In some strange combination of political jujitsu and amnesia, Colorado Govenor Bill Owens announced this week that he endorses Howie Rich's so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights on Maine's ballot, not two full years after Owens announced his intent to suspend TABOR in his state when Republicans lost control of the legislature. No matter; the Maine Chamber of Commerce has joined the choir of the rational in opposing the measure anyway. Predictably, Mary Adams - who was offended that Maine's Bishop consulted the Almighty but not herself before announcing his opposition to TABOR - is offended again that the chamber didn't adopt her advice. Sigh. But if Owens's and Adams's contortions are comical, so are the discombobulations of the Wall Street Journal's editorialist John Fund, who now blames the failure of Rich's ballot initiatives across the Midwest and West on "activist judges" rather than the incompetence of professional petition circulators who didn't deliver the product.
And if all this - plus more news from Oregon and California - isn't enough, constant reader, Leslie (Mrs. Eric O' Keefe) Graves speaks at last, announcing her intent to come after teachers, policemen and other public employees, no matter the cost to taxpayers.
Strap in, reader: After several days of addressing a nasty autumn cold, catching up makes for a bumpy ride.
We begin with the Maine Chamber of Commerce, which teetered on the fence for more than a month as one town council and county commission after another faced facts and advised Mainers of TABOR's slow mutilation of Colorado. On Wednesday, the state chamber picked a horse, and its name wasn't TABOR.
WCHS reporter Chris Facchini reports here http://www.wcsh6.com/... that "the Maine State Chamber Of Commerce joined some of the state's largest lobbying groups to oppose TABOR and reveal an alternative plan to deal with Maine's high tax burden Wednesday. Chamber of Commerce President Dana Connors joined leaders of the Maine Municipal Association, the Maine Education Association, and the Maine Hospital Association to ask voters to reject TABOR and consider an alternative action plan."
Bill Becker, titular head of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, offered this rant in response: "I think these are lawyers and lobbyists that are paid to create the problems and then fix the problems they've been creating. In this sense, Maine voters want something different. They want real change, real reform and they sense the Taxpayer Bill of Rights is exactly that."
Mm-hm.
WCSH editor Rhonda Erskine has it here too http://www.wcsh6.com/....
We don't mean to slight reporter Trevor Maxwell, who had the scoop here http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/... and who's been all over this issue from the jump. He tells us, "The Maine State Chamber, which represents about 5,000 businesses, devoted at least five meetings and hundreds of staff hours to TABOR. Chamber President Dana Connors said on Sept. 27 that the executive board was leaning toward supporting TABOR, primarily because members could not endorse the status quo. But at the time, Connors said he would continue to seek alternatives in collaboration with MMA, MEA and other groups."
Maxwell had the squall from Mary Adams, too: "Unfortunately, 90 percent of Maine businesses are small businesses, and this 11th-hour desperation maneuver would hurt them the most."
Chamber President Dana Connors explained carefully, "Among the most problematic aspects of TABOR are the potential for immediate state and local budget cuts, the confusion of both a revenue and an expenditure control system on top of each other, and the inclusion within TABOR of many government programs that make no significant contribution to state and local tax burdens."
"Second, we do not share the perspective of TABOR's drafters that all government program reductions are good reductions. In our experience, government has worked well with the private sector all across Maine, with large and small businesses alike, to help promote jobs, investment and growth."
"Finally, we believe there is an alternative approach to lowering Maine's high national tax burden ranking, and controlling government spending growth, without resorting to TABOR's radical measures," he said.
Add to this combustible, confusing mix the contribution of Colorado Governor Bill Owens, who once was a rising star in his party, admired by Grover Norquist; now Norquist won't give him the time of day. Why not? Because when TABOR led to the Republican Party's loss of its legislative majority, Owens collaborated with Democratic legislative leaders to suspend Colorado's TABOR for five years.
Whatwhatwhat? That doesn't square with the news from Maine this week that Owens is now being seen on Maine television stations endorsing the measure, declaring that TABOR was a success in his state...
The Associated Press has the news here http://www.longmontfyi.com/... and here http://denver.bizjournals.com/....
Don't look at me, folks. I just report what I read.
City officials in Portland didn't wait for the state chamber to act, or ask Bill Owens for advice. According to WCSH editor Rhonda Erskine here http://www.wcsh6.com/... they advised Portlanders on Monday that if TABOR is passed it will create a $4,000,000 gap in the money needed to fund city services in its first year. "That will mean cuts to organizations like the Portland Public Library, cuts in general assistance, the elimination of 10 school social worker positions, and a 15% cut in adult ed programs. And that, they say, is just the beginning of the downward spiral."
