In tonight's report, school leaders in Maine give the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights there a big thumb's-down for good reasons while the measure's sponsors continue to give circuitous answers - rope-a-dope style - to legitimate questions about cuts to essential public services. Colorado editors, meanwhile, lay the blame for prison ills there to its TABOR, now suspended in a voter-induced coma; too bad prison construction can't be accomplished on election day too. Montana reporter Mike Dennison catches Americans for Limited Government President John Tillman singing from the ALG hymnal but collects enough facts to squarely refute Tillman's doctrine. And while PBS NOW broadcast a picture of Howie Rich to the entire nation on Friday night, a few more newspapers in California and Washington are catching on to Rich's role in ballot measures there.
First, however, a quick update. Last week, I noted that National Public Radio's report on the "takings" issue in the West offered a great encapsulation of the matter but came within a hair's-breadth of realizing that the various entities behind the multi-state ballot initiatives were connected by one guy: Howie Rich. Well, color me premature and chagrined. Jeff Brady's report on NPR's "Morning Edition" was a two-parter, and while he excluded Rich by name from the first day's coverage, he nailed it foursquare on Day Two. You can still listen to both parts of Brady's report here
http://www.npr.org/.... It's excellent work and I'm tickled to recommend it.
Now, let's check in with Maine.
Kittery Council Chairwoman Ann Grinnell asked a straightforward question of a TABOR sponsor last week, but like so many other elected leaders in Maine whose responsibilities include serving the basic needs of Mainers, she was given an empty - even arrogant - response. Reporter Deborah McDermott of the Portsmouth Herald was there and offers an account here http://www.seacoastonline.com/....
Edmund Cervone of the Maine Center for Economic Policy correctly identified TABOR as a "one-size-fits-all" solution that promised to deliver many different brands of damage to Maine's municipalities. But "Tarren Bragdon of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, the organization that authored TABOR, said the tax-limiting measure is needed now to force the Statehouse right down to town hall to spend within their budgets," McDermott writes.
So Grinnell asked a legitimate question of Bragdon. What happens when, "because a town has fixed expenses such as salaries and fuel costs, `we have to tell the chief he can't have policemen or tell (School Superintendent) Larry (Littlefield) he has to close a school?" Grinnell asked.
Bragdon told the council chairwoman, "You have to have your spending priorities, the same way that households do." Well, of course. Why wasn't that obvious to the rest of us from the start? It makes perfect sense, you just tell your police chief that he can't fully staff his force, or tell your superintendent that he has to close a school, because the Maine Heritage Policy Center fooled Mainers into buying some snake oil. It's all about the priorities, Chairwoman Grinnell.
Mmm-hm. Well, that pap wasn't enough to fool the school committees of York, Kittery and SAD 35. Each of them unanimously voted to oppose the TABOR measure and to urge voters in their towns to follow suit, McDermott also reports here http://www.seacoastonline.com/....
"The language of the committees' motion was written by the Maine School Management Association," she writes. "The motion lists four reasons for the committees' vote: It would hurt local schools; it would reduce state funding for schools; it is poorly drafted and would not work; and the voting procedures set up by TABOR are unfair."
McDermott says the school system will use e-mail, the school Web site, presentations, the board and letters to the editor to spread the word.
Nor are various letter writers to Maine newspapers accepting the pap that Bragdon peddled to Grinnell and others last week. Richard Flanagan of Fairfield tries to get past "the anger of the pro-TABOR letter-writers and on to a meaningful dialogue" in Maine, but it's difficult, he writes here http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/.... "TABOR implies that democracy has failed, that the only means of control is to impose standardization by the sword: Portland and Gardiner, Bar Harbor and Fort Kent, Waterville and the unorganized townships, all sacrificing their individuality and local governance, all smothered under the same blanket formula. The angry letter-writers are beyond reach, but I implore my thoughtful fellow citizens not to surrender to the radicalism of TABOR."
And Sheila Evans of Chelsea recently moved to Maine from New Hampshire, and she's been impressed with the "cordiality and competence" of Mainers and Maine's public services to date. But she senses trouble ahead, here http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/.... "One area where I feel conscience bound to speak right up is in spreading the word about the problems with the so-called `Taxpayer Bill of Rights'... The anti-tax rhetoric is very popular, but it is a shallow trick that hurts people and contains no real benefit. A New Hampshire state representative told me she received a tax rebate for her Colorado property (Colorado fell for it and is paying the prices) and with it came a letter urging her to donate it to a charity because needs had increased so much. How much was her check? Nine dollars. Imagine going to all the time and trouble to trick people with a tax formula that creates havoc with state funded health and education programs for a lousy nine bucks."
By the way, it's a gubernatorial election year in Maine, and in case you were confused about who stands where on this poisonous TABOR business, Glenn Adams of the Portland Press Herald does the homework for you. Long story short: Woodcock favors the poison, Baldacci wants Mainers to stay healthy.
