I’m glad Maine has ranked-choice voting this year. Know who fought hard for this citizen-initiative back in 2017? Hannah Pingree.

I’ve known the Pingree family since the 1990s when Chellie Pingree was publishing her popular Maine Island Classic knitting books with Yankee Publishing, where I worked. Hannah, like her mother, is one of the smartest, most productive, community-oriented women you’ll ever meet. Hannah’s solutions are innovative, far-reaching and sustainable—not quick fixes.

For the past six years, she has worked with the Governor’s Office on housing, economic development, and climate change. Tackling heating assistance, Hannah Pingree fought the fossil fuel industries to get over 100,000 heat pumps installed. That’s long-term change and budgetary smarts, not just hand-outs. 

Hannah Pingree has the most experience and on-the-job training in how to maximize Maine’s budgetary bang for the buck. Before she served four terms in our Legislature, becoming House Majority Leader, and then Speaker, she interned in New York City’s Office of Management and Budget.

In the Maine Legislature, she Chaired Health and Human Services, and was a member of Appropriations and Financial Affairs. She has stood up to the chemical industries, fossil fuel industries, and worked for Campaign Finance Reform.

If anyone can bring more green energy, healthcare reforms and daycare to Maine (as New Mexico and Vermont have done) Hannah Pingree will be the one. I trust her implicitly and she’s No. 1 for my vote.

Martha White lives in Rockport