City Manager Joe Gray didn't mince words: "As city manager, I don't believe this is the face of Portland our citizens and businesses want to see in the future. We all want tax relief, but the Tabor offers the simple message of tax relief without accounting for its impact on local government."
Leaders of Old Town too were unanimous in their opposition to TABOR on Monday night, reporter Aimee Dolloff tells us here http://www.bangornews.com/.... And for good reason. Dolloff writes, "As Old Town works to diversify its tax base since the March 16 closure of the Georgia-Pacific Corp. paper mill, TABOR would `weaken the ability of the city to meet our community's needs,' according to the resolution."
Did she say a Georgia-Pacific plant closed in March of this year? We'll have to come back to that.
On top of a laundry list of criticisms, Old Town leaders said, "TABOR would abolish Old Town's long tradition of majority rule."
Speaking of losing the principle of "majority rule," you'll love this note from reporter Josh Harriman http://www.keepmecurrent.com/.... Long story short: The 30-member Cape Elizabeth Task Force has worked for several months to draft an "informational flier" to mail to local voters. But after those months of work, six of the task force's 30 members - that's 20 percent, friends - "declined to endorse the flier," which threw the whole process into a tizzy.
Really, we're just not the gossipy kind, but Harriman says "the dissenters were town councilors Anne Swift-Kayatta and Cynthia Dill, school board members Kevin Sweeney and Rebecca Millett, and Kyle Parrish and Joanna Morrissey..."
Harriman says the meeting became tense when the twenty-percent dissented. "It was a bit heated," Janet McLaughlin, the task force co-chair, said last Wednesday. "Not everyone was pleased when they left the meeting."
But that's what TABOR means, y'all. The minority - which is a "minority," let's remember, because it doesn't win enough votes to become the "majority" - gets to gum up the works and call it fair.
And by the way, according to Associated Press reporter Francis Quinn, only one of the four candidates for governor - that's twenty-five percent, folks, another example of a "minority" - supports the idea. "Of the state's four major candidates for governor, only Republican Chandler Woodcock supports TABOR, and he has made it a cornerstone of his campaign," she writes.
Old Town wasn't alone: Waterville too adopted a resolution against TABOR, Colin Hickey tells us here http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/.... "School Superintendent Eric Haley...said based on his understanding of TABOR the Waterville school system, starting in 1997, would have lost $25 million in funding over a 10-year period had TABOR been in place."
Leaders of Pittsfield are getting ready for the worst, even drafting a TABOR-preparedness version of their budget, writes reporter Sharon Mack here http://www.bangornews.com/.... "With the cost of living and rising prices, the employees should have a wage increase and the town needs to budget adequately for fuel, [utilities], and other price increases which are coming across the board," Town Manager Kathryn Ruth said last week. So, Mack says, "Therefore, without any increase in programs and services, the budget would rise."
Colorado Senator Steve Johnson is back in Maine, reports Doug Harlow here http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/.... This is Johnson's second trip to the Granite State, doing his part to bring truth to the table, even if it refutes the tale spun by Colorado's Governor Owens.
"TABOR severely reduced needed services in the state of Colorado," Johnson said via cell phone Wednesday night, running late for a lecture at Colby College. "Maine's proposal is worse. Obviously (the Colby students) are interested in higher education -- TABOR forced significant cuts in K-12 education, higher education, the community colleges, health care and transportation," he said.
Tuition increased at Colorado University by 31 percent from 2002-05 because of TABOR, he said. Colorado University lost 16 tenured professors in 2003 because they were recruited to other schools offering higher salaries. Since 2002, the university has closed six academic programs and has lost 286 faculty and staff. "It is predicted that if TABOR had continued in Colorado, by 2010 they would have had to sell its public universities," Johnson said. "It was more affordable for Colorado students to go to the University of Wyoming because in-state tuition was so high."
Wonder what TABOR will do to Mainers' kids? The Bangor Daily News staff tells you here http://bangordailynews.com/....
