Verdicts on Howie Rich's so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights are being rendered across Maine, with more town managers and police chiefs sounding the alarm against it, and the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce giving it a solid thumbs-down on the same day that the Portland Regional Chamber gave it only "conditional" support, contingent on legislative fixes that will render it harmless. Meanwhile, the Maine chapter of the National Organization for Women issues a scathing review of TABOR's damage to the lives of women and children in Colorado, and Maine's teachers draw down funds from the National Education Association to educate voters about TABOR's fine print. Howie Rich's project gets no better treatment in the West, as a Montana columnist warns against its "radical Libertarian message" and another pair of California reporters catches him at the helm of Proposition 90.
But I feel compelled to open today's note with Dean Ferguson's report in Idaho's Lewiston Tribune. Ferguson got what may count as the most extensive interview with Howie Rich of New York City this year, though it was conducted via email. But he apparently erred in mentioning the website www.howierichexposed.com to the Manhattan mogul, who launched - as much as a man can launch anything through an email - a broadside against "outright lies and distortions" that cloud Americans' view of their government.
Ferguson hits all the bases with his research here http://www.lmtribune.com/... "A libertarian activist, Rich has spent $7.3 million on initiatives this year, according to an analysis by The Oregonian newspaper. The money, which also goes to other efforts aimed at limiting government, has worked its way through a series of organizations. Rich's wealth is linked to all but $50 of the $337,000 budget for "This House Is MY Home," the group formed to push Proposition 2. The $50 came from the group's creator, Laird Maxwell, a conservative activist from Boise."
"The Fund for Democracy, which Rich runs, gave $237,000 to Maxwell's group. Another $100,000 came from America At Its Best, a Montana-based group that is chaired by Maxwell. America At Its Best has distributed more than $2.5 million from a group that Rich chairs called Americans for Limited Government, according to High Country News, a biweekly newspaper covering western resource issues."
Ferguson apparently chatted with Maxwell, Rich's wild-west pardner who has most recently styled himself as a "simple Idaho cowboy," and Maxwell told the reporter the campaign "needed the money."
"We had a very short time to get signatures," Maxwell tells him. Odd that a homegrown initiative - you know, one that's born and raised by real, live citizens of Idaho - would have a hard time collecting signatures EVEN in a short time frame without a big check from an investor from New York City. Doesn't it seem odd to you?
But then Ferguson gets to Rich himself, and here's the result:
"My interest is in protecting individual liberty anywhere in the United States," Rich wrote to Ferguson via email. Rich told him "he wants `property rights restored' and has no profit motive for weakening planning and zoning laws."
"I personally have nothing to gain from the various property rights initiatives around the country and own no property in Idaho," Rich told him.
(Psst, Dean. Over here. To get a fuller picture of why a New York City real estate investor - oops, I mean, "apartment owner," as Maxwell now puts it - you should know it's "all about the ideology" and you can read more about that here http://www.dailykos.com/....)
Then, Ferguson writes, "Rich objected to the tone of a question asking if community interests in planning should be discounted if taxpayers lack the money to pay developers
and real estate investors. `You disdainfully refer to property owners as 'investors,'' Rich wrote. `But aren't all homeowners investors?'"
"Rich objected to another question, asking where he sees the balance between community norms and the property interests of investors and developers who live outside the community. `As to your hypothetical question on noncommunity property owners being compensated for actions taken by government, it is nothing more than a red herring designed to stir up feelings of local resentment,' Rich wrote. `The issue is whether or not government should be held responsible for its actions or if it can continue to take or destroy the value of a person's home, business or church at will with no consequence'."
I enjoy these little fireside chats.
Ferguson apparently mentioned Rich's previous forays into ballot initiative politics, such as when "[h]e was the largest donor, $130,000, to U.S. Term Limits, a group he created
in 1992, according to The Oregonian. That group spent $1.8 million on term limit campaigns and succeeded in getting term limits passed in Oregon. The Oregon Supreme Court ruled such term limits unconstitutional in 2002."
And he must've noted too that Rich "sits on the board of directors of the anti-tax group Club for Growth, according to Howierichexposed.com. Club for Growth gave $500,000 in cash and advertising to Republican 1st Congressional District candidate state Rep. Bill Sali, R-Kuna, fueling his victory in a six-way primary. Sali is running against Democrat Larry Grant, a former Micron executive from Fruitland."
Because it sounds like Rich chafed at the attention. Ferguson tells us, "Rich wants the focus to stay on property rights and limiting government." Of course he does, as the little fella that Toto found pulling the gears behind the curtain in the castle of the Wizard of Oz! Rich writes to him, "I am confident that once citizens throughout America look past the smoke screen and all the outright lies and distortions that ... government will once again have to act as the servant of the people instead of their overseer."
