AUGUSTA – A newly launched people’s veto campaign that targets new fees and what its organizers see as cost shifts to property taxpayers would destabilize funding for critical state services, a Democratic legislative leader said Tuesday.
House Majority Leader Glenn Cummings took aim at an effort led by former Republican legislator Stavros Mendros to let voters decide whether to repeal portions of Maine’s recently enacted state budget.
“It reinforces the notion that people’s veto campaigns are being used for political maneuvers as opposed to good policy,” said Cummings, D-Portland. “Apparently, the GOP wants to run the state by referendum.”
Mendros, of Lewiston, filed the people’s veto application Friday with state election officials. While deadlines are rapidly closing in to collect at least 50,519 voters’ signatures to force a November vote, Mendros said he would be just as happy to see the matter go to voters during next June’s primary.
“I’m not in any rush to make it happen this November,” said Mendros.
A separate people’s veto effort spearheaded by GOP legislators earlier this year targeted a $450 million revenue bonding provision that propped up Maine’s $5.7 billion budget for the two years that started Friday.
With the threat of a statewide vote, the Legislature changed its mind and scuttled the borrowing provision. In its place lawmakers cut state programs and doubled to $2 Maine’s tax per pack of cigarettes.
Mendros said the $1-per-pack tax increase is only one of several provisions he challenges. He also seeks to undo provisions he said delay state subsidies to public schools, and reimbursements for “tree growth” tax breaks and for Business Equipment Tax Reimbursements. Also at issue are corporate tax increases and cuts in revenue sharing, he said.
“Enough’s enough,” said Mendros, asserting that property tax breaks that should have occurred under a successful 2004 referendum backed by the Maine Municipal Association have not been fully realized.
Mendros also rejects Cummings’ suggestion that the latest effort is Republican, and listed other top supporters who are Democrats, including Androscoggin County Commissioner Elmer Berry.
Cummings remained critical of the new people’s veto effort, saying, “These tactics would destabilize funding for schools, hospitals and economic development, and they serve to undermine the legislative process.”
Gov. John Baldacci expressed little concern over the newest people’s veto effort as he prepared for Wednesday’s military base closure hearing in Boston, said spokesman Lynn Kippax.
Noting that Baldacci was “pleased with the spirit of compromise” in which the state budget was adopted, Kippax said Baldacci realizes that government doesn’t stop after the Legislature adjourns for the year and “he is glad for the citizen involvement.”
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