"The data from Colorado are stunning in what they tell us. Before TABOR passed in 1992, Colorado was about average among the states in the most important measures affecting children's health and schooling. Since then, its standing has dropped dramatically. Before TABOR, Colorado ranked 24th in the number of children receiving full vaccinations against preventable diseases. By 2005, it was 50th - last. Before TABOR, Colorado was 23rd in the proportion of pregnant women receiving prenatal care. It is now 48th. Before TABOR, it was 24th in the percentage of citizens who have health insurance. It is now 36th."
And that's not all; follow the link to catch the whole list of ails.
And women? Does TABOR have a treat for women in store? This op-ed seems to believe it does: http://waldo.villagesoup.com/.... The Maine Centers for Women, Work and Community are issuing a voter information guide that focuses on women's issues, and Sarah Standiford, Executive Director of the Maine Women's Policy Center, says "TABOR, Question 1 on the November ballot, is a restrictive one-size-fits-all formula for state and local budgets that would steadily cut funding for programs like health care, education, and services for the elderly, the services upon which women disproportionately depend. Maine women should learn more about Question 1, because TABOR will impact each of our families and communities."
Want a copy? Copies of the voter guide can be obtained by calling The Maine Women's Policy Center at 622-0851 or online at www.womenworkandcommunity.org/wesa
I'm glad they're distributing their voter education guides, because voters are getting more confusion than clarity in the public discussion of TABOR, reporter Andrea Rose tells us here http://www.keepmecurrent.com/.... Associated Press reporter Francis Quinn says the confusion will keep comin' if it passes, here http://www.boston.com/....
"Let's assume the Taxpayer Bill of Rights is enacted next month," she posits. "What would happen next?" She gets a variety of answers, none cut-and-dried or inexpensive or helpful to Mainers generally. And none of them mean lower taxes, either.
"You mean, after it gets out of the legal challenge?" joked Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, a former secretary of state.
"It wouldn't go out the same way it was written," said Rep. Earle McCormick, a Republican from West Gardiner on the Legislature's Taxation Committee, while adding that he foresaw no significant post-enactment alterations.
"Maine's top enforcement officer has already opined that some provisions of the proposal are unconstitutional. Attorney General Steven Rowe, in a letter to House Speaker John Richardson, D-Brunswick, earlier this year, said TABOR seeks to implement changes that cannot be made by statute, and only by a constitutional amendment. The initiative seeks, for example, to surrender part of the Legislature's power of taxation to voters and a minority of the members of the House and Senate, and to restrict the Legislature's exercise of emergency lawmaking powers, Rowe wrote."
TABOR's going to be a nightmare for Mainers but a dream for lawyers, mark my words.
Still others think it's a solution in search of a problem, as reporter Susan Cover tells us here http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/.... "LD 1 put spending caps at the state, county, and municipal level, and required separate votes by elected officials, and in some cases townspeople, if they wanted to exceed the caps. It also put more money in two tax-break programs, though it left it to local government to help pay for one of them. Gov. John Baldacci signed the statute into law in January 2005, but it did not fully take effect until September of that year. Because of different fiscal cycles in cities and towns across the state, it did not kick-in in some places until early 2006. Some argue that it's too soon to tell whether it's working."
Need more? "Maine is in a fiscal mess; a mess any number of recent schemes have tried and failed to fix," reads a column in the Maine Morning Sentinel here http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/.... "The message from the public has been clear in recent years -- Mainers don't want to be the new Taxachusetts. But the people who can do something about that -- recent governors and Legislatures -- only pick away at the problem, trying to get away with sleight-of-hand with the budget and word games in which they say the problem isn't the big taxes, it's the small incomes."
But, it concludes, "TABOR is the wrong remedy for our disease."
"It doesn't seem prudent for a state accustomed to government spending -- a state where many regions depend on government and public schools for their economy -- to go cold turkey. TABOR could be a shock to our economic system that would harm rather than help. TABOR supporters say the legislation has a built in solution to that problem: Its provisions can be overridden. But the override process is that Rube Goldberg machine, in which the government body (wait 'til you read the fine print around that definition) has to vote by two-thirds majority to recommend an override. That has to be followed by a majority vote of voters in that jurisdiction. Aside from the costly and complex override process, we object to the nature of the voting. It comes down to this: If a majority of a city council or board of selectmen vote to send an override to the public, it won't happen."
"The way Maine spends and taxes needs fixing. The best way to do that is not TABOR, but through leadership and determination in our city hall, school boards, town halls and, especially, at the Statehouse."
Amen, and amen.
Mainer Phil Bailey is offended, as he says here http://www.bangornews.com/.... "The principle people who are behind this have names -- Howard Rich from New York and Rick Berman. Their stated aim is to destroy representative government."
