Maine lawmakers think globally, but act too locally

According to a public-opinion survey conducted by a Maine television station this week, some 49 percent of the Maine public think it entirely appropriate for the Maine Legislature to debate and, in the end, endorse a resolution regarding possible war against Iraq. Some 43 percent think this a dubious use of legislative time, suggesting that the state’s citizen-legislators ought to save something for when they’re off the clock as citizens.

Eight percent had no opinion. Extrapolate that to the total population and we can conclude that nearly 100,000 Mainers have no clue as what the Legislature should be doing with itself. That Maine will never have a shortage of people so prepared to be legislators is a comforting thought indeed.

On Tuesday – the day after the House finished its two days of debate on the Iraq resolution, after the one day the Senate debated it but before the one day or more to come when the two versions will have to be reconciled – Republican Sen. Ken Lemont and Democratic Rep. Benjamin Dudley held a press conference to describe the joint resolution they will introduce calling attention to the persecution of the spiritual movement Falun Gong by the government of China. Add to Iraq and China the nuclear crisis with North Korea, the military tension between India and Pakistan, the economic and social turmoil in Venzuela, religious intolerance in Indonesia, the crackdown on Valentine’s Day in Iran and the record number of UFO sightings by Canadians last year, and the 121st Maine Legislature has a very full plate.

Cynics are split on this issue. In one camp are those who hold that Maine lawmakers should concern themselves only with things that have to do only with Maine; this thinking globally is merely a diversion from the important issues under their jurisdiction. In the other are those who say the more time Maine lawmakers spend on things not having to do with Maine, the less time they have to screw up Maine by acting locally.

These two views miss the larger point: The 121st is expanding its horizons and it’s about time. For too long, the Maine Legislature has resembled a day-care center for children with particularly heightened self-interest – not sharing with others, whining when one doesn’t get one’s way, that sort of behavior. As a result, each session groans under the weight of hundreds of bills submitted for no other reason than to endear its author not just to his or her constituency, but to his or her immediate circle of friends and family. Narrowly targeted tax breaks, minute localized adjustments to hunting and fishing laws, special license plates for robin’s-egg blue ’87 Monte Carlos – a survey of each legislator’s bills often provides a precise demographic of his or her nearest and dearest. At the very least, resolutions regarding Iraq and China suggest that the new batch of Maine lawmakers are aware that there are people other than those they hang with.

All this expanding of horizons needs now is just a little fine-tuning. Somewhere between the oppressed peoples on the other side of the planet and the fishing buddy next door is an entire state that could use some attention. From Kittery to – and including everything in between – Fort Kent.

There are some early indications that this big-picture just may be catching on. Gov. Baldacci’s plan to fill the state’s $1.1 billion budget hole is not – prepare yourself for a shock – perfect, but it is right for the circumstances. It balances the budget as the state constitution requires. It does so in the limited time left in the fiscal year. It gives state agencies and recipients of state funding the opportunity to meet the challenges of flat-funding in ways that are intelligent and fair. It eliminates a few of most obvious wastes of taxpayer money and points the way toward government that is both more effective and more affordable. A few legislators have raised objections to the governor’s plan, but since most of them were in the last Legislature – the one that left this mess behind – they soon realize they look rather silly doing it. Certainly, the legislative process will produce adjustments to the plan, but the overall concept will prevail.

After the budget is balanced, the governor has a plan to bring to the state something else it needs, even if the Constitution doesn’t require it – a real economy, an economic engine all its own, one that doesn’t depend solely on the horsepower coming out of Boston. This where big-picture thinking could really pay off.

One element of the governor’s plan is the establishment of eight enterprise zones in regions where the economies are in long-term decline. State resources and incentives would be targeted toward these regions to encourage business development and job creation. This a concept that has been successful in other states experiencing widening regional economic disparity – Michigan and North Carolina in particular – and there is no reason it could not work here.

Provided this Legislature doesn’t do what the Legislature of the late ’80s did when Gov. John McKernan proposed a similar idea. His Job Opportunity Zone program – targeted state resources and incentives toward the most struggling regions – would have worked had it been given a chance.

Instead, legislators from that prosperous part of the state that gets pulled along by Boston but that claims credit for the trip, were openly hostile. No way were they going to send the resources and incentives generated by the taxes of their self-made prosperity to parts of the state that just couldn’t cut it. Few of those legislators were willing to vote against the JOZ program, so instead they just took all the money out of it, gutted the provisions that would have given the zones enhanced access to state grants and technical assistance and, for good measure, slapped a one-year sunset provision on the whole thing. Big surprise, then, that with no money, no resources, no incentives, the sunset review found that decades of neglect and decline had not been reversed by one year of half-hearted effort.

A lot has changed since then. Such as: Many people in the struggling regions have given up the struggle and moved to the prosperous regions, causing the people there to grouse endlessly about sprawl, crowded schools, the lack of affordable housing, the negative impact affordable housing, when it does occur, has upon their property values and traffic congestion caused by a sudden influx of ’87 Monte Carlos and other economic-refugee beaters. So maybe this time the Legislature will take a broader view – more global, less local – and we’ll have Iraq, and China, to thank for it.

Bruce Kyle is the assistant editorial page editor for the Bangor Daily News.