The road to nowhere The Democratically controlled Legislature did very little this past session BY LANCE TAPLEY

Many State House observers agree the Democratically controlled legislative session that ended in June was a flop.

Or worse: "They are coming off to the public as looking dangerous," says Republican tax activist Mary Adams, speaking of the legislators.

Says State Representative Joanne Twomey, a Democrat from Biddeford: "We didn’t do what we were sent there to do. We had a message from voters that they wanted property-tax relief, and we didn’t deliver it. But we made some severe program cuts that are going to hurt."

Led by Democratic governor John Baldacci and a majority leadership who religiously followed his instructions, the Legislature claimed as its most notable achievement the awkward abandonment of the unpopular two-year budget it passed in March, which featured service cuts that roiled Democratic constituencies and $450 million in borrowing that upset just about everyone. Its replacement saw a second round of cuts and a $1-a-pack hike in the cigarette tax — measures that also may prove unpopular. Many rank-and-file Democratic legislators complain that both budgets result from Baldacci’s refusal to raise, even temporarily, what he calls "broad-based" taxes or trim ballooning corporate welfare in order to close the gap between state revenues and expenditures.

From a progressive’s viewpoint, there was one significant accomplishment: passage of a gay-rights bill. But because it didn’t include a provision sending it out to voter approval — voters rejected similar bills in 1998 and 2000 — it engendered a people’s-veto signature-collection effort by right-wingers. If the signatures are certified, as seems likely, the bill will be on the statewide ballot in November.

From a conservative’s viewpoint, the big achievement was forcing Baldacci and legislative Democrats to ditch the earlier budget and, politically, eat crow. Republicans achieved this triumph through the threat of another people’s-veto signature drive to cancel the unprecedented borrowing. To Democrats’ dismay, the borrowing proved unpopular across the political spectrum.

(Twomey was one of two Democrats who opposed the original budget, a stand that now looks prophetic. And she opposed the second budget as well. Earlier in the session, she had opposed severe cuts to state services resulting from increased school-aid-cum-property-tax-relief, telling the House Democrats she wasn’t "going to drink their Kool-Aid.")

Conservatives also realized a victory in the cuts made to state programs. They plunged especially deep into social-service providers, although some legislative Republicans maintained the knife still did not go deep enough.

Neither conservatives nor liberals could pull off comprehensive tax reform. Three bills passed that offered tax relief to specific constituencies, although their ultimate effects can’t yet be quantified. First, there was the increased school aid to towns and cities, LD 1; this move supposedly encouraged municipalities to reduce property taxes, although few voters seem to think it will. In the last hours of the session, Democrats shoved through a bill to reduce, over the long haul, capital-gains income taxes for forest landowners (see "Last-minute relief" by Lance Tapley, July 1; and "Letters," in this week’s paper). And citizens will vote in November on a constitutional amendment to give a property-tax break to waterfront land used for commercial fishing (see "Politics and Other Mistakes," this issue).

Little else of great significance was accomplished. Following are the results of a few of the legislative conflicts the Phoenix covered since the session’s start. Note the role of Democrats.

THE RIGHT WING DEFENDS THE REFERENDUM PROCESS

Liberal activists this year pooped out on defending the grass-roots right to collect signatures at the polling place, according to Mary Adams. Although some progressives were involved, such as activist Julian Holmes of Wayne, she believes her conservative troops had to do the heavy lobbying in this perennial fight. Their work succeeded. To Adams’s glee, on May 31, her birthday, the most serious threat, LD 374, went down to defeat.

This bill originally would have moved initiative and people’s-veto signature gathering outside the entrance to the polls. The rationale that proponents gave this year was that the appearance at November’s election of what Adams calls "blockers" made for turmoil. These were the Nestlé-Poland Spring employees who showed up at the polls to argue with voters that they shouldn’t sign petitions circulated by campaigners for a state tax on water extraction. LD 374 got the Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee’s unanimous approval, but Adams got such a protest stirred up that the committee reconsidered it, a rare occurrence. The bill defeated on the floor was a much-watered-down version.

Opponents suspected Nestlé was behind LD 374. Ironically, it was Adams and not liberal lobbyists who railed against "Big Water’s special-interest bill" (in an email she sent to her activist list). In 2001, the last time a major fight on signature collection occurred, Adams had teamed up with the Maine People’s Lobby, environmental groups, and labor unions.

Two minor anti-referendum measures passed. One requires analysis and publication of a ballot measure’s fiscal impact on state revenues. The other requires a statement on petitions of how much such questions cost to be placed before voters.

Although lawmakers bipartisanly are predisposed to restrict the signature-collection process, since it is a way for citizens to go around them, in recent years the Democrats — in control of the Legislature and facing multiple tax-revolt petition drives from conservatives (including a current one led by Mary Adams) — have been most adamant to put on restrictions. LD 374 was a Democratic bill, and Democrats sponsored the two bills that passed.