If only Ferguson had been able to talk with Rich in person, we might have gotten a glimpse at which things - among the many notes that have been published this year by reporters across the land, by the folks at www.howierichexposed.com and by little ol' folks trying to make sense of this crazy world through our little online diaries - which things constitute "outright lies" and which things constitute "distortions." I, for one, am shocked that Rich, who's had to be busier than the first pair of bees in the Garden of Eden, would go to that www.howierichexposed.com website himself and see what's said there. I've been there and looked around, but never in a hundred years would I have thought he'd have the time or the inclination. Guess I was wrong.
Boy, I hate that he wasn't available when Maria Hinojosa of PBS NOW stopped by to visit last month (http://www.dailykos.com/...). We could've cleared up all these "outright lies and distortions" then and there, and we could all have gone back to tending our chrysanthemums by now.
With that out of the way, let's get to Maine, where Androscoggin Chamber of Commerce President Chip Morrison says the vote to oppose TABOR wasn't unanimous but "it was a very strong majority." The board, he tells reporter David Farmer here http://www.sunjournal.com/... "just thought that TABOR was not the answer. If TABOR's in, it takes a two-thirds majority to make anything happen. Or, more specifically, one-third plus one can stop anything. If one-third plus one can stop anything, then a minority controls our state and every community in it. That's not representative democracy."
Farmer tells us the debate went on more than ninety minutes and "included 26 members of the group's board of directors, [but] there was no single issue that tipped the balance between support and opposition, Morrison said."
Now, how about this for context: "The Androscoggin Chamber made its decision on the same day that the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce announced its support for TABOR conditional on it being amended," Farmer writes. So while the Androscoggin community gives a plain-and-simple `no' on TABOR, the Portland chamber hedges its bet, counting on the legislature to neuter the measure if it's adopted on Election Day.
To be helpful to those nervous Nellies riding the fence, Morrison's chamber "identified what it considers to be seven problems with TABOR: It might delay real tax reform; could hurt investment in infrastructure and slow the response to emergencies; could cause the state to shift more costs onto communities; likely to increase litigation and create an uncertain environment for economic development; could undermine municipalities' ability to deliver services, including educational services; force government to spend significant resources on referendum elections; and it undermines representative democracy." Whew. And that's enough, in my book.
Of course, Morrison's bold step in the right direction evoked weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth over at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, where Bill Becker led the braying. "I really think there's a real dichotomy between what the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce says that it stands for and what they're willing to do about it," Becker told Farmer, before repeating himself in case he needed additional convincing. "There's just a real question in my mind about what they say they stand for and what they're actually coming out for."
With Becker busy wrangling his wayward choir, his second-in-command was dispatched to question the ability of Maine's educators and administrators to fathom how TABOR will do what he says it will do, knowing it'll do the opposite, and suspecting it will do even greater harm. (If necessary, I'll repeat myself in case Becker needs additional convincing.) MHPC's Vice President of Policy and Chief Economist J. Scott Moody told reporter Elizabeth Comeau that despite his posting of "numerous FAQs" and despite his "doing the speaking circuit," and despite his "getting the message to media outlets" (insert heavy sigh here), "if schools have questions, our phone lines are open and we'd be happy to walk a school district through anything."
Wonder if that includes closure and sale of the school property as surplus real estate?
Moody was reacting to the expressed aggravation of several Maine school superintendents, like Augusta Superintendent Connie Brown, who says of TABOR, "The first challenge, as I have listened to presentations about TABOR, is understanding how it works. It was not an easy piece. Two years ago, it was pretty simple to understand (Carol) Palesky, but TABOR is much harder."
Comeau writes here http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/... that other superintendents, such as Maranacook Area School Superintendent Richard Abramson, have let authorities do the analysis. After attending several "information sessions" about the referendum and still finding it incomprehensible, Abramson told Comeau, "I've received a number of communications from Maine Municipal Association and Maine School Management, and I forward all of those to school board members to keep them up to speed."
Watch out, Superintendent Abramson. You may be getting a Freedom of Information Act request about that.
Waterville Superintendent Eric Haley says "the devil is in the details. Unfortunately, the way it is written it sounds wonderful to people who aren't educated about it. Those who don't know the details will vote for it." And SAD 49 Superintendent Dean Baker tells Comeau, "Most people are not aware of what provisions are in TABOR, and they're limited to a headline-level of understanding. In talking with members of the community, many are unaware of the two-thirds requirement."
Shhh - I think that's the whole strategy, Superintendents Haley and Baker, and you're about to let the cat out. Keep voters dumb and they'll vote for anything, even for their own hanging at dawn!
