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Alan Cobo-Lewis lives in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District.
In 2003 my twin children were toddlers attending an integrated preschool in Milford — integrated meaning it supported children without disabilities and also supported children with significant disabilities with intensive early intervention. The school was caught in a nasty dispute with the local special education director, putting at risk the early intervention and early childhood special education of dozens of children, about half of whom had disabilities. And the bureaucrats in Augusta barely seemed to care.
A bipartisan group of legislators — with deep participation by then-state Rep. Matt Dunlap — supported parents like us when we invited the commissioner of education, an assistant attorney general, and the statewide director of the early intervention/early childhood special education system to meet with parents at the school about this crisis. The pressure from families and from legislators eventually led to a resolution that saved the school and the children’s placements. We were forever grateful to legislators, including people like Matt who had to stand up to a cabinet officer from his own party, for their support.
Not long after, Matt co-sponsored a bill to give parents of children with disabilities the same rights as parents of any other child to decide when their child was ready to enter kindergarten, without losing the early childhood special education to which children with disabilities were entitled. Even though this bill enjoyed unanimous bipartisan support in committee (it was a money-saver for the state and for local school districts and was good for kids and families), it was surprisingly and vociferously opposed by the Maine Department of Education, apparently because they had the misguided impression that it stood in opposition to universal pre-kindergarten, which the department was championing at the time (and which still hasn’t been achieved more than two decades later).
Every step of the way, the executive branch opposed parents of young children with disabilities, and every step of the way, Matt helped us overcome. The bill was eventually signed by the governor — but only after Matt helped organize the Legislature to be ready to override a threatened veto from a governor of his own party.
Then, in 2007, as secretary of state, Matt accompanied activist Mary Adams in court as an ally in her quest to keep the “Taxpayer Bill of Rights” citizen initiative on the ballot, even though he opposed the bill’s policy. Matt showed right then and there that he believed deeply in the right of the people to rule themselves and that he would defend the people’s rights.
Later, in 2020, when President Donald Trump appointed Matt to the federal Election Integrity Commission, friends and colleagues of mine from out of state expressed concern about who this Democrat was who was being appointed. I assured them that I trusted Matt implicitly. Indeed, Matt became famous enough to land coverage in Rolling Stone magazine when he sued to demand access to information that he was legally entitled to as a member of the commission.
Matt is unafraid to stand up to any executive from either party.
In 2007, I was honored to serve with Matt when he chaired Maine’s Special Task Force on Improving Public Understanding and Participation in the Rulemaking Process. State rules are so opaque, but have such deep impact on people who live in Maine, and Matt was determined to get the public better access to the process so that bureaucrats and bad actors couldn’t run roughshod over the people’s rights. And he delivered.
Throughout his career, I have seen Matt listen carefully to what the people of Maine go through and then move — with caring, with an understanding of how government actually works, and with a determination that government must work for the people — to ensure that people get what they need even when they are opposed by powerful forces from within his own party or from the other party.
This is why I am proud to support Matt Dunlap for Congress.