Mainer Dean Corner of Augusta thinks likewise here http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/.... "Supporters of TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) would like to strip away some of our Maine `conveniences' -- garbage collection, putting out fires, neighborhood patrols and public safety, plowing roads, services to the elderly, educational opportunities for children and adults, library services, parks and recreation, keeping public records, dispatching emergency services, supervision of jails, solving crimes and road repairs."
"If your town votes against TABOR but it passes statewide, tough luck. You're stuck with that highly restrictive, wasteful formula anyway. Do you want your town to decide its needs for fire and police protection based on a formula? I wouldn't want to be that homeowner whose house was damaged or destroyed because a formula cut back the town's fire department."
Mainer John Martell of Harpswell writes here http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/... "A letter writer recently... urged voters to `rely on their eyes' and ignore the `abundant rhetoric' surrounding the question. I took his advice, Googled `Maine TABOR,' and up appeared the language for the initiative. But wait, it wasn't just one simple sentence 10 pages popped up. So I did a word count just to be sure, 26,050 characters, 4,200 words, 607 lines, 117 paragraphs. I started to read. Phrases like `stabilization fund,' `unprotected excess' and `quasi-govermental agency' caught my eye. One paragraph talks about individual or class-action lawsuits being filed. Suddenly, this isn't sounding quite so simple anymore, and it's not."
Mainer Sheila Evans of Chelsea takes note of the rational people opposing Rich's TABOR: "The people who make our state great include our teachers, police, firefighters, health-care providers, municipal workers and members of our communities. Representative organizations of all of the above are on the list found at www.NOTABOR.org. They have read the details in the proposal and understand the consequences. Voters who are wondering about Question 1 might do well to talk to their friends and neighbors who serve them in their communities. We trust our community servants to keep us safe, educate our children and maintain our civic standards, and that trust extends to heeding their advice to vote `no' on Question 1."
Mainer Peter Sirois has a fascinating perspective here http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/.... "Why did those in the past support their neighbor? Could it be that according to Christian tradition they followed the words of Christ, `Whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto Me'? So, apparently we have lost our more relaxed way of life. Have we also lost our alleged Christian compassion? Will we turn our backs on our Christian duty and accept TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights)? Or will we be the Christians we claim to be and say no to TABOR?"
That's deep, y'all. Click the link and read the whole thing.
Mainer Joseph Silva arrives at a similar conclusion here http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/... "The gang that controls the federal government is destroying our country. They started a totally insane war in Iraq, which is bleeding us financially and slaughtering our sons and daughters. At the same time they are filling their friends' pockets with the ill gotten gains from war contracts. I have heard that as much as $10 billion is unaccounted for. Yet I have not heard one wink about getting our money back. The Washington Mafia must be stopped. Here in Maine we have a plan to further pick our pockets called TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights). This is another give away plan. If you are going to give a tax break, give it to the guy on the bottom. He has to spend it to live. So it goes back to the guy at the top, but on the way it does the state some good... The biggest crime is that all these slimeballs claim that they are good Christians. I can assure you that the devil is dancing the jig because he knows that he will soon have a full house."
Reporter Pamela Prah of Stateline.org recaps the activity of the past four or five months, much to the chagrin of TABORites, here http://www.stateline.org/.... "A nationwide campaign to use the ballot box to rein in state spending has fizzled even before voters had a chance to weigh in on Nov. 7. While voters in Maine, Nebraska and Oregon will consider ballot measures that cap increases in state spending, similar `Stop Over Spending' initiatives got booted off ballots in Michigan, Montana, Nevada and Oklahoma primarily because of concerns about the validity of the signatures. The paltry number of states that have spending limit measures on the ballot is a far cry from the nearly two dozen states that conservative political strategists and grassroots anti-tax crusaders had hoped for when the year began."
Paltry, she said. Pretty accurate, I say.
But Grover Norquist, last seen distancing himself from soulmates Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed, offers an optimistic benediction - or is that a threatening benediction? "We'll be back in all those states," Norquist tells Prah. She writes, "He blamed `annoying technicalities' for knocking off the spending limit measures in those states."
Yeah. Other Americans call them "state laws."
From Oregon, a brief note from the editors of The Oregonian here http://www.oregonlive.com/.... "If you have time to look carefully at any choice in this election, it should be to study the full impact of Measure 48. It is the most important question on the November ballot," they say. Cutting to the chase, dear reader, here's their position: "The most important vote in the November election is a "no" vote on Measure 48."