"TABOR would especially impact rural Maine negatively, pitting investments in education and infrastructure against other investments we need for the well-being of our state," Baldacci told the Press-Herald here http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/....
And what did Woodcock say about the likelihood that TABOR would leave municipalities with fewer law enforcement and public safety officers, firefighters and emergency medical personnel, leave children without adequate and effective public schools, and leave senior citizens without necessary services? O, I imagine that he positively glowed. "I strongly support the Taxpayer Bill of Rights as a means of real spending reform," Woodcock said.
You'll get to see Woodcock's glee on October 14 in Windham at the Veterans Center. He and Mary Adams will lead what they're calling the Second "Great Windham Tea Party," a pro-TABOR rally, at 10 a.m. Catch up here http://www.keepmecurrent.com/....
Hope someone there will ask them about the prospect of Maine prisoners being released early due to overcrowding... What? You haven't read this weekend's editorial from Colorado?
"Colorado prisons are so overcrowded that corrections officials will soon have to ship 1,000 inmates out of state so they'll remain behind bars. This should come as no surprise. The seeds for this move, which likely will be expensive, were planted long ago," write the editors of the Denver Post in a fascinating and shocking editorial here http://www.denverpost.com/.... "The dual pressures of the 1992 Taxpayer's Bill of Rights and get-tough-on-crime legislation have set the stage for a serious prison calamity. TABOR imposed a stranglehold on state revenue and resulted in a de facto prison-building moratorium. At the same time, state legislators passed laws increasing criminal penalties. What we have now is a system that will be at capacity by October. The solutions are not easy or cheap."
The editorial, titled "Past errors led to state prison calamity," was published today. It quotes Alison Morgan, a Department of Corrections official saying there's been no new prison construction in the state for five years, and that it takes about five years from the planning phase to housing inmates. "With no construction in the works, every month we've gotten farther behind," Morgan reports.
While there's been no prison construction, however, there have been changes in law that have added to the prison population. Ten bills adopted this year alone "increased criminal penalties or otherwise will boost the prison population... Those included making identity theft, sexual assault on children and human smuggling more serious crimes. These are not frivolous matters, and they have the end result of putting more people behind bars."
"To catch up by 2011, DOC officials estimate they will need $386 million for new prison beds," the editors write. "In the meantime, Colorado will begin shipping inmates to private prison facilities in Oklahoma. DOC officials do not yet have exact costs, but it's not going to be cheap. Many other states have the same problem as Colorado, and it is a seller's market."
Then the editors pass judgment that Mainers, Nebraskans and Oregonians might find of value: "The passage of Referendum C, which loosened the chokehold on state spending, means the state can begin to revisit the needs it had to turn away from. Even so, prisons are competing with higher education, K-12 schools, roads and health care - all starved by TABOR. Perhaps the only winners are the companies with available prison space in Oklahoma." Words to the wise.
Speaking of wisdom, the Montana Supreme Court is accepting arguments around Trevis Butcher's appeal of Judge Dirk Sandefur's ruling for another week or two, but the Billings Gazette delivered its own verdict today, and it affirms Sandefur's decision.
"When Montanan citizens gave themselves the power to legislate by initiative, they didn't envision that itinerant, professional signature gathers would be paid per signature and leave the state with paychecks of $60,000 or more," its editors write here http://www.billingsgazette.net/.... "The initiative process wasn't intended as a vehicle for secretive, wealthy political activists from outside Montana to buy their way onto the state's general election ballot. Montanans certainly didn't expect that signature gatherers would lie to voters about their residency, lie about the purpose of petitions or lie about who had hired them. But all of those things happened during the campaign to get proposed Constitutional Initiatives 97 and 98 and Initiative 154 on the Nov. 7 ballot, according to testimony in Great Falls District Court."
The editors could have stopped there, but they're true public servants, reader. They offer a sidebar to their comment that highlights the likely outcomes of the law. It's frightening. "The core premise of Constitutional Initiative 97 is that government spending should be limited to growth in price inflation and in population. That premise is faulty," they say. "Consider these examples of what budgeting by that formula would mean:
"The Department of Corrections budget wouldn't have grown to build more prisons or hire more officers over the past decade or so. Fueled in part by the proliferation of methamphetamine, the increase in the number of offenders in our prisons and probation system has far outpaced population growth.
"Montana's population is aging faster than it's growing and that is pushing up demand for services to older adults. Most of the money Montana Medicaid spends is for seniors and disabled individuals, including paying more than half of all bills for care in Montana nursing homes. CI-97 would shortchange senior services.
"CI-97 would prevent the state from increasing spending to cover the $25 million firefighting bill accrued so far in this wildfire season."
And they know firefighting in Montana. I'm trying to remember the last time a forest fire threatened Greenwich Village in New York City...
In the same edition, reporter Mike Dennison reports that "voters in Oregon, Idaho, Nebraska and Maine" will be "in the cross hairs of a campaign that has become national in scope, as well-heeled groups on both sides have lined up to promote or defeat these measures in several states."
