As we take a final look at the gay-rights question, it’s notable that no matter how we vote, we’ll still be making history. Here’s a glimpse at why Tuesday is unusual and a look at some of the few occasions when we’ve had a day like this before.

Unlike most other citizen-initiated ballot proposals to which we’ve been treated in recent decades, this one comes to us as a vote on whether to put into effect an already-enacted measure.

Both the 2003 casino and last year’s bear-baiting votes, along with some 35 others we’ve had since 1970, for example, were on proposals that originated with petitioning citizens. The one on Tuesday’s ballot is instead a citizen challenge to an already-approved law that would otherwise have gone into effect in June but for the more than 50,000 signatures on petitions filed at that time. This is why it’s commonly referred to as the “people’s veto.” Like the initiative, it is one of the more dramatic features of our state government.

Even though Tuesday will be only the seventh time in nearly 64 years it has been invoked, it was once one of the most frequently deployed weapons in the arsenal of citizen activism.

From 1910 through 1941, there were 19 people’s vetoes on the ballot. This same period saw only six citizen initiative measures. In recent years, the initiative has been far more common.

Tuesday’s vote showcases the rare people’s veto, while the more common citizen initiative is taking a sabbatical. Here’s a sampling of other attempted vetoes.

The most successful subject of people’s veto wrath – most recently illustrated in the “Don’t Mortgage Me” efforts this spring that ended before it could be put out to a vote when the Legislature retreated from a controversial borrowing plan – has been state revenue and tax issues. The last one to actually make it onto the ballot was a 1958 vote that stopped an increase in driver’s license and auto registration fees from going into effect.

The most resoundingly triumphant people’s veto came at the depth of the Depression when in 1932, by a 196,000-to-24,000 vote, we overturned a 1-cent increase in the gas tax, disaffection with gas prices being perhaps greater then than they might be today. Gas-tax increases were also vetoed by referenda in 1929 and 1941, the latter conducted a mere three days after Pearl Harbor.

Liquor has also been a popular subject. We’ve had three, including one in 1910 when “wet” forces overturned a law that would have made selling low alcohol content beverages more difficult. “Wet” forces also won in 1934 when we refused to throw out a liquor transportation law designed to facilitate repeal of prohibition.

The most recent liquor related people’s veto was both a victory for “dry” forces and – like the current gay-rights referendum – an event in which the Christian Civic League was a lead player. This was the February 1966 vote when we rejected a law allowing Sunday sales of alcoholic beverages. Though local option referenda in most major Maine communities would by the mid-1970s allow Sunday afternoon and by 1995 post-9 a.m. liquor sales, the 1966 referendum is a reminder of the Civic League’s longtime affiliation with the terrain of our state.

The Civic League also played a prominent and successful role in a 1980 people’s veto that upheld a legislative ban on slot machines. This time the league joined Gov. Brennan in the forefront of opposition to a people’s veto, one undertaken by an alliance of organizations that had previously benefited from the devices and which the 1979 Legislature had voted to outlaw.

During the 30-year era that spanned the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, a dominant figure in such people’s veto causes as liquor control and anti-gambling was the Civic League’s superintendent, Benjamin Bubar Jr. Bubar, who in 1976 and 1980 was the presidential candidate of the Prohibition and, later, the National Statesman parties, mixed an inwardly serious determination with a highly cheerful outward persona – sort of a “Happy Warrior” Hubert Humphrey of cultural conservatives.

Even though the 1980 referendum victory against slot machines would be Bubar’s final appearance in a people’s veto election, it would not be the last for the Christian Civic League. It spearheaded the next two and the most recent to actually get on the ballot, including this month’s people’s veto on gay rights.

Historically, veto votes have occurred on a wide array of other issues. Creation of the Public Utilities Commission in 1914, limiting to 54 hours the work week for women and children in 1916 and imposing Standard Time in 1925 were among those that were subjected to but withstood its impact. Overturned in 1974 by voters who heeded the warning of some safety experts was a law increasing truck weights on state highways.

Overall, since its adoption in 1908, the people’s veto has succeeded in striking down laws 13 times but has failed 11, an almost evenly divided result.

The vote on Tuesday is a fresh reminder of a lion which for most of the last six decades has been curled up and napping on the couch of our state constitution. Whether we support or oppose its purposes at a given moment, we need to acknowledge that the people’s veto is once again an awakened species in the habitat of Maine government.

Paul H. Mills is a Farmington attorney well known for his analyses and historical understanding of Maine’s political scene. He can be reached by e-mail: [email protected].