More and more Mainers are reading the fine print of the so-called Taxpayers Bill of Rights being pushed by the Maine Heritage Policy Institute - with more than a little moral support from Howie Rich of New York City - and foreseeing the damage that Coloradans have lived for the past decade-plus. "Behemoths" on both sides of the issue kept a packed house enthralled at a Androscoggin County chamber debate in Auburn this week. Meanwhile, TABOR proponents in Michigan asked the Supreme Court to overturn a Board of Canvassers ruling barring TABOR from the ballot there, and the Court politely said no. Come to think of it, the Court's response was similar to Howie Rich's declination of invitations to discuss TABOR publicly in Oregon and Montana.
But the Michigan decision didn't stop Trevis Butcher of Winifred from sending his own plea to the Supreme Court of Montana, or the supporters of PISTOL, another Rich-supported ballot initiative, from begging audience with the Supreme Court of Nevada. "Takings' is a big deal out West, as more media are catching onto Rich's trail. And to round out today's coverage, friends, we head to sunny Florida, where Susan Johnson's National Voter Outreach has found another sucker.
This is what happens when we miss a day of readin' and writing', perhaps in silent tribute to the late and great Ann Richards; the inbox runneth over. So to Maine we go, where the steep rise in fuel prices has put the Farmington school district in a bind while planning next school year's budget.
Superintendent Michael Cormier told his school board on Tuesday night that TABOR will restrict budget growth next year to .66 percent - that's less than one percent, regardless of what needs may arise, including George W. Bush-era fuel costs. "That would amount to $150,000, not enough to even pay for our fuel increase this year," he said. "I'm fed up with the tax situation, but I'm not sure this is the solution," he said.
Director Neil Stinneford commiserated, according to the Morning Sentinel here http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/.... He doubted that the two-thirds majority vote to override TABOR's arbitrary limits could be achieved. So if the fuel budget for school buses runs out in March instead of the end of the year - thanks to rising gas prices - what are the kids to do? Walk? Are parents to drive all their own kids to school and be late for work? How many days can you get away with that before that new supervisor - who doesn't have kids of his own, of course - starts watching the clock? And then he'll say something, and that'll lead to something else, and then there'll be an argument at home one night... All because the Farmington school budget couldn't cover the price of gas next year, because TABOR capped its spending. Huh. Funny how TABOR starts affecting your sex life.
Yeah, said Superintendent Cormier. He heard from a Colorado lawmaker last week that Maine's TABOR language is even worse than Colorado's was, the Coloradans thought theirs was so bad that they voted to kill for five years.
If the Maine Board of Education - the statewide board - had its way, it would kill TABOR now, while family relations are still pleasant. The board adopted a resolution at its meeting Tuesday urging voters to reject the ballot measure, and WMTW covered the action here http://www.wmtw.com/....
"The Board passed a resolution at its monthly meeting on Tuesday that said TABOR would tie the hands of school boards, municipalities and the state when they make budgets. The resolution also said TABOR hands veto power to the minority," WMTW reports. "Councilor Carol Rancourt said TABOR takes the responsibility for each individual town out of the hands of those towns. She also said TABOR would hurt Maine's elderly and poor."
Maine Municipal Association's legislative advocate, Jeffry Austin, told that to the South Portland City Council last Monday during a two-hour TABOR workshop. TABOR's logic is "bizarre" and "absurd," reports Randy Billings of The Forecaster here http://www.theforecaster.net/....
"Austin said TABOR is a one-way street, involving citizens only when city revenues and budgets increase, but not when dealing with decreases or special-interest tax cuts," Billings writes. O, that's tricky. "Austin quoted a passage from the May 5 issue of "The Maine View," a MHPC publication, which concedes that 48 out of Maine's 195 municipalities will have a negative growth allowance, or will have to make cuts."
A full quarter of all Maine municipalities will have to cut their budgets. Wow. Wonder which ones?
"And there is no appeal for this process," Austin told councilors. Billings tell us, "Austin argued that Maine's law is a `slow strangulation' at the local level."
What evil could have spawned such a torture device as this?
Bill Becker of the Maine Heritage Policy Center did not address that question when talking about the measure that, ahem, his organization drafted and is promoting, ahem, during a breakfast debate sponsored by the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce on Thursday. To allow another side to be heard, the chamber also invited Kit St. John of the Maine Center for Economic Policy, and tickets sold like hotcakes. David Farmer of the Lewiston Sun-Journal (this fella's all over the TABOR issue, folks) has the story here http://www.sunjournal.com/.... "...for much of the crowd - the small business owners who make up the majority of the chamber's membership - it was an introduction to the intricacies of the citizen initiative..." Farmer writes.
