PORTLAND (AP) – First there was the Palesky tax cap referendum. Then came the Taxpayer Bill of Rights spending cap proposal.

If the Legislature doesn’t address high taxes and government spending, there could well be another citizen initiative on the ballot two years from now calling for tax or spending reforms, political observers said Wednesday.

Even though the TABOR spending cap referendum lost in Tuesday’s election, Mainers sent forward the message that they desire tax relief, they said.

The Legislature, the governor and special-interest groups will have to work together to craft legislation that will address those concerns, said Marv Druker, a political science professor at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College.

“Otherwise, every two years Maine will have a proposal on the ballot to change the tax structure or spending patterns,” Druker said. “My sense is that legislators realize that, the governor realizes that and these special-interest groups realize that.”

With Maine listed at or near the top of state rankings for overall tax burden, activists have taken tax reform to the ballot in each of the last two general elections.

In 2004, Mainers rejected by a roughly 2-to-1 margin the so-called Palesky tax cap initiative that would have limited property taxes to 1 percent of assessed value.

This year, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights referendum asked voters if they wanted to limit government spending to the rate of inflation plus population growth, with voter approval needed for all tax and fee increases. The measure was defeated 54 percent to 46 percent.

If the tally had been overwhelmingly against TABOR, the message would have been that taxes and spending are not a problem, said Sandy Maisel, director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs at Colby College. If TABOR had passed, the message would have been that taxes had reached a crisis stage, he said.

As it is, “People are saying it’s a problem you’ve got to solve and it won’t go away by sweeping it under the carpet,” Maisel said.

Gov. John Baldacci, speaking to reporters Wednesday after winning re-election, vowed to “finish the work” of property tax relief despite the failure of TABOR.

Even though voters didn’t approve of the initiative, they “did not vote for the status quo,” Baldacci said. While campaigning, Baldacci met enough people who made it clear they are concerned about property taxes.

“That’s why I promised to them it (property tax relief) was going to be the first order of business,” Baldacci said.

House Speaker John Richardson said legislators have also heard the message.

“The question of whether or not expenditures are beyond where they should be is on the table and needs to be looked at,” Richardson said. “If there’s a perception that spending is out of control, we need to come together and solve that problem.”

Opponents of TABOR never said that Maine doesn’t suffer from high taxes, said Dennis Bailey, who worked with the Citizens United opposition group. Now that voters have rejected the referendum, he doesn’t expect anybody to change their tune.

“I don’t think anybody is going to make the case that the public doesn’t want real reform,” Bailey said.

AP-ES-11-08-06 1425EST

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