Taking (away) the initiative (cont'd)

NESTLE’S OR PIERCE ATWOOD’S BRIGHT IDEA

A spokesman for Poland Spring, Ted O’Meara, defends the polling-place activities of employees on Election Day. He says only 36 out of 550 Maine employees were involved, and they were volunteers not paid for their activity. He isn’t sure who thought of sending out the Poland Spring troops.

"It’s simply to provide factual information," he claims. No attempt was made to block people from signing petitions, he says.

O’Meara, who works in the consulting branch of the big Pierce Atwood law and lobbying firm in Portland, says CEO Jeffrey’s remark that the Maine referendum process should be changed came from "frustration," and he suggests people shouldn’t read too much into it.

The Nestle Waters Connecticut-based executive was quoted in the Lewiston Sun Journal as saying also that he felt the Maine referendum process had been "highjacked," and that he didn’t think initiatives "were intended for this kind of activity," such as the water-tax bill.

O’Meara says Poland Spring doesn’t intend to lobby for Gagnon’s or other initiative-related bills, although the company is "keeping an eye on them."

Poland Spring, which earns $60 million a year in profits from Maine’s water, has bottling plants in Poland Spring and Hollis. At the Maine Chamber meeting in October when Jeffrey made his statement about the initiative process, he also announced the company would suspend bottling-plant expansion in the state until the water-tax question is resolved. He had hoped to make a $150-million investment in a new Maine plant, he said.

The proposed water tax would be three cents on a 20-ounce bottle of water, with the tax going into a trust fund for investments in such things as land conservation and job development, according to Wilfong.

O’Meara says that Poland Spring’s attorneys at Pierce Atwood had notified the Secretary of State’s office that the company’s employees would be at the polls.

Julie Flynn, the Deputy Secretary of State in charge of elections, confirms this. But correspondence between her office and Pierce Atwood reveals that Poland Spring threatened to sue the Secretary of State, who was Dan Gwadosky at the time, unless he allowed the dissuaders into the polling places. Flynn says she got an informal opinion from the Attorney General’s office that if the pro-water-tax people were allowed to petition at polling places, those opposed had to be permitted there, too, "on freedom of speech grounds."

The water-tax crusaders take strong exception to the notion that people can’t be legally prevented from arguing with citizens over signing a petition at polling places.

"If they have free-speech rights, then why are there laws preventing politicians from politicking at polling places?" ask Jim Wilfong. "Don’t politicians have free-speech rights, too?"

"This issue isn’t about free speech," argues Jonathan Carter. "The polling place is a place to gather signatures. The Nestle people have a right to gather signatures, too, but they shouldn’t be allowed to interfere" with signature collection.

Carter denies that signature-collectors engage the public in political debate: "We just say to voters that we would like to put this on the ballot so the people of Maine can debate this issue and decide."

But Pierce Atwood and the Attorney General’s office agree that collecting signatures at polling places is "core political speech" under the law, and if one side is allowed political speech the other has to be allowed it, too. Ultimately, a court may decide this question.

Aside from the legalities, Wilfong feels a lobbyist-directed campaign to hinder signature-gathering at the polls is a disturbing increase in lobbyist power.

"There are interests that can block legislation in the Legislature because they can fill the place with lobbyists and they can work the backroom scene," Wilfong says. "But the polling place is not the place for a debate."

OTHER RESTRICTIONS PROPOSED

Other bills that have yet to be given a public hearing by the Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee include several that could be classed as restrictive on the initiative process:

• LD 1099, sponsored by Representative Thomas Saviello (D-Wilton), is a constitutional amendment mandating that the total signatures collected on a petition include signatures from each county equal in number to 10 percent of the vote for governor in that county. This proposal, defeated in the past, drew Mary Adams’s special ire: "It’s so un-American. The state is one unit."

• LD 929, sponsored by Representative Sean Faircloth (D-Bangor), is a complex bill that, among other unusual provisions, would require anyone collecting signatures within 250 feet of a polling place to have a large sign saying "Not a Polling Place." Also, initiative petitions would have to be divided into two columns, one side for voters who read a ballot-question summary before signing and the other for those who choose not to read it but still want to sign.

• LD 870, sponsored by Representative Elaine Makas (D-Lewiston), would require that a state-written fiscal analysis of an initiated bill be published in daily newspapers.

• LD 939, sponsored by David Bowles (R-Sanford), is a constitutional amendment requiring any initiative bill that entails a state expenditure to include new taxes or program cuts to finance the expenditure.

In addition to these bills, LD 946, sponsored by Democratic Senator Arthur Mayo of Sagadahoc County, and LD 1087, sponsored by Representative John Eder of Portland, the Green Independent, would simply outlaw attempts to dissuade people from signing a petition at a polling place. Jim Wilfong and Jonathan Carter see this kind of measure as the simple solution to the petitioner’s dilemma presented by Nestle-Poland Spring.

"If all else fails, there’s the citizen’s initiative," says Mary Adams, meaning it is an option if the Legislature refuses to listen to the people.

But maybe not for long. Nestle’s CEO Kim Jeffrey says the Maine referendum process must be changed. Unless the Legislature can arrive at a legally solid way to block the "blockers" — a solution able to withstand the assaults of high-priced corporate lawyers — it may become clear that Jeffrey has already changed the process.

Lance Tapley can be reached at ltapley@prexar.com