sportsman’s advocacy organization, according to their website.
In the meantime, Trahan will meet with legislative leadership and the ethics committee to discuss his possible resignation from the senate.
“It’s not clear that I have to resign my seat,” Trahan said. There’s a precedent for legislators finishing their terms after taking on positions of leadership at advocacy organizations, Trahan said.
Although he said he would resign at the ethics committee’s request, Trahan said he’d prefer to finish out his term. “It would be less disruptive for the district,” he said. Either way, this will be his last term, he said.
After 11 years in the legislature, Trahan said the decision to consider the director’s position at SAM came after the decision to leave Augusta. “I have several reasons for looking for a new job,” he said.
Trahan, who has worked as a logger for 27 years, said the job “takes a toll on the body.”
“I need to do something different now,” Trahan said. Changing professions required leaving the legislature because “it’s unlikely that anyone would hire me for four months out of the year.”
Trahan also said he has grown weary of the current climate in Augusta.
“I’ve made it abundantly clear to a lot of people that I’m uncomfortable with the language and the tone being used,” Trahan said. Attacks from Republican interest groups have been more “vicious” than years past, and Trahan said reasonable debate has been frequently replaced by “threats and aggression.”
A self-described lifetime outdoorsman, much of Trahan’s work in the legislature has centered on those issues. In the last year, he’s been instrumental in the successful creation of a free saltwater fishing registry and a statewide plan to rehabilitate Maine’s ailing deer herd. He also spearheaded an effort to amend the state constitution to designate 10 percent of the sales and use tax for the departments of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife and Marine Resources.
That amendment passed both branches of the legislature with the requisite two-thirds majorities, then was shot down in a final senate vote after several senators changed their position on the issue.
The SAM director position “fits perfectly with what I’ve been doing all these years,” Trahan said. “I’m not going away; I’m still going to be involved in the legislature, just in a different capacity.”