Some attendees asked whether TABOR would, as they'd heard, force local governments to cut budgets. Becker offered happy-talk about the power of taxpayers. But St. John gave a straight answer: "The conclusion of most municipal attorneys is that they would have to adjust budgets down if they lose population or assessed value." See how easy that was? Truth don't need no sugar-coat.
"St. John used the example of Old Town, which lost a substantial amount of its valuation due to the closing of the Georgia Pacific mill. `Old Town had a reduction of value of 17 percent,' he said."
Wow, THAT Georgia-Pacific mill has closed too? That has to hurt the local economy; Georgia-Pacific was a huge employer. A Georgia-Pacific mill closing and the specter of TABOR is a double-whammy for Old Town. What can be done?
Farmer writes, "St. John argued that the proposal creates minority rule, where just a few people can block a vote from ever reaching the community. Becker countered that TABOR is all about giving power to the taxpayers." That Bill Becker. YOU might say he's not creative, but I say he's got message discipline.
"According to St. John, the evidence of what TABOR will mean to Maine is in Colorado. `There were more than 1,100 groups involved in their campaign to suspend TABOR,' St. John said, citing big cuts in public support for higher education, infrastructure and other government services."
"Larry Gilbert, former chief of police in Lewiston and a potential mayoral candidate in the city, attended the chamber breakfast. `Once people hear how the bill will impact them, TABOR will lose support,' Gilbert said. `The services that people want have a cost. ... As the speakers said, people are angry, but decisions that are made in anger aren't usually good decisions'."
Mm-hmm. And Farmington parents who will have to drive their kids to school when the school district's school bus gas money runs out early will be angry.
Now, friends, an object lesson on overconfidence in money and contempt for the rule of law. Our lesson features poor Trevis Butcher who, two short weeks ago, was riding high in the saddle. Butcher was collecting contributions to win passage of his TABOR measure, as the Associated Press reports here http://www.greatfallstribune.com/.... When Governor Brian Schweitzer challenged Howie Rich to a public discussion of TABOR in Montana, Butcher injected himself into the story, issuing his own challenge to Schweitzer. (Bad form, Trev.) And he gave this reeeally over-the-top quote to John Adams of the Missoula News here http://www.missoulanews.com/... "From the level of hysteria from the opposition, I'm convinced that their polling shows this is going to sweep overwhelmingly. First they sent out blockers to stop us from gathering signatures, now they've thrown up one frivolous lawsuit after another to try to eliminate the possibility of voters having the opportunity to vote on it."
Of Schweitzer, an exceedingly popular governor, Butcher had the temerity to say, "I don't believe he has the guts to take this issue on, quite frankly."
Mmm. The Greeks had a great word, Trev: Hubris. It's the overweening arrogance of mortals like you and me.
What a difference the law, and concerned citizens, and application of the law makes. Apparently that "one frivolous lawsuit after another" had some merit, and apparenrly District Court Judge Dirk Sandefur didn't delay the hearings as some might have hoped, and apparently those witnesses actually had something to say, and apparently Sandefur took their testimony seriously. Which is why it's important to obey the laws of the land unless and until petitions succeed at changing them.
This week, constant reader, Butcher followed his shock and disappointment with a plea to the Montana Supreme Court to overturn Sandefur's ruling. One imagines that Butcher will make a change in his legal team in hopes of getting better legal advice this time. Jennifer McKee has the story here http://www.helenair.com/... but so does Matt Gouras here http://www.helenair.com/.... And it's here too: http://www.westerndemocrat.com/....
"Backers of the three initiatives, which were stricken from the ballot Wednesday by a Great Falls judge citing `pervasive fraud,' appealed the decision to the Montana Supreme Court Friday. They argued the judge was wrong in his decision and the first court case didn't follow court rules," McKee writes. Hey, I thought it was because the errors only pertained to a few signature gatherers?
"Butcher said the lower court disregarded testimony from him and others that most petition signers likely knew exactly what they were signing and that those people's rights `were totally usurped in this decision.' Opponents only produced nine people who said they were duped into signing petitions, he noted," writes Gouras.
The Greeks had another great word, Trev: Catharsis. It's the feeling of being cleansed of negative thoughts or emotions by going though (or watching others go through) really bad experiences and emerging slightly humbler for the experience.