Oregon's college and university students should pay close attention to TABOR, writes reporter Jeffrey Selingo here http://chronicle.com/.... "The Colorado experience, where higher education took the biggest hit of any sector of state government, is what has college leaders in this state worried. In some ways, the vote looms larger in Oregon than in Maine or Nebraska because, unlike in those states, overall appropriations for higher education in Oregon are actually lower than they were in 2001, by some $100-million. Limits on the state budget `will not just restrict growth,' says George P. Pernsteiner, president of the seven-campus Oregon University System, `but will probably cause retrenchment just to make it possible to do the things we already committed to doing'."
"It puts a state behind the eight ball," says Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. "Higher education doesn't have the protection that other sectors have either because they are federally mandated or they have more political clout."
Selingo fingers Rich here: "Leading the fight in favor of the referendum is the Taxpayer Association of Oregon and its president, Don McIntire, who wrote Measure 48. The campaign is almost single-handedly bankrolled by Howard S. Rich, a New York real-estate investor, who leads Americans for Limited Government, a libertarian group that has donated nearly $900,000 to the Oregon operation and provides financial backing to the campaigns in other states as well."
And on the "regulatory takings" front, Howie Rich's measure has some Californians spooked, now that they've gotten their 192-page voter information guide in the mail. Reporter Michael Gardner tells us here http://www.signonsandiego.com/... that Rich's issue even has - gasp - taxpayers organizations worried. "A second layer of the initiative has alarmed Willis and other traditional property-rights advocates, such as the California Farm Bureau and California Taxpayers Association. Within the measure, critics say, lurks a direct assault on the fundamental right of cities and counties to carry out land-use policy," he writes.
To put it bluntly, if Rich's "takings" measure is passed, all carefully-laid plans for land use and development and conservation go out the window unless taxpayers are willing to pay off the land-users and developers and anti-conservationists to the tune of millions, even billions of bucks.
"The eminent domain part is going to be a no-brainer for most voters," said John Matsusaka, president of the Initiative & Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California. "Trying to sneak in the regulatory takings part could be their downfall."
Is he alleging that Howie Rich is sneaky? Sugar Daddy? Surely not.
Gardner's got the details right: "Howard Rich, an affluent New York real estate developer, helped bankroll California's initiative. He has a leading role or connections with the measure's major out-of-state donors: the New York-based Fund for Democracy, $1.5 million; Chicago-based Americans for Limited Government, $1 million; Montanans in Action, $600,000; and the Illinois-based Club for Growth, $220,000. All of these groups also are vocal critics of government."
"Opponents of Proposition 90 say the involvement of Rich, a conservative who serves on the board of the free-market Cato Institute and as president of U.S. Term Limits, should be a red flag for voters."
And, ahem, this next bit is comical: "Rich could not be reached for comment." Apparently neither Heather Wilhelm nor John Tillman was available to field the call on Howie's behalf.
Editors of the San Francisco Chronicle agree here http://www.sfgate.com/.... They get right to the point: "The main benefactor of Proposition 90, wealthy New York real estate mogul Howie Rich, makes no secret of his desire to rein in the power of government."
"The timing of this measure could not be worse for a state that is about to embark on a major effort to repair its roads and levees," they write. "Proposition 90 is a raw deal for taxpayers and an affront to the concept of representative democracy. We urge its rejection on Nov. 7."
And columnist Tom Elias writes here http://www.dailybreeze.com/... that "all this extra Proposition 90 content and consequence has gotten little attention so far, mostly because opponents don't have the money to compete with the pro-90 campaign. The yes campaign got $1 million from the Chicago-based Americans for Limited Government, a Libertarian-oriented group. Another $1.5 million came from the New York-based Fund for Democracy, backed largely by developer Howard Rich, a former Libertarian Party activist. It's an imbalanced campaign, with the result most likely to favor the side with the big bucks. And it could hamstring local governments, rendering them unable to zone land for orderly development without paying gigantic potential penalties to large numbers of affected property owners."
Reporter John Miller gives the "takings" measure a broader scope in his regional report here http://www.helenair.com/.... "Measures in Idaho, Arizona, California and Washington ask voters to follow the lead of Oregon, where residents in 2004 enacted a law that would force local governments to pay private property owners if new regulations reduce their land's value."
