Christine Savage is a retired town manager and ought to know how strapped taxpayers are and how much they resent unnecessary government spending.

Why, then, would this veteran state senator from Union submit a bill “at the request of a constituent” to make negative campaign ads a Class E crime?

Negative speech is objectionable, but it’s protected free speech. This is a going-nowhere bill joining other going-nowhere bills that cost taxpayers better than $10,000 apiece to present, print, debate and kill.

Savage’s constituent, David Metz of Rockport, made the request to criminalize negative political ads. He filed a formal complaint with the Maine Commission on Government Ethics and Election Practices in November, suggesting that a Camden candidate’s campaign flier violated the state’s fair campaign practices. The ethics commission declined to act on the complaint, so Metz went to Savage.

Savage should have heard Metz out, sympathized with his concern and agreed that negative campaigns are tiresome, but that’s where the conversation should have ended. By submitting such a bill for consideration, the State House staff has no choice but to prepare it for presentation to the full legislative body.

It’s a waste of time and money, and it’s just one more reason for taxpayers to roll their eyes and affirm that government just doesn’t hear pleas to curtail spending.

Designating negative political advertising as a Class E offense would make it equal to trafficking alcohol in jails, equal to public sex, equal to driving without insurance, plagiarism (which Maine calls criminal simulation), or harassment of an inmate or sexual offender. A person convicted of a Class E crime can spend up to six months in jail and be fined anything up to $10,000.

Negative ads are tortuous, but they’re not criminal. And who would get to decide which ads are negative anyway?

What a candidate may find negative, a voter might find truthful. What a voter might find negative, a candidate may find credible. The courts would be burdened with sorting out the mess – a startling new expense.

We certainly understand Metz’s stand against negative campaign advertising. We share his belief that political negativity has reached the point of ridiculous, so much so that it gets in the way of the issues that require reasoned debate and public scrutiny.

Our elected representatives have an utter obligation to hear us out, to consider requests we make for new law and to intervene for us to right wrongs. However, they are under no obligation to pitch forward every suggestion ever made by any constituent. Our representatives have an ethical and financial obligation to citizens to back bills they believe in and can argue in support of. Anything less is pure government waste.