Keep your hands off referendum system

As a member of the Maine People’s Alliance (MPA) committed to defending the initiative and referendum process, I was disappointed that the Bangor Daily News continues to editorialize (April 14-15) for reform of something that is not broken.

We are not in favor of the recent proposals to reform citizen initiatives: LD 1337, that would move petition signature gatherers more than 250 feet from the polls; nor do we support LD 1518, that would require half of the signatures to come from each of the state’s two congressional districts.

The real agenda of both of these initiatives is to put those pesky politically active citizens (of whatever stripe) in their place – outside the corridors of power – where too many of our politicians feel only they should have input.

LD 1337 would deny us the right to meet and greet our own neighbors with our petitions on Election Day, and LD 1518 would make the signature gathering process so darned expensive that many citizen groups simply could not afford to gather signatures to put their proposals before the people.

LD 1558 is a blatant attempt to use the old divide-and-conquer-ploy. It is an appeal to regional prejudice, more than an attempt to make the referendum process fair. It virtually assures that smaller, less well-financed citizens’ groups wouldn’t be able to mount a signature gathering campaign.

As to LD 1337, claims that signature gatherers are cluttering up the smooth efficiency of the polls are largely a smoke screen.

I have signed many a petition while at the polls, and at no time were petitioners in any way a hindrance to my ability to enter or exit the polling station. Demanding that signature gatherers be at least 250 feet from the polls is tantamount to demanding that they just go away entirely. How many locations, nearly a football field away from a polling place, can even been seen by people entering the polls?

The Bangor Daily News’ opinion is most revealing when it says the real point of LD 1337 “is to get them away from the polling places, period.” This proposal is a shameless attempt to gut the signature gathering phase of the referendum process before it even gets started.

Sure, there will be signatures being gathered for causes I do not ascribe to; that is the nature of democracy. Still, those people do have the right to be heard, and do put their ideas to the test of gathering signatures – from the people who really vote – within a reasonable distance from the polls.

This signature gathering process around the polls is reality-testing at its finest. Many a signature gatherer has gotten an earful from those who thought their ideas were total nonsense, and that face-to-face input is as important to our democracy as signature gatherers’ ability to ask for signatures at the polls. They’re not going to hear anything from the citizens if they’re 250 feet away from the polls, nor are they going to gather many signatures, and that would be a shame.

I support the right of all Maine citizens to take up the causes in which they believe, and to try to put their proposed legislation before the people, unadulterated by the tit-for-tat, insider dealings that often neuter the legislative process.

Sometimes, issues are just too important to wait for our politicians to find the guts to deal with them. The Maine Clean Elections Act is a prime example. There are, we all know, third rails of politics, issues that frighten our representatives.

While our politicians may even privately agree that something needs to be done, they also know that their introduction of bills unpopular with powerful corporate interests, or determined political fringe groups, can have a detrimental effect on their political futures.

We citizens have no such fears. We have no political futures to protect. We are not afraid of alienating political action committees, corporate campaign funding sources or of alienating our political parties. We just want to give the people of Maine the chance to say yea or nay to our proposals, without being beholden to Augustan politics.

Our citizens’ right to put legislation directly before the people -unencumbered by the politicians, and with language unadulterated by the legislative process – is the best safeguard we have against the cliques and cabals of Augusta.

Politics is too important to leave entirely to our politicians. Tell your representatives to keep their sticky legislative fingers off from our referendum system. Tell them it isn’t broke, so don’t go try and fixing it.

Guy Chocensky of Searsport is a member of the Maine People’s Alliance.