Beverage tax opponents did something nobody in Maine has for more than 50 years: suspend a tax approved by the Legislature before it could take effect. Though it’s too early to tell how voters will decide in November, petitioners for the People’s Veto have already made history with their dramatic wielding of perhaps the most potent weapon in the arsenal of referendum government.

One reason why this effort is so unprecedented is that tax increases from Augusta are typically passed by a two-thirds vote, which guarantees immediate enactment of the tax while also slamming the door on a People’s Veto. Sales and income taxes, for example, were put on the books by this so-called “emergency” legislation method.

The beverage tax was different: it wasn’t passed by the usual two-thirds, thus allowing a brief window – about 60 days – within which opponents could gather the 55,000 signatures needed to put it to voters. Maine also decrees when a People’s Veto is pending, the subject law cannot go into effect until the voters decide.

What will happen to the beverage tax? The result is more difficult to predict than a candidate election, because there are fewer political overtones to anchor the result. There was a time in Maine, however, when People’s Veto referenda were more common. This earlier era may be a guide to what’s “in store” for the beverage vote.

Automobile tail fins were almost as high as they would get in March 1958, the last time Maine voters had a chance to veto a revenue measure before it hit the books. A $1 increase in the driver’s license fee – up from the $2 it had been since 1912 – and somewhat more complicated increases in vehicle registration fees were at issue.

These were advocated by both Gov. Ed Muskie, a Democrat, and GOP leaders as a way of paying for an already approved $24 million highway bond.

Leading the charge against the fees was noted Lisbon Falls author and humorist John Gould. As chair of the Maine Car and Small Truck Owners Association (and allied with railroad unions), Gould argued the highway bonds should be financed by out-of-state truckers, who were then exempt from registration fees.

By a 6-to-1 margin (107,000 to 22,000), voters canceled the increased fees.

Three successful People’s Veto campaigns have blocked increases in the state gasoline tax. The first was a 1929 proposal to hike the tax from four to five cents per-gallon, as a way (again) to finance a highway bond, which was out to referendum the same time. The tax increase lost by a 2-to-1 margin. The highway bond, however, was approved.

The Great Depression didn’t make raising taxes any easier – a 1932 People’s Veto led to a more decisive rebuke of the same gas tax hike defeated in 1929. By a 10-to-l margin, 220,000 Maine voters rejected the increase.

In 1941, voters again vetoed a gas tax increase, this time for half-a-cent. Voting three days after Pearl Harbor, citizens came out 32,000 to 14,000 against the levy. The tax stayed where it had been since the 1920s – four cents per-gallon – until after World War II. (How the tax crept to today’s 28.4 cents is a subject for another column; this rate, though, does take a smaller share of a tank’s cost than 1941, when the share was nearly 50 percent.)

The earliest People’s Veto on a tax issue came in 1928, to overturn a tax reduction on the state’s railroads. Until then, railroads were taxed on gross revenues. The new law allowed consideration of net income, in other words, whether railroads were making a profit. This law was passed despite opposition from Gov. Owen Brewster.

The Maine State Grange, long a railroad antagonist, came through with the 10,000-signatures then required to suspend the law. By a 119,000 to 52,000 margin, the people (this time) sided with the Legislature and railroads against Brewster and the Grange, proving a tax reduction for perceived deep pockets – at the apex of the Roaring Twenties economic boom – could win popular support.

This fall’s beverage tax vote is a species of a genus long slumbering in the habitat of state government. How will it behave for the first time in the 21st century? Will financing today’s health care be as difficult as funding yesterday’s highway construction? These are questions to which we’ll soon have an answer.

Though if history is a guide, DirigoHealth may need to start looking for another way to pay its bills.

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].