Dennison has covered the development of this issue in Montana for several months, but what's interesting and new is that he quotes the perspective of one John Tillman, president of Americans for Limited Government. (Yes, it's confusing. Tillman is president, Rich is "chairman," and Eric O'Keefe is "chairman of the executive committee." Everybody associated with ALG gets a title.) And what does Tillman say? Sing along if you know the words, friends. "This movement has caught on because people all over the country recognize that government spending is out of control... They realize that property rights face a very real threat... The real nationwide push is coming from local folks all over the country." O, yeah. Sing it, children.
Thankfully, Dennison called Iris Lav, deputy director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C. "These are not accidental, home-grown movements. I don't think there's any question there is a set of organizations that have made this their mission."
But Dennison really didn't need Lav to refute Tillman's version of reality. He has, shall we say, a different set of facts to offer, here: http://www.billingsgazette.net/.... "In addition to Americans for Limited Government, conservative groups such as Americans for Tax Reform, Club for Growth State Action and the National Taxpayers Union have lent their support, either through direct donations to ballot committees, by staff assistance or by suggesting that members support the measures."
"A group called the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which helps liberal groups use the initiative process, says Americans for Limited Government and related groups have routed $11 million to attempt to qualify the measures in a dozen states," he writes. "The chairman of Americans for Limited Government is Howard Rich, a New York real estate investor who has publicly supported spending caps and the property-rights measures. Tillman declined to give a number on ALG's monetary support, saying it's available in public filings around the country."
Heh, heh, the old rope-a-dope. Tillman doesn't answer a direct question, Butcher doesn't answer a direct question, but the answers to these direct questions are floating around in the ether above our heads, like Mylar balloons of SpongeBob Squarepants. Wheee!
Meanwhile, the L.A. Weekly may be calling to ask those direct questions. Last week, it too discovered Rich's fingerprints on a strange initiative in California and reported it here http://www.laweekly.com/....
"Under Prop. 90, a bank could sue the state for revenues lost if the state had enacted a law limiting the fees a bank could charge for the use of its ATMs," writes Harold Meyerson. "A restaurant owner could sue for revenues lost because he had to pay his workers the state minimum wage. The possibilities are mind-boggling -- and a nightmare for state taxpayers, while a dream come true for more maniacal libertarians."
"Which, it turns out, is precisely who's funding Prop. 90. The measure's leading backer is New York developer Howard Rich, a longtime funder of economic libertarian causes, who heads organizations that have contributed $1.77 million to the Yes-on-90 campaign, and another $4 million to similar campaigns in seven other states. The Yes-on-90 campaign has also received $600,000 from a group called Montanans in Action, with which Rich has long-standing ties, and which, protesting that it is chiefly nonpolitical, refuses to identify the source of its funding."
Love that rope-a-dope style.
Meyerson may have gotten the scoop from George Ochenski of the Missoula Independent, who outlines the basic facts with a dose of Montana spirit here http://www.missoulanews.com/.... "If you're going to try to change the law or constitution in Montana, it's only fair that you at least live here. Fully 43 of the out-of-state scammers hired by Montanans in Action used a series of bogus Montana addresses," Ochenski writes. "According to the court, once they cash the checks for the signatures they gathered, they `then immediately move on to the next state without leaving a trace' so no one can challenge or subpoena them after the fact. One of the reasons they split the state so quickly is probably because they used a variety of bogus come-ons to get Montanans to sign their petitions. As witnesses testified last week, the most common falsehood perpetrated was to tell petition signers that they had to sign three copies of the same initiative when, in fact, they were signing three different initiatives."
Meyerson's not alone. In a guest editorial to the Seattle Times, a Washington (state) city planner has discovered Rich behind the "takings" ballot measure there, and he wonders what are Rich's motivations. Joseph Tovar of Edmonds has worked in the public, private and academic sectors during his 30-year career.
"What would the devils in the details of I-933 actually do, who is pushing it, and who is paying for their campaign?" Tovar asks. "A detailed analysis of I-933 and its consequences for taxpayers and Washington's quality of life can be accessed online at www.washington-apa.org/analysis_I-933.shtml."
"A disturbing new wrinkle this year is that the I-933 signature-gathering campaign was largely financed by an out-of-state sugar daddy -- New York real-estate developer Howard Rich, who is channeling millions to Western states to push extreme property-rights laws like I-933," he writes here http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/....
"I-933's endless lawsuits would create a huge legal mess in the courts and a chaotic business climate. That's why the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce urges a "no" vote on I-933. Who else has joined the coalition against I-933? The League of Women Voters, the Nature Conservancy, the Neighborhood Alliance of Spokane County, and the Washington State Council of Firefighters, to name just a few. The complete list of more than 100 organizations is listed on the Web site of the Citizens for Community Protection (www.noon933.org)," Tovar reports. "Washington's quality of life is not up for ransom."
Finally, tonight, Matt Singer has a quick comment on Rich here http://www.progressivestates.org/.... Check it out.