Pamela J. Swift (Molly Rains photo)
Pamela J. Swift, D-Palermo, a retired physician turned small-scale farmer, said she would bring a commitment to working across the aisle and focus on health care, agriculture, and the environment to represent House District 62.
With her bid, Swift challenges Rep. Katrina J. Smith, R-Palermo, who has held the seat since 2022. House District 62 consists of Hibberts Gore and Somerville as well as China, Palermo, and Windsor. Smith won against Swift and Lindsey Harwath, I-China, in 2022.
“I’ve given a lot of my time to Palermo to try and make it a better place, and I would also do that for the district if elected,” said Swift, who is a member of the Palermo Select Board.
Swift grew up in Virginia, but said she was drawn to return to Maine in her retirement in part by family ties, as Swift’s family has lived or summered in Maine for generations. Her parents now live in Stockton Springs in a 1922 beach cottage originally constructed by Swift’s great-grandfather.
Swift studied animal science at Virginia Tech, originally planning to be a veterinarian. Later, with encouragement from a family friend, Swift changed course, attending medical school at the former Medical College of Virginia, now known as the VCU School of Medicine.
Swift completed a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at a practice in Connecticut, where she remained for the rest of her career and eventually became a business partner.
Being an OB/GYN physician led to many memorable and meaningful moments in Swift’s life.
“One of the things that’s always meant the most to me was being there for my sister when she delivered my niece and nephew,” she said. “I was able to be a kind of liaison between her medical team and herself, and to watch out for her, and to just help her through the process.
Swift said her experience in health care will also inform her work as a legislator.
“I think my background gives me coma unique perspective,” she said. “If elected, I think my main focuses would be healthcare, agriculture, and environmental issues. With health care, I’m a big proponent of universal health care and lowering the cost of prescription medications, treating and preventing opioid addiction, and preserving women’s reproductive rights.”
Upon retiring and moving to Maine, Swift reengaged her interest in animals and agriculture, working off of a permaculture textbook and taking a women’s beginner farming class through the United States Department of Agriculture to inform her approach to farming at her home.
As a legislator, Swift said, “I would be very interested in supporting our small family farms.”
When she isn’t raising sheep, hens, and pigs, Swift holds a number of elected and volunteer positions in Palermo. She is serving a second term on the Palermo Select Board and writes a quarterly informational newsletter for townspeople.
“We have the whole political spectrum on the select board,” she said. “We work really well together, because we all have the same goal, and that’s to do what’s best for Palermo residents. I would do the same for the district if elected to the Legislature. I can work with anybody who’s reasonable and who wants to do what’s best for the people.”
One memorable accomplishment from Swift’s work with the Palermo Select Board was playing a role in the town’s mobilization against planned construction of a 160-foot-tall power transmission line through the town and neighboring communities.
The select board worked with a committee of knowledgeable people from across the community to draft a moratorium ordinance and, later, a more permanent ordinance to prevent the construction, as did other neighboring towns. The Maine Public Utilities Commission terminated the arrangement contracting with LS Power to construct the line in December 2023.
“I’m all for green energy, but I think industrial things need to stay with industrial things and the natural beauty of Maine needs to be protected. And people’s property rights and property values need to be protected,” she said.
Swift connected this belief to the proposed construction of a windmill staging area on Sears Island in Searsport, which she said she opposed because of how the project would alter the natural beauty and accessibility of the island.
“There’s an industrial complex right on shore there … who would love to have the business,” she said.
Swift said she was also proud to have been on the select board when Palermo joined the Waldo Broadband Corp., a new broadband utility district bringing fiber internet service to residents of its five member rural municipalities in 2025.
As a member of the digital equity committee, Swift said she was involved in looking for grants to “build out physical spaces where we could offer telehealth to people” as well as offer classes to older adults and veterans on computer use and internet safety, and connect low-income people with devices.