(But the Germans have a great word of their own: Schadenfreude. I'll let you look that one up.)
The Montana Supreme Court won't resolve the question before October 10, but the Michigan Supreme Court dispatched a similar appeal tout-suite this week.
Last week, the Michigan Board of Canvassers, that state's version of a board of elections, ruled that TABOR proponents fell more than 20,000 valid signatures short of a certifiable ballot measure. TABORites cried foul - what else could they do? - and asked the Michigan Court of Appeals to overturn the ruling. The appellate court said no. So, still in crying-foul mode, Scott Tillman and others asked the Michigan Supreme Court to help resurrect the monster. But those justices, too, said no. O, the pervasive evil of liberal, activist judges who stick stubbornly to applying law with even, clean hands. What's a committed ideologue to do nowadays? (Aha! Term limits for judges! Note to self: Look into a ballot initiative imposing term limits on judges, and see who we can get to fund a petition campaign for it. U.S. Term Limits, maybe? Howie Rich and Eric O'Keefe will know.)
I believe it was Boys II Men who sang, "although we've come to the end of the road, I can't let go..." But the media have seen the end of the road, and they describe it here http://www.woodtv.com/... and here
http://www.mlive.com/.... O, and here http://www.freep.com/....
Groups supported financially by the Howie Rich network are going back to the Supreme Court of Nevada, too, but not on account of TASC, the Nevada clone of TABOR. Instead, they're asking the Court to RE-HEAR the case for PISTOL, the name for their "takings" measure. The Court tossed the "takings" part - the red meat - from PISTOL last week when it also kicked TABOR/TASC off the ballot. The Associated Press has this item http://www.lasvegassun.com/....
You know, if the Rich network was really concerned with eminent domain, as it claims, it would be satisfied to leave things alone in Nevada, because the Court left the eminent domain language on the ballot. But this gives us a rare behind-the-scenes look at the network's real motives. It IS the takings provision that matters more to them.
It's asking the Court to take THE WHOLE QUESTION off the ballot. Why?
Well, one may speculate that if this takings-free, purely-eminent-domain question passes in November, then the network has no leg to stand on when it comes back in two years with a naked "takings" provision. At least when "takings" had the cover of eminent domain, it can confuse voters into thinking they're voting ONLY for eminent domain. So if they can take the whole question off the ballot now, they can use eminent domain as a cover for "takings" again next time around! Ooh, this is sneaky...
And this is, of course, all speculation. I'm sure the legal mumbo-jumbo offered to the Court in this re-hearing request is all about compliance with the law.
The AP hits this nail squarely on the head, though: "Most of the funding for the ballot question has come from Americans for Limited Government, a Chicago-based libertarian organization headed by New York real estate mogul Howard Rich."
What is this "takings" business? To answer that question AND get a another perspective on the Rich network in action, we go to Ray Ring, who is Northern Rockies editor of the High Country News, and who has as sharp an eye as they come. He's trained that eye on the comings and goings of money through the western states under his purview, and in text as tight as any I can find to describe the confluence of Howie Rich and a half-dozen characters across the West, Ring delivers a `ring'ing indictment. Here's a taste, republished by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/...
"The effort to pass takings legislation in six Western states this November pretends to be a grass-roots affair. But its real firepower comes from as faraway as Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. Eric Dondero, a professional signature gatherer who was working in Montana, offered the first clue to what was eventually revealed as a loose-knit, nationwide libertarian command chain. Dondero said he had come to Montana at the suggestion of Paul Jacob, a senior fellow at Americans for Limited Government, a Chicago-area libertarian activist group. Americans for Limited Government has provided loans and expertise to the Montana initiative, plus $827,000 to the Arizona initiative, and $200,000 to Washington initiative, according to state records."
"The Nevada initiative's leader says he has received $107,000 from Americans for Limited Government. The group has also given $2.5 million to another libertarian group, America at its Best, based in the D.C., area, which has in turn funneled $100,000 to Idaho. One key figure is the chairman of the board of Americans for Limited Government, Howie Rich. A real estate mogul based in New York City, Rich is also on the board of the libertarian flagship Cato Institute in D.C., and heads his own Fund for Democracy. Rich says he has funneled nearly $200,000 through a group called Montanans in Action to back the Montana initiative, along with two related initiatives aimed at setting state tax limits and making it easier to recall liberal judges.
"The head of Montanans in Action, Trevis Butcher, says he doesn't know Rich, but he declines to say whether he is getting money from the Fund for Democracy; he won't reveal any of his backers. Records in other states show that Rich has put $1.5 million into the California regulatory-takings initiative, $230,000 into the Idaho one and $25,000 into the Arizona version.
