People's Veto

Senator Libby Mitchell launched a missile in to the Fed UP With Taxes camp in an op ed piece she wrote in the Bangor Daily News.

Just in case you had any doubt how big the battle will be this Fall, when the People's Veto is on the ballot --Senator Mitchell's opening line should remove all doubt: "Maine residents fed up with undemocratic taxes" by Newell Augur, paid lobbyist for the beverage industry, takes the grand prize for confusing fact and fiction.

The prevailing rumor is that the group has already collected more than ninety thousand signatures. According to the Secretary of State, the required number of signatures is 10% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election (55,087). Groups generally like to have a cushion of at least 10% more than the required number, just to be safe. If the rumors are true, than I think it is safe to say that voters will have an opportunity to weigh in on this issue in the fall.

"Most states are holding off raising taxes to patch holes in their 2009 budgets, but if you live in Maryland, Minnesota, Maine and New York, you're out of luck."

Fed Up With Taxes, a political action committee formed to support the People's Veto effort currently underway, has filed it's first PAC report. According to the PAC report, they have raised $182,100 dollars. The Maine Beer and Wine Wholesalers are in big, with a $100,000 contribution. The Maine Beverage Association and the Maine Restaurant Association are in for $25,000 a piece. The Maine Auto Dealers Association kicked in 10 grand, which may be a sign that car of the future may be running on soda syrup

"Health Coverage for Maine" was registered as a PAC on May 20th. The purpose of the group, according to the registration filing is to oppose the People's Veto or the repeal of LD 2247.

The group is headed by Ezra Hark, who according to his myspace page is a recent graduate of Colby College and worked on the re-election campaign for Governor Baldacci. In addition, he served as a Legislative Aid for the House Democrats. He also has a picture of himself riding a merry-go-round and according to his myspace entry, his favorite drink is Jack and Ginger, he prefers Coke over Pepsi and does not care for red-heads. All of which can only lead to one conclusion-- please -- dear God, enough with the myspace entries. Parents -- stop your children now before it's too late.

...the selection of one of the big dogs in the professional signature collection world is certainly a testament to the seriousness -- and cash behind the effort.

Two groups and no signatures, yet

The People's Veto campaign continues to move ahead - ever so slowly---with two groups now vying for the right to collect signatures.  The Greater Bangor Young Republicans have started a website called http://stoptaxingme.org/ to help jump start the signature collection.  They are joined by www.fedupwithtaxes.org  which is a collection of businesses, trade groups and individuals.

It is a daunting task to collect 60,000 signatures and it is still not clear when boots will hit the ground to collect the needed signatures by mid-July.

A group of Maine businesses and other organizations have officially launched a People's Veto campaign to repeal LD 2247, which will raise taxes on beer, wine, soda and health insurance claims. The taxes would support the Dirigo Health program. On their website, www.fedupwithtaxes.org the group describes itself as follows:

Fed Up With Taxes is a coalition of Maine citizens, businesses and organizations who are tired of paying high taxes. The coalition is seeking to undo a recently enacted law taxing flavored water, sports drinks, cola, diet cola, juices AND beer and wine AND all health insurance claims.

Assuming the Secretary of State uses his entire 10 days (he will) to review and approve the question, the group should be able to start by Monday, May 12th. They then have until July 17th, or 67 days to collect 55,000 certified signatures. Realistically the will need to collect over 60,000 signatures to make sure they have enough. To make matters more complicated, they really only have until July 10th as it is generally accepted that you need a week lead time to process and certify the signatures with the local towns before they can be submitted to the Secretary of State.

They had another meeting on Monday and agreed that they definitely should have another meeting. By my count, that is 5 meetings and 0 signatures.

They also reviewed the results from a statewide poll.  Apparently Maine people don't like taxes, think Maine is on the wrong track and are very unhappy with the Legislature. 

Shocking.

The good news for veto supporters is that a bunch of college kids worried about higher beer costs have already filed with the Secretary of State.  I wonder if they had meetings and polling....

Tick Tock for the Veto Clock

Politickerme has obtained the official task list of the People's Veto Committee. We have transcribed the list in full to help our readers better understand the enormity of the undertaking.