Whose state is it anyway?

A resident of a Maine town still feels like a citizen, not a “consumer” of government services. In Maine, our town is our town, we own it. Its faults reflect our faults. Its virtues reflect us. Its government is there to educate our children, plow our roads and protect our property, and when it lets us down, we have the power to fix it.

This strong sense of public ownership runs deep in the Maine character, but it is under steady attack from both parties in Augusta. The latest front in this battle is LD 1481, An Act To Amend the Laws Governing the Enactment Procedures for Ordinances. This innocent-sounding bill would cripple citizens’ ability to control land use in their town. It is promoted by developers, Wal-Mart and a phalanx of interest groups who are frustrated by Maine citizens’ insistence on having the last word.

Here is the issue. Suppose a large development wants to move into your community. The developer goes to the planning board and asks for a permit under your local land use ordinance. You go to the hearing and get a chance to address the planning board after it has had several meetings with the developers. You argue this development should not be allowed. The planning board disagrees and grants the permit.

Currently, the citizens can vote to amend the ordinance until the decision is beyond appeal and the applicant begins the project.

Understandably, developers find democracy less tidy than the corporate model so they’re pushing in LD 1481. The bill, which has received initial passage in the Legislature, appears to simply set a time limit on citizen action, but it does something much more troubling. By setting a time limit on citizen action and not on local government to respond to the citizen initiative, the bill allows local officials to just run out the clock. The result: LD 1481 takes away the people’s absolute right to have the last word and transfers that right to local elected officials.

The proponents of the bill say we shouldn’t be concerned because elected officials will always reflect the wishes of the people. Well, if they really believe that why do they object to amending the bill to include a requirement that the people’s petition be acted upon by local officials?

How do bills like this get serious consideration by the Legislature? I can assure you that as we legislators go door to door we do not hear the voters say to us, “We the people are the problem, please go to Augusta and take away what power we have left.”

No, these are not the voices of voters back home, they are the whispers of lobbyists in halls of the Legislature and at cozy high-end fund-raisers. And this Legislature has proven all too willing to listen to those who seek to neuter the voters.

They started on opening day with LD 1, which repealed a property tax relief bill passed by the voters and replaced it with a bill nearly identical to one previously rejected by the voters. This wasn’t a matter of making small adjustments in a law passed by the people, or sending it back for their reconsideration. This was the first time in Maine history the Legislature arrogantly rejected a citizen bill before it ever took effect.

Then came the budget, which would have borrowed half a billion dollars without voter approval as required by the Constitution. This was followed by legislation that would have taken away Maine citizens’ right to petition their government at the polls without harassment from opponents. Then there was the bill to take away local voters’ right to have the last word on the closure of local schools. Now comes LD 1481.

If you could get an honest answer from a legislator who has been swayed by the lobbyists, he would tell you that Maine needs to take this power away from local voters so we can develop more like other states. This is where they’re dead wrong.

Maine’s economic future does not lie in being just like New Jersey. Our future lies in understanding how we are unique and protecting and promoting it. One of those assets is that here the notion of government of and by the people is still a reality.

It’s not too late for the Legislature to change its mind and defeat the bill or amend it so the people could be assured the last word. Barring that, our Maine Constitