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Effort to Overturn Bill Allowing GA for Asylum Seekers Appears Stalled

AUGUSTA, Maine - Time is running out for a former Republican lawmaker from Lewiston to undertake his announced "people's veto" of a law that provides welfare benefits to asylum seekers.

Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap says Stavros Mendros has yet to pick up the petitions that must be returned to the state before Oct. 14 with 61,000 signatures in order to suspend the implementation of the law.

Meanwhile, the Maine Republican Party is working on a ballot question to address several issues, including welfare.

When Gov. Paul LePage failed to veto 65 bills that arrived on his desk in the closing weeks of the legislative session, the measures became law without his signature -- much to the consternation of some Republicans who wanted a chance to block those same pieces of legislation.

Among the measures was a bill that provides General Assistance benefits to non-citizens who are in Maine legally seeking asylum. Former State Rep. Stavros Mendros has said he will mount a people's veto of LD 369, in order to prevent Lewiston from having to pay out an estimated $165,000 in welfare benefits to asylum-seeking immigrants.

Repeated calls to Mendros from MPBN have gone unanswered this week, and Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap says where the people's veto effort currently stands is anyone's guess.  "I have not had any direct communication," Dunlap says. "I know the Elections Division has reached out to them a couple of times on this."

Dunlap says the petitions for a people's veto are currently sitting on his desk waiting for someone in Mendros's group to pick them up. Mendros told the Lewiston Sun Journal more than a week ago that he planned to begin gathering the necessary signatures to block the bill from becoming law until voters can decide the issue in a referendum next June.

In the absence of receiving of those signed petitions by Oct. 14, the bill will become law and Maine communities will have to pay General Assistance benefits to legal asylum-seeking immigrants while they wait for federally-approved work permits. GOP Sen. Eric Brakey, of Auburn, hopes the law can be blocked.

"We have adults with intellectual disabilities, and we have our seniors who are underfunded in our nursing homes, and yet we're spending millions of dollars for welfare for non-citizens," Brakey said. "It really strikes me as really getting our priorities together. And so I do think that we need to really take a look at that, and I think that the people should have a vote."

Brakey is not alone in his position. The Maine Republican Party is developing its own citizen's initiative to trigger more far reaching welfare reform at the ballot box. Jason Savage is the party's executive director.

"Yeah, we're very, very close - down to just a couple of remaining details that we have to figure out," Parent says. "And then we'll be publicly discussing everything and putting our proposal out there. We're very close right now, though."

Savage says the party has not taken a position on Mendros's people's veto effort. Like Brakey, Savage says he's not trying to discourage Mendros, but he says it wouldn't be wise to have two ballot questions that essentially accomplish the same goal.

"It would make the entire process harder for everybody to basically do," Savage says. "It would be the same group of people - a lot of them - would be working on both. And it would definitely make it easier if it was streamlined and everybody focused their efforts on the one effort instead of two."

Mendros could choose to suspend his people's veto effort. But if he proceeds, Secretary of State Matt Dunlap says the GOP activist would have to be extremely well organized over the next several weeks.

"It would be a record, there's no question about it," Dunlap says. "It's absolutely possible. It's do-able if you have the right effort and the right organization, but it would be an extraordinary effort."

The Maine Republican Party has until Feb. 1 to submit the required petitions to get on next year's ballot.