"Rich is not easy to find. He has an unlisted phone number, and his Fund for Democracy has no Web site and is not listed as a business entity in New York. Rich is confident of the rightness of his cause. `I believe in the American Dream. ... I believe in free markets. I believe that ... government has been growing at an excessive rate, at the federal level and in many states,' he said. `I'm happy to support local activists who are working to protect property rights in a whole bunch of states'."
In a second article, Ring further explains the interest of Howie Rich - or others connected to him - in the issue of "takings" and the elimination of land-use regulation. As he writes here http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/... "...this campaign has landed -- or is poised to land -- initiatives on the ballots of six Western states this year: Montana, Idaho, Washington, California, Nevada and Arizona. The initiatives are often billed as efforts to `reform eminent domain.' Governments at all levels invoke eminent domain on occasion to condemn property, forcing the owners to accept a buyout to make room for new roads, electricity lines, urban renewal and other projects that benefit the public... But the patriotic sales pitch hides something else entirely."
"National libertarians have their sights set on something bigger than protecting a few property owners from eminent domain: They want to lay waste to land-use regulations used by state and local governments to protect the landscape, the environment and neighborhoods. Their goal has received little attention, partly because of its stealth mode. But the fact that they just might pull it off makes the campaign the hottest political story in the West."
"...here's how the initiatives would work: If you could fit 20 houses on your land, plus a junkyard, a gravel mine and a lemonade stand, and the government limits you to six houses and the lemonade stand, the government would have to pay you whatever profit you would have made on the unbuilt 14 houses, junkyard and mine. Generally, if the government can't or won't pay you, then it would have to drop the regulations. Nationwide, eminent domain is invoked on behalf of developers only a few thousand times a year. But these initiatives are likely to affect millions of property owners, day in and day out, year after year.
"...if you live in any of the six states targeted this year and someday you might want a new regulation to put conditions on a Super Wal-Mart, or to protect stream banks from new construction, or to require developers to do anything for open space and affordable housing, you would be wise to vote no in November."
Ring cites a most revealing interaction with signature-gatherer Dondero. "I'm not quite sure what you mean," Dondero told him. "I guess it means that if a government were to build a big ugly building next to your property, and lowered the value of your property, they'd have to compensate you."
"When [Dondero] was told that it means something else altogether, something much bigger, he said, `To me, that's a secondary part of this. To me, the main deal is Kelo. Admittedly, I'm not really up on that part of the issue'."
"Apparently, Dondero is just a foot soldier -- courageous in his way and sincere in his beliefs, but not fully aware of how he fits into the overall mission, how his idealism is being used by those above him in command. No doubt many of the people who signed his petition, thinking they were standing up for the principle of private property rights, didn't understand the ramifications, either. The question for Westerners is this: How much will they choose to understand when they go to the voting booths?"
How much indeed. And how hard are other mainstream reporters digging to understand it for themselves?
The Oregonian is doing its part. Dave Hogan of its politics team posted here http://politicsupdates.blogs.oregonlive.com/... an analysis of funding flowing into their state: "Groups controlled by New York real estate investor Howie Rich contributed another $1.7 million to Oregon ballot measure campaigns in July and August, bringing their total donations to $2.8 million, according to new campaign finance reports. Americans for Limited Government gave $300,000 in July to the Taxpayer Association of Oregon Spending Limit PAC, which placed the Measure 48 state spending limit proposal on the Nov. 7 ballot. Initiative campaigns turned in their last signatures to election officials July 7. Americans for Limited Government also contributed $150,000 in July to the committee that placed a proposal to reinstate legislative term limits, Measure 45, on the ballot. Another organization led by Rich, U.S. Term Limits, gave $1.26 million to that campaign in late July and August, according to the campaign's report. The two groups headed by Rich, which are tax-exempt, have contributed more than 85 percent of the money given to this year's spending-cap and term limits efforts."
In California, only days after the San Francisco Chronicle told us that Howie Rich and Rich-connected organizations guided buckets of money into a "takings" campaign in the Golden State, the San Francisco Examiner has uncovered... the fact that Howie Rich is funding the "takings" ballot initiative in California! With a lot of money! Edward Carpenter has the news here http://www.examiner.com/....