Now, while Becker was wrangling his wayward choir, and Moody was condescending to Maine's school administrators, Roy Lenardson loosed some caterwauling of his own. Read closely his lament: "This is a Washington, D.C., group that wants to thwart the will of the people in Maine," he told reporter Trevor Maxwell. Was he talking about Citizens in Charge, the Washington-based committee that is blanketing states with records requests? No. Was he talking about Howie Rich's Americans for Limited Government? No, it's based in Glenview - now in Chicago - no, now in New York City, though it has certainly tried to thwart a lot of people's wills - not to mention their state laws - in Oklahoma, Nevada, Michigan, Montana, Missouri, Oregon, Nebraska, Idaho, Washington, Arizona and California. So was Lenardson talking about Rich's Fund for Democracy? No, it too is based in New York, not Washington.
No, indeed, Lenardson was talking about the National Education Association, whose members in Maine called on headquarters to send back some of the contributions made by Maine educators to an annual ballot fund, according to NEA's Kay Coles.
"We saw the debilitating impact of TABOR on the schoolchildren of Colorado and we do not want Maine's children to face the same problems," Coles told Maxwell here http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/.... And who knows better how TABOR damaged Colorado's kids than their parents and teachers - the same parents and teachers who helped vote TABOR into a coma there last year?
Hmm... so New York City real estate investors (or apartment owners, whichever you prefer) who send their radical ideologies to Maine are being helpful, but real Mainers who get back some of their own money from NEA to fight a bad idea just "want to thwart the will of the people in Maine." That's clever, Roy. May want to work on that a little longer with Jason Fortin, though, if Becker and Moody don't have time. It's got sort of a tinny ring, like you hear when you're a pot and you're calling a kettle black. Just a thought.
And educators find agreement among well-informed non-educators on the damage experienced by Colorado under TABOR, it appears. Women, too, anticipate bad things to come. Annie Lunt, president of the Maine chapter of the National Organization of Women, writes here http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/... that "under TABOR, Colorado declined from 23rd to 48th in the nation in the percentage of pregnant women receiving adequate access to prenatal care, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; (and) .... the share of low-income children lacking health insurance has doubled in Colorado, even as it has fallen in the nation as a whole."
"Maine has a proud heritage of trying to provide services for those most in need, it would be a sad day for Maine if we ignored the results of Colorado's experience with TABOR. Maine can do better and come up with its own ways to reduce taxes. Let's reject a national cookie cutter tax policy that ignores the needs and values of Mainers."
And a few town managers agree, too.
"All town services would be vulnerable to cuts or outright elimination should TABOR pass this fall," Ryan Pelletier, the outgoing president of the Maine Municipal Association and town manager of St. Agatha, told reporter Beurmond Banville here http://bangordailynews.com/.... "The town's priorities would be road maintenance, snowplowing and emergency services. By year three [under TABOR] we would be looking at doing away with programs or services that voters have already approved. Over time, its effects will be drastic."
Banville goes on, "In St. Agatha, Pelletier said, there would be no more recreation department, and the town would have forgone projects such as the regional community and economic development office it opened in a joint venture with Frenchville. The community development office has brought in $3.8 million in grants since it was created in 2003. `With TABOR, we could not have gotten that off the ground,' Pelletier said."
"TABOR would be a major step backwards and in the wrong direction for us. It would gut our entire action plan as a community," Pelletier told Banville, adding that if TABOR passes, "town office staff could be cut to part-time personnel and the town office might be closed one day a week. It could eliminate many street lights and defer purchase of firefighting equipment. Building through public works would be nearly nonexistent, and public works equipment might not be updated; and many social services could be eliminated."
Waterville City Administrator Mike Roy tells reporter Susan Cover that his town's budget would be $2.5 million shorter this year if TABOR had been in effect since 1995. A cut that big would "endanger public safety," he says.
"There's no way I can see reducing the budget by $2.5 million without cutting essential services and endangering public safety by doing that," Roy told Cover here http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/....
Oakland Town Manager Steven Dyer said his budget would have been squeezed by $259,000 if TABOR were in effect for the past 10 years. Augusta City Manager William Bridgeo estimates a cut of $100,000 would have been imposed on his budget this year.
And Ed Servonne of the Maine Center for Economic Policy tells reporter Lisa Gardner here http://www.wmtw.com/... that TABOR would force serious cuts. "It's that kind of blindfolded, indiscriminate, illogical reasoning for making cuts that we see as not beneficial for this state," he says.
Maine letter-writers are setting the woods on fire with TABOR, too. Roger Roy of Caribou says TABOR will "will destroy local control and decimate rural Maine," here http://bangordailynews.com/.... "The imposition of a formula to control budgets will remove the budget process from local control. We will witness tyranny of a minority. Towns will have no choices; they will have to cut budgets immediately. Fuel or insurance increases, natural calamities, adverse weather conditions -- all these things could wipe out a town budget. Small rural schools could be wiped out by a few families moving in or out of an area."
