Screenshot / WMTW, Cropped by Resist the Mainstream

On Friday, Former Democratic Congressman and Governor of Maine Joseph E. Brennan passed away at his home in Portland, Maine at the age of 89.

The Associated Press reported on Saturday that Brennan died with his wife at his side, just a few blocks from his family home on Munjoy Hill, where his Irish immigrant parents, in a third floor tenement home, raised a family of eight children, Frank O’Hara, a longtime friend, said Saturday.

https://twitter.com/AP/status/1776784513529475202 

Frank O’Hara, a longtime friend of Brennan, told the AP that Brennan’s experience in that neighborhood, a working-class melting pot, was drastically influential in his political views, and was a part of his platform when he entered politics with a campaign for the Maine Legislature at age 29.

Brennan, an army veteran who graduated from Boston College under the GI Bill, then attended the University of Maine Law School, held a number of roles over his political career, including as a county district attorney, state attorney general, state lawmaker, and even governor of Maine from 1879 to 1987, according to the AP.

After his tenure as Maine’s governor, he went on to represent Maine’s first Congressional District in Washington D.C., from 1987 to 1991, WMTW reported. 

Joe Baladacci, another former governor of Maine, who led the state from 2003 to 2011, called Brennan “a friend, a mentor and a dedicated servant.” 

“He was always a gentleman, he was always prepared, and he recognized that while Maine might be organized around towns and cities, our state’s real foundation is built upon the families who live and work here,” Baladacci said, according to the AP. “He was a man of the highest integrity, who led Maine through difficult times. He believed that he had an obligation to make things better, and he lived that ideal through his commitment to public education and improving the state’s economy.”

 “Maine and the nation have lost a great public servant, and I have lost a friend,” Gov. Janet Mills (D-MN) said in a statement. “Gov. Brennan demonstrated for me and others that politics is about building relationships, that public service is not about enriching yourself but about enriching the lives of others, and that the most important relationship is the one we have with the people we serve.” 

Mills added that being appointed by Brennan in 1980 as the state’s first female district attorney was an important step towards her eventually becoming Maine’s first female governor. 

Federal judge George Mitchell, who was appointed by Brennan to fill the seat that Democratic Senator Edmund Muskie left vacant to serve as Secretary of State in 1980, said that Brennan was “a superb leader and lawyer who understood the importance of a firm and fair system of justice in our democracy.”