For the third consecutive election, Democrat Catherine Nadeau and Republican Susan Morissette will face each other in the race for state representative.

The back-and-forth political battle over the district that includes Winslow and a portion of Benton has given each candidate a term in the Maine House of Representatives.

Nadeau edged out Morissette in 2012 election by 52 votes and Morissette won the 2010 election by 243 votes.

“For the past 22 years, I have been involved on the municipal side of government,” Nadeau said. “I want to continue being Winslow and Benton’s common-sense voice in Augusta.”

Nadeau, 56, attended Kennebec County Community College and has a degree in surgical technology from the Maine Medical Center School of Surgical Technology.

She also has 10 years experience on the Winslow Zoning Board of Appeals and 12 years on the Winslow Town Council.

Morissette, 45, is vice chairwoman of the Maine Republican Party and works as a marketing consultant. She has served on the Winslow Zoning Aboard of Appeals since 2010 and served on the Winslow Personnel Board of Appeals from 1997 to 2006.

“I want to make Maine a state that my children can stay in and prosper,” she said when asked why she was running.

Both candidates say the state needs to increase funding to municipalities, but they have different plans for increasing local funding.

Nadeau said the state must increase revenue to provide more local funding. This, she said, can be accomplished by attracting more businesses to Maine, which she said can be accomplished by encouraging young college graduates to stay in Maine.

She proposes an amendment to the Opportunity Maine Tax Incentive that extend the tax write-off not just to college graduates who get their educations in Maine but to college graduates who got their educations in other states and returned to Maine.

Nadeau also proposes an increased lodging tax or the creation of a seasonal sales tax to generate additional revenue.

“The state should consider raising the lodging tax or a seasonal sales tax during the busy summer months to be more in line with other New England states, which would allow vacationers to help share some of Maine’s tax burden,” Nadeau said.

Morissette said the solution is to cut overspending in the state government, which she said would free up revenue for local communities and schools.

“I think the Legislature and the governor have done a good job at finding overspending, like with the Maine Housing Authority, but there’s still a lot more that we can do, and it takes research to find those places,” she said.

A law passed in a referendum vote in 2004 requires the state to pay 55 percent of communities’ costs to meet state education requirements, but state lawmakers are yet to fully fund the mandate.

Additionally, a state law dating to 1971 says communities must get 5 percent of revenue-sharing taxes collected. However, the law also allows the state to use revenue-sharing money if it cannot balance the budget.

The state has dipped into revenue sharing money in recent years to balance the budget, reducing the amount that goes to local towns and cities.

The candidates also have opposing views on the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health care policy reform.

While Morissette sagrees with Gov. Paul LePage’s decision to veto a bill that would have accepted federal money to expand state Medicaid enrollment, Nadeau said the state is losing hundreds of millions of dollars each year by not participating in the program.

“What’s worse is that 70,000 Mainers have no coverage because of this decision,” Nadeau said. “Included in this number are many veterans and disabled Mainers.”

Morissette called the cost to the state associated with expansion, including the establishment of an online insurance exchange, ridiculous, and said she fought the ACA from being implemented at all in Maine.

“Our goal was to allow us to purchase insurance across state lines, which would bring more competition, which would lower health care prices,” she said.

Expanding Medicaid in Maine would have allowed more than 60,000 additional residents into the program that provides health insurance to the poor through a combination of state and federal funding.

In accordance with the ACA, the federal government would cover the full cost of the increase from 2014 through 2016. However, beginning in 2017, federal subsidies would begin tapering off, eventually dropping to 90 percent of the cost by 2020, leaving states to pay for the remainder.

Meanwhile, not expanding Medicaid leaves a coverage gap in which some residents are too poor to qualify for federal subsidies to buy health insurance and still don’t qualify for Medicaid.

According to a 2014 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care think tank based in California, approximately 24,390 Mainers fall into that gap.

Nadeau and Morissette agree the state should not allow undocumented immigrants to work or receive welfare benefits.

“There are legal means to get into our country, and the working people of Winslow and the state of Maine shouldn’t have to pay for those who come here legally,” Morissette said.

“I believe Maine is too generous in providing welfare benefits,” Nadeau said.

The two candidates both said they plan to vote against Question 1, a statewide referendum that aims to prohibit the use of traps, baiting and dogs to hunt bears with limited exceptions.

Nadeau said the state has many knowledgeable biologists and game wardens who “know what is necessary to maintain healthy populations of wildlife in Maine’s woods.”

“We do not need out-of-state money telling us what to do,” she said.

Morissette said hunting and fishing is the only industry in Maine that brings in more revenue than tourism. She also said she is concerned about the rising bear population encroaching on neighborhoods and posing a danger to residents.

Evan Belanger — 861-9239

ebelanger@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @ebelanger