He explains, "It's the latest collision of the Old West, where property rights border on the sacred, and the New West vision of a landscape that requires laws to shape and protect it appropriately. And it has attracted deep-pocket backers on both sides: Millions from conservative activist and New York real-estate mogul Howard Rich are propping up the ballot measures, while Paul Brainerd, Seattle-based founder of Aldus software, has injected at least $120,000 into the fight to shoot them down."
And, lo and behold, Laird Maxwell has a cameo: "Laird Maxwell, the conservative activist pushing Idaho's Proposition 2 almost solely with Rich's money, said foes have employed `esoteric, pie-in-the-sky scare tactics' to frighten voters on Nov. 7. Proposition 2 is simple, he said: If government changes laws to limit how people can use their land, it should pay for the damage."
They're just reading the measure language, Laird. You're the one adding the boogedy-boogedy sound effects.
Either Miller got Rich himself to respond, or he lifted a Rich quote from some other source: ``It is a battle over whether or not individual liberty will continue in the United States or not,'' Rich, also on the boards of the conservative Cato Institute and the Club for Growth, told The Associated Press. ``The opposition are government bureaucrats, those that profit from taking other people's property without paying for it, and those that have radical agendas hidden under soft facades.''
As for how Idahoans feel about Rich, well: "What we've got is this out-of-state sugar daddy who is supporting this far-out proposition that will put Idaho communities at risk,'' Dan Chadwick, Idaho Association of Counties director, said of Rich.
Boogedy-boogedy.
Maxwell gets a bigger role in reporter Jared Hopkins's item here http://www.magicvalley.com/... where Hopkins quotes the man who's ready to bid Idaho goodbye just after nailing it to the cross bought by Howie Rich: "It's a citizen's initiative, not a politician's initiative and the politicians are worried that their power will be taken away," Maxwell said.
As Buckwheat used to say, "O-Tay."
But Hopkins doesn't let Rich off the hook: "The debate over land-use regulation, which has sparked similar ballot initiatives in Washington, California and Arizona, became national following Oregon. Efforts have generated support from out-of-state contributors, including Howard Rich, a wealthy Libertarian activist from New York City. Such involvement, as well as allegations of fraud over petition signatures in other states, however, has led some to question motives for land-use regulation."
Syndicated columnist Neil Peirce piles on here http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/... writing, "What's alarming is the rise of complex taxation and property-rights initiatives that cast long shadows over the ability of state and local governments to perform their essential 21st-century tasks. The fiscal perils are particularly acute in so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, initiatives on the ballots in Maine, Nevada, Nebraska and Oregon. Reasonable on its face, TABOR in fact proved so Draconian -- pushing Colorado from 35th to 49th among states in K-12 spending as a share of personal income -- that voters in 2004 suspended it for five years."
"Requiring legislative supermajorities puts effective control into the hands of small contingents of legislators, able to extract special favors or pork-barrel outlays. State votes to raise taxes necessitate tough, massive campaigns. Result: TABOR amendments don't simply restrain state governments; they threaten to paralyze them."
Tell us who's behind them, Neil: "Reporters find that the TABOR and regulatory-takings measures appear suddenly, without a previous state political base. Small wonder. New York real estate magnate Howard Rich's Americans for Limited Government seems to be planting them and providing -- as The Oregonian in Portland has documented -- millions of dollars of support. The immense danger here is that the people who infected Washington with their rigid ideologies and misuse of power are exporting their so-called solution sets to states and local governments that should be deciding critical 21st-century issues for themselves."
Finally, readers, Leslie (Mrs. Eric O'Keefe) Graves may be coming for YOU next.
Now making no bones about her active involvement as a full partner among the major leaguers of the Howie Rich network, Graves's coming-out party is found here http://www.citizensincharge.org/... where she writes her own florid mission statement as "national director of G-TAP," or the Government Transparency and Accountability Project. (George Orwell was a piker compared to the creative writers we're dealing with here, friends.)
She begins, "I live near Spring Green, Wisconsin, with my husband Eric O'Keefe. Eric has been involved for many years with the term limits and school choice movements, recently serving as Chair of the Executive Committee of Americans for Limited Government."
"In early 2006, after two decades as a stay-at-home mom, I started a petition drive management company and plunged into managing the paid part of two petition drives in Nebraska," she tells us. "The second week of our ballot drive, a young woman called me one night and, in tears, relayed an experience she had had that day while knocking on doors in the Omaha area to ask voters if they'd consider signing her petition to place a spending lid amendment on the ballot."
