NEW GLOUCESTER – Roughly two dozen New Gloucester Democrats gathered on Sunday to caucus and elect delegates to a statewide meeting in April and hear candidates and issues.
“This is an off year for caucuses, not extremely exciting,” said New Gloucester Democratic Party Chairwoman Penny Hilton. “A lot of work has to be done in this town. The Republican presence here is strong, entrenched and powerful,” she said.
Representative Michael A. Vaughan, R-District 105 is running unopposed, Hilton noted.
She said, “It’s killing us that we have no candidate to run against” Vaughan, who lives in Durham. “If we don’t have anyone, we must build a Democratic presence here in the next two years.”
Christopher “Kit” St. John, executive director of the Maine Center for Economic Policy in Augusta, talked about petitions to place a Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or Tabor as it is commonly known around the country, on the 2006 ballot in Maine.
TABOR is designed to restrict all government growth, state and local, by placing a cap on spending increases equal to the rate of population growth plus inflation.
“TABOR may seem appealing to some, but it has some inherent problems and a poor history, which suggest it is not right for Maine,” he said. St. John, who works for the nonprofit center, said he doesn’t engage in partisan politics at all.
In the past 25 years, Maine has raised expectations, paving roads, installing streetlights and funding K-12 education with good results, he said.
TABOR, in its current form, originated in Colorado, where it was enacted in 1992. The law successfully shrank Colorado government over the past 13 years to the point where the state is unable to adequately fund K-12 education, higher education, Medicaid, emergency services, infrastructure repair and pension funds, he said.
“The taxpayers’ bill has tied the hands of the constitutional legislature. This thing is beatable. This is a terrific wedge for Democrats. Do you believe in shrinking government? We have a nice opportunity for a big debate.”
“In order to take care of our nation, we need our government programs. The free market doesn’t do health care very well,” said St. John who said nonprofits, the Maine Municipal Association and the Maine Department of Education are stakeholders in this issue.
“TABOR puts a straitjacket on towns facing growth,” he said.
“Young people are voting as independents,” said Donald J. Bernard, a candidate for District 15 State Senate. He is seeking to unseat Sen. Lois Snowe Mello. “No one is replacing our Democrats The young people today don’t know what we fought for.”
Bernard, who is running as a Clean Election candidate, was a state senator in the 1960s and ’70s.
New Gloucester has 3,600 registered voters, 23 percent Democrats or 860; 44 percent Independent or 1,600, 30 percent Republican or 1,200 and 98 members of the Green Party or 3 percent.
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