In short, Roy writes, "TABOR could destroy Maine."
Jeff DeJongh of Manchester takes the analytical approach, noting that TABOR's "simplistic formula can't address the complexities of managing state and local budgets," he writes here http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/.... "Energy costs are currently increasing faster than inflation (CPI). These rapidly increasing costs will affect the operating costs of all services; school bussing, fire and police as well as all road maintenance. The TABOR method for increasing tax monies to help cover the increasing fuel costs in each area mentioned would require a vote (which costs money each time). The only way any of these referendums could pass is with a two-thirds majority. Clearly, TABOR will actually increase costs as well as being less efficient. I'm voting `no' on Question 1 because TABOR won't work in Maine."
Benton's James Demchak recalls that there's a reason that we elect representatives to the legislature, here http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/.... "What does TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) really mean to the residents of Maine? It means the minority of the governing body can sit and say or do nothing and block the passing of any money-related issues at the state, county or town level," he writes.
Demchak explains, "Maine currently has 35 state senators; thus 12 senators of any party will control the financial affairs of the state and not the majority as elected by us. One-third of county commissioners, town council and school boards have the control, not the majority. A two-thirds majority is not the way our democracy was conceived. We elect our representatives with the concept of all having an equal vote, yet TABOR will remove the simple majority rule and turn it into a minority rule society."
Isn't that apartheid? If that was the intent, maybe the Maine Heritage Policy Center should've printed bumper stickers saying, "We liked South Africa the way it was."
Come to think of it, maybe the anti-TABOR folks oughta print up some "Free Maine" posters. It worked for Nelson Mandela!
Finally, tonight, a couple of notes from the West. Howie Rich rates only a brief cameo in the Orange County Register, whose reporters Martin Wisckol and Peggy Lowe have discovered that he's behind California's Proposition 90. They write here http://www.ocregister.com/... "Among those raising the banner for [regulatory takings] has been Howard Rich, a real estate investor from Manhattan. Rich has helped fund ballot measures in several states, and his Fund for Democracy spent $1.5 million to help get Prop. 90 on the ballot."
But he gets a full-fledged opinion-editorial by Matthew Redinger in the Billings Gazette here http://www.billingsgazette.net/.... Redinger's research finds that three of Montana's ballot initiatives "are financed by New York real estate tycoon Howard Rich. We should ask ourselves why he thinks he knows better than we do what is best for Montana. Another out-of-state backer of these efforts is Grover Norquist, president of Washington, D.C.'s Americans for Tax Reform. He has called initiatives such as CI-97 the `holy grail' of tax policy. These anti-government groups are clear about their goals. Norquist wants to starve government to the point `where we can drown it in the bathtub.' Pleasant. That's just what we need in Montana!"
"All three of these are designed to do one thing: break government. They arise from the primordial anti-government muck from which the Freemen crawled several years ago. We have to prove that we've learned that lesson, and won't be sucked in by their radical libertarian message. We are smarter than that. And if we aren't, and we don't mobilize against them and their out-of-state backers, then we deserve what we get."
And tonight's credit where it's due:
CALIFORNIA
http://www.ocregister.com/...
Reporters Martin Wisckol and Peggy Lowe, "Going beyond eminent domain:
Local measures are strongly supported, but the statewide Proposition 90 draws opposition."
IDAHO
http://www.lmtribune.com/...
Reporter Dean Ferguson, "New York man opens wallet for initiatives;
Manhattan real estate investor is money behind ballot measures in 11 states"
MAINE
http://bangordailynews.com/...
Reporter Beurmond Banville, "Town manager warns voters against TABOR"
http://bangordailynews.com/...
Mainer Roger Roy, "Threat called TABOR"
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/...
Maine NOW President Annie Lunt, "TABOR not of benefit to Colo. women, children"
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/...
Reporter Elizabeth Comeau, "TABOR: Conflicting opinions leave schools in the dark"
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/...
Mainer Jeff DeJongh, "TABOR won't work due to inflation, energy costs"
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/...
Mainer James Demchak, "TABOR not right plan to cure Maine's problems"
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/...
Reporter Susan Cover, "Referendum's ramifications split officials"
http://www.sunjournal.com/...
Reporters David Farmer, Maggie Gill-Austern, Rebecca Goldfine and Terry Karkos, "Local chamber opposes TABOR"
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/...
Reporter Trevor Maxwell, "National educator group jumps into TABOR fight"
http://www.wmtw.com/...
Associated Press, "Chamber Comes Out Against TABOR"
http://www.wmtw.com/...
Reporter Lisa Gardner, "A Look At TABOR, Part 1"
MONTANA
http://www.billingsgazette.net/...
Columnist Matthew Redinger, "Anti-government ideas created bad initiatives"