Swift is also a member and secretary of the board of trustees of the Palermo Community Library. There, she occasionally staffs the desk, but more often assists with fundraising and grant-writing. Some grants Swift has co-written for air conditioning and a generator at the library have helped achieve a long-term goal of having the community library also serve as a warming, cooling, and charging center during extreme weather, she said.
Swift is also a member and secretary of the Palermo Grange, a member of the Palermo Historical Society, and the chair of the Palermo Days Committee.
This year on the Palermo Days Committee, she said, Swift wrote and helped stage a murder mystery dinner titled “A Public Hearing in Palermo,” which she initially dreamed up while sick with COVID-19.
Swift said the production – featuring a humorous plot in which several town officials and locals, many of whom played themselves, faced off with a New York developer planning to fill in Sheepscot Lake – brought the community together.
This enthusiasm for getting involved is one thing Swift said she would bring to the Legislature.
Swift identified concern about PFAS, or polyfluorinated alkyl substances – man-made chemicals that do not naturally break down in the environment once released as pollution and can be harmful to human health over time – as one theme that has remained prevalent among her constituents since her first campaign in 2022. Swift said she was encouraged by seeing the state “jump” on the task of testing for PFAS contamination.
“I think the companies that make PFAS need to be held responsible,” she said.
Residents were also concerned about the rising costs of health care and shortage of nursing staff, she noted, saying she believes steps need to be taken to draw medical professionals to Maine.
As a former OB/GYN, Swift believes a continued focus on women’s health care is also important for the Legislature, adding the facts about abortion are sometimes misunderstood.
“The vast, vast majority of abortions are done before 12 weeks. The ones that are done later are generally done because there’s a problem with the pregnancy,” she said, such as anencephaly, in which a fetus develops without a brain, or preeclampsia, which is fatal for the mother and can only be treated by delivery.
“Most often, these are desperately wanted pregnancies,” she said. “No matter what anyone thinks or feels about abortion, I think everyone would agree that the government should not have any business in that decision. The hardest decision of a woman’s life should be between her and her doctor — not her, her doctor, and a politician.”
Swift said she and the other members of the Palermo Select Board had heard from Palermo Fire Chief Roger Komandt with concerns about proposed Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulation updates for emergency responders. The updates would raise the required equipment and training standards for first responders nationwide, which would result in an increase to the costs involved in operating a fire department.
“This poses unrealistic standards that threaten the viability of rural, volunteer fire and EMS departments, and the safety of our communities,” Swift said.
Swift said she had written a letter to Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Douglas Parker in her capacity as a select board member and would continue to advocate for an approach to updating the regulations at a more attainable, “realistic” timeline to preserve rural departments.
Whether by accounting for the unique constraints faced by rural fire departments or the variability of housing needs in Maine, Swift said that regulators and legislators would often benefit from taking a more nuanced view of the state.
She applied this to housing regulations, saying that she was in support of updates like L.D. 2003, which attempted to increase housing stock by means including allowing additional dwelling units, but emphasizing that different regions of Maine have different housing needs.
For Mainers who already have housing but may be struggling to remain in place due to rising cost of living and taxes, Swift said she was interested in finding ways to support those individuals without infringing on Mainers’ sense of pride. Current programs for property tax abatements can involve liens being placed on property, a system that may discourage some residents from asking for help, she said.
“Mainers are proud people, and they want to pay their taxes. They don’t want to have liens against their property,” Swift said. “Elderly people should be able to stay in their own homes … it seems like there could be a better way to address that that provides dignity but also some relief.”
Overall, Swift said, she believed that she would bring her reasonability and enthusiasm to the House to help tackle a range of issues, especially those relating to healthcare, agriculture, and the climate, where she said her expertise would be most useful.
As a doctor, she said, her office manager sometimes called her “the voice of reason.”
“I think we just need reasonable people who can work together to get things done to help Mainers,” she said.
Swift is endorsed by the Maine chapter of AFL-CIO, Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund PAC, and the Maine Education Association, and MSEA-SEIU Local 1989.
For more information, go to swift.mainecandidate.com.
The general election will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 5.