"At one door, the man who answered became agitated when he saw her petition. He insisted that her petition was illegal and ran to his study to get a copy of an email, so he could prove to her that the petition was illegal. He turned out to be a teacher, and it was an email he had received at work that day," she reports. Notice that there's no attempt to dispute the assertion that the petition was, in fact, illegal in some way. That would be beside the point.
She continues, "When she said she was going to continue on to the next door, he ran across the street to the home of a police officer, roused the occupant, and asked that the police officer arrest the petitioner because she was circulating `an illegal petition'. The police officer told the petitioner that unless she had a permit to solicit, he would in fact arrest her."
Notice here that there's no attempt to address the question of a permit. Was one required by law or city ordinance? If so, did the circulator have one? Who knows? Issues like these are incidental to the story, you see.
Graves mentions Wall Street Journal editorialist John Fund, which is an example of irony without parallel, given Graves's number-one issue of the past decade (Google "Rachel's Vinyard" for more information), and Fund's sticky situation as outlined online by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster (Google her name and draw yourself a tall beverage to get you through connecting the dots from Graves to Fund to Pillsbury-Foster. Whew.)
Here's the bone that sticks in Graves's craw, and she quotes her pal Fund: "Sometimes lower-level government officials actively prevent the gathering of signatures. In Nebraska, a group seeking to put a spending cap on the ballot expected to face union-paid `blockers' who would yell at and otherwise intimidate people being asked to sign petitions as well as robo-calls warning voters that signature gatherers might engage in identity theft. What they didn't expect was that unionized police forces in Omaha and Lincoln would deny signature gatherers the right to work outside driver's license bureaus, libraries and the public sidewalks that lead to private buildings. Some police officers would even threaten petitioners going door to door with arrest, saying they first needed a permit to `solicit.' A federal judge had to issue a temporary restraining order stipulating the right to collect signatures outside public buildings and on sidewalks. Freed from harassment, spending-cap proponents collected over a third of the necessary signatures in just a week and qualified for the ballot."
[By the way, Fund's editorial is entertaining and you can read the whole thing here http://www.opinionjournal.com/.... He skirts the fact that responsible parties bear responsibility for their actions - and would Melinda Pillsbury-Foster suggest that this is a quirk of his personality, not merely an editorial oversight? - and he alleges that the failure of the Rich network's ballot-measure agenda is due to activist judges. Man, is that rich. No pun intended.]
Whoa. So law enforcement officers are enforcing the laws of their state. Lower-level government officials are following their municipalities' policies. What is this world coming to? What could be next?
She's happy to tell us. "As the petition drive wore on, it occurred to me that if the union-backed group that was working hard simply to keep the Spending Lid amendment off the ballot was using email extensively to communicate with government workers across the state, it would be important to know about that. Did any government workers abuse public resources in their determination to shut down this ballot drive? To what extent were government workers being inundated at work with extremist rhetoric and propaganda..."?
Luckily, there's Excedrin. Er, I mean, there's Paul Jacob, Howie Rich's brother-in-law and a colleague of Mr. Leslie Graves, Eric O'Keefe. Jacob is "helpful," like Rich himself. Graves writes, "My old friend Paul Jacob of Citizens in Charge has helped with hundreds of statewide petition drives over the last 25 years. As I spoke with him about my experiences in Nebraska, Paul said he'd seen problems like this for years, in many states, in many petition drives. However, there didn't seem to be a good way to study or learn about the full extent of the problem. As Paul and I talked, I remembered a presentation I'd heard earlier in the year featuring Chris Kleismet of Citizens for Responsible Government. Chris sat on a panel about greater citizen involvement in the activities of local government. He said that voters can and should become more aware of actions of local government agencies. How are budgets determined? How are decisions made? Chris said that in order for citizens to become fully informed about these matters, they need to read and understand public documents. Any public document from a government agency can and should be made available to a voter who asks for it using an `open records' request."
So there you have it, friends and neighbors. Step in the way of the Rich network, and get yourself a Freedom of Information Act filing, the political-action equivalent of an IRS audit. Boy, if only Dick Nixon had had a Freedom of Information Act, he might still be president from the grave, with the entire federal branch of government still bound and gagged in the Old Executive Office Building.
While Graves lives in Wisconsin, by the way, the new "project" she runs is based at 2617 Pheasant Hunt Road, Woodbridge, Virginia - in a suburb of, you guessed it, Washington, DC. Ain't it cool?
If you want, you can call Graves here (866) 3-CHARGE, but I urge public employees not to use their office telephones to make the call. You may get a visit from the federal government.
By the way, who is "Madame LaFarge" and why did Murray Rothbard once use that label to refer to Ms. Graves? If anyone knows, would you email me and let me know?
Reading is fundamental, friends:
CALIFORNIA
http://www.dailybreeze.com/...
Reporter Tom Elias, "Damage control will be required if Prop. 90 passes"
http://www.signonsandiego.com/...
Reporter Michael Gardner, "Prop. 90 provision has some worried"
http://www.sfgate.com/...
Editors, "PROP 90: Eminently wrong"
IDAHO
http://www.sltrib.com/...
Reporter John Miller, "Property-rights measures on ballot in 4 Western states"
http://www.magicvalley.com/...
Reporter Jared Hopkins, "Looking through the Prop 2 portal"
http://www.helenair.com/...
Reporter John Miller, "Measures on ballot in 4 Western states"
MAINE
http://www.bangornews.com/...
Reporter Sharon Mack, "Pittsfield officials may develop `what if' budget"
http://www.longmontfyi.com/...
Associated Press, "Owens endorses Maine's version of TABOR"
http://denver.bizjournals.com/...
Associated Press, "Owens backs TABOR in Maine"
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/...
Editors, "TABOR isn't perfect, but its time has come"
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/...
Columnist Jim Brunelle, "When it comes to TABOR, we're lucky to have rules of thumb to apply"
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/...
Editors, "County wise to put new jail on hold"
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/...
Reporter Doug Harlow, "Colo. official urges caution"
http://www.wcsh6.com/...
Editor Rhonda Erskine, "Portland City Officials Outline Potential Problems With TABOR"
http://bangordailynews.com/...
Bangor Daily News Staff, "What Tabor does to kids"
http://www.bangornews.com/...
Reporter Aimee Dolloff, "Old Town passes resolution against Taxpayer Bill of Rights"
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/...
Reporter Colin Hickey, "Work on street at Colby to proceed"
http://www.wcsh6.com/...
Editor Rhonda Erskine, "State Chamber Opposes TABOR, Calls For Alternative"
http://www.keepmecurrent.com/...
Reporter Josh Harriman, "South Portland TABOR forum set as flier divides task group"
http://www.bangornews.com/...
Mainer Phil Bailey, "TABOR wrong solution"
http://www.wcsh6.com/...
Reporter Chris Facchini, "State Chamber Of Commerce Rejects TABOR, Calls For Alternative"
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/...
Reporter Trevor Maxwell, "Alternative to TABOR set for unveiling today"
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/...
AP Reporter Francis Quinn, "State chamber of commerce opposes TABOR, calls for alternative"
http://www.keepmecurrent.com/...
Reporter Andrea Rose, "Understanding TABOR"
http://www.boston.com/...
AP Reporter Francis Quinn, "Implementing TABOR could spark new arguments"
http://waldo.villagesoup.com/...
Op-Ed, "Economic Security, Reproductive Choice, TABOR, all subjects of new women's voter guide"
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/...
Mainer Dean Corner, "One-size-fits-all approach by TABOR won't work"
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/...
Mainer Peter Sirois, "Helping neighbors in need is harder these days"
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/...
Reporter Susan Cover, "Has LD 1 had it's chance?"
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/...
Editors, "TABOR is the wrong answer"
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/...
Mainers John Martell and Sheila Evans, "Readers invested in spending cap"
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/...
Mainer Joseph Silva, "'Washington Mafia', TABOR must be stopped"
NATIONAL
http://www.opinionjournal.com/...
Editorialist John Fund, "Taking the Initiative: How judges threaten direct democracy"
http://www.stateline.org/...
Reporter Pamela Prah, "Anti-tax ballot box revolt stifled"
http://www.citizensincharge.org/...
Citizens in Charge Website
OREGON
http://www.oregonlive.com/...
Editors, "Measure 48 would be a limit on Oregon's future: The proposed spending limit, imported from out of state, would steadily weaken Oregon and its public services"
http://chronicle.com/...
Reporter Jeffrey Selingo, "Oregon Colleges Prepare for Spending Cap:
Voters in 3 states will decide on budget restrictions in closely watched elections"
WASHINGTON
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/...
Columnist Neal Peirce, "Those shady state initiatives"