AUGUSTA, Maine - Maine lawmakers are moving closer to approving a measure that supporters say is designed to raise the bar for activists seeking to put referendum questions on the statewide ballot.
The change is needed, they say, to make it harder for special interest groups promoting progressive causes to gather all their signatures in the greater Portland area, which is seen as much more liberal than many other parts of the state.
The change in the citizen initiative process was initially proposed in a bill that would have required that at least 5 percent of qualifying signatures would have to come from voters in each of Maine's 16 counties. The Legislature's Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee liked the concept, but wound up supporting a revised measure.
They settled on an amended version of LD 742, requiring that petition signature gatherers must collect at least 10 percent of the total number of ballots cast for governor in each of Maine's two congressional districts.
Rep. Jonathan Kinney, a Limington Republican, says it's been too easy for progressive special interest groups to advance their campaigns and causes by cherry-picking a certain segment of Maine's voting Demographic in southern Maine.
They weren't collecting signatures throughout the state," Kinney says. "They were finding it much easier to hit the large parking lots of the Portland area and go ahead and collect their signatures. In case they needed 60,000 or 63,000, as many as 40,000 or 45,000 would have come from the Portland area."
For Republicans such as Kinney, it's important to recognize that Portland is home to a more liberal voter base that might be found in, say, Caribou or East Corinth. And critics of the current rules point to the most recent bear baiting ban referendum as a reason why it's time for a change.
They say out-of-state special interest groups were able to get all of the signatures they needed from southern Maine to place the ban on the ballot. Although that measure was ultimately defeated by more than 50 percent of the voters statewide, the ban was approved in many southern Maine communities by margins exceeding 60 percent - particularly Portland, where the margin was closing in on 70 percent.
Still, opponents of the proposed change, which must be passed in the form of a constitutional amendment, reject the notion that Maine should adopt geographical signature gathering requirements.
"The reality is that you can't just collect signatures in order to be able to get on the ballot, which is what people think actually happens," says Rep. Diane Russell, a Portland Democrat.
Russell says the real goal behind the proposed change amounts to an effort to restrain the citizen's initiative process. "This bill before you, this constitutional amendment, would actually make it harder for homegrown initiatives to be able to get on the ballot. This would make it significantly harder for everyday Mainers to start a petition to petition their government."
And, says Bangor Democrat Adam Goode, signature gathering is so hard that the current process more or less assures that ballot committees have to circulate petitions in Second Congressional District service centers, such as Bangor and Lewiston. "The way I see it right now, your idea is not going to pass a statewide vote if you don't have some kind of presence in the Second Congressional District."
But Rep. Louie Luchini, an Ellsworth Democrat, supports the changes. Luchini is House chair of the legislative committee that amended the bill, and says it would ensure that future initiatives would have support across the entire state. The House gave the bill all but final approval in a 99-46 vote. The Senate has also taken an initial two-thirds vote on LD 742, which is now one affirmative vote away from enactment.