"Bankrolled by New York developer and Libertarian Party member Howard Rich, Proposition 90, the Protect Our Homes Act, could strip state and local governments of their ability to limit development and protect open space, according to local government officials, rent control advocates and environmentalists who have come together to oppose the measure. `It's not what it's cracked up to be,' said Board of Supervisors President Jerry Hill, who along with the rest of the county board voted on Tuesday to oppose Proposition 90."
I sense that the Examiner is onto something. We'll keep our eyes peeled.
Forest Grove News Times reader Becca Uherbelau is up-to-speed and doesn't like what she knows. She writes here http://www.forestgrovenewstimes.com/... "If Ballot Measures 48 and 41 pass, their unintended consequences won't allow us to make necessary investments in education, health care and public safety. [TABOR] would insert a flawed formula into Oregon's Constitution. It is the same flawed formula... that was tried and failed in Colorado. Recently Colorado voters elected to suspend their version of Measure 48, because after 13 years of having the law in place, Colorado fell to 48th in funding for higher education, 49th in funding for K-12 and dead last in vaccination rates for children. Oregon's children don't deserve to be dead last in anything. Cutting services to kids and seniors is not the way to make government more accountable."
"More than 85 percent of the funding to put Measure 48 on the ballot came from one wealthy individual, Howard Rich, a New York developer. Measure 41 was paid for almost single-handedly by Nevada billionaire Loren Parks. Oregon voters should ask themselves: What do Loren Parks and Howard Rich stand to gain from cutting vital services and amending Oregon's Constitution? If our school years are shortened and class sizes increased, how will Mr. Rich or Mr. Parks benefit?"
Blogger Nathan Newman offers more analysis here http://www.tpmcafe.com/... where he notes that "what is remarkable is that those funding these initiatives -- centered around a rightwing network led by New York developer and libertarian patron Howie Rich -- could be so reckless and arrogant in their fraud."
Newman recommends - as I do - another blog article here http://www.progressivestates.org/... whose authors are anything but subtle: "The libertarian movement backed by a super-wealthy New York developer is proving why it hates the government so much: they appear constitutionally unable to follow the law. The bad news for voters in the states where Rich decided to play is that he and his underlings repeatedly violated multiple laws in their attempts to qualify these measures for the ballot. The good news is that judges and state officials are largely doing their jobs and holding Rich and his ilk accountable for their actions. In many states, this accountability has resulted in the disqualification of these ballot measures."
And finally on this temperate Saturday, we take a quick trip to Florida, where we find that Susan Johnson's National Voter Outreach has landed quietly and with a low profile. Whew. But NVO, which makes its living targeting unwary voters for their signatures, and which gets targeted by law enforcement agencies in return, has found another sucker - er, client, I mean - in pretty Ormond Beach.
Seems a developer wants to build an "ambitious development" along the beach, but city ordinances restrict building heights along the beachfront. This is an impediment to "ambitious development," so the developer Bray & Gillespie "is circulating petitions that ask voters to support an idea that could override the proposed 75-foot building height limit, which equates roughly to a seven-story building," writes Eileen Zaffiro of the News-Journal here http://www.news-journalonline.com/....
Such a petition requires a circulation campaign, and where on earth does an Ormond Beach, Florida developer find a petition-circulation company? Why, Ludington, Michigan, of course.
"The developer has hired an out-of-state firm, National Voter Outreach, to provide workers to circulate petitions. Those workers combined with volunteers have created a force of about 25-40 people who have been talking to Ormond Beach residents about Bray & Gillespie's ideas for its properties along State Road A1A...," Zaffiro writes. "In addition to condos or condo hotels, the company also has pitched plans for a 19-story hotel, parks, community center and parking structures."
The petition only began circulating last weekend, Zaffiro tells us, so Ormond Beach voters haven't had much time to familiarize themselves with Johnson or NVO, or the various criminal investigations, or the various depositions that reveal NVO's tactics, or other such things. So petitioning may be going well. A word to the families of recently-deceased Ormond Beach residents: You may want to make sure that your beloved's names aren't found on the petition to override this city ordinance. I'm just saying. Police reports in Michigan will give you things to think about.
"If the developer gathers the minimum 2,800 valid signatures of registered voters over the next month or two, it will be too late to get their initiative on the Nov. 7 election ballot. The city will have to hold -- and pay for -- a special election at the end of this year or next year if the city commission doesn't challenge the measure," Zaffiro explains. "Mayor Fred Costello said he has to learn more about the Bray & Gillespie ballot measure before he decides whether to lend his support."
Mr. Mayor, maybe you should expand your list of things - and companies and people - to learn more about, Your Honor.