Donald Verger ♥️ Maine

Troy Jackson was in 7th grade when his father took him to a picket line in northern Maine. His father cut timber for a living, and he and the other loggers were on strike against a landowner. At home, Troy’s parents hoped he would find an easier way to make a living. But at 19, he went into the woods and became the fifth generation of his family to cut timber. Some weeks he put in 80 hours between cutting trees, driving trucks and running heavy equipment. By 1998, he was helping organize a protest of his own. Maine loggers were worried about how much they were being paid and whether they’d have work. Jackson and other loggers blockaded a border crossing used by crews coming in from Canada. He also went to his U.S. senator, Susan Collins, to ask for help. Jackson says the help he was looking for never came. Four years later, people in his part of Maine elected him to the state House. He spent 20 years in the legislature, eventually becoming president of the Maine Senate. One of the laws he helped pass gave loggers and the truckers who hauled their timber the right to bargain together. For men doing the work his father had done, that meant they could sit down together and ask for better pay. Isitoshe, Earlier this year, Jackson ran for governor and finished third in the Democratic primary. Then in July, the party needed a new nominee for the U.S. Senate. It turned to Jackson, who had a little over 100 days to make his case to voters across Maine. On Tuesday, Maine elected him to the Senate. When Troy Jackson first went to Susan Collins for help, he was still cutting timber for a living. Nearly three decades later, the people of Maine sent him to Washington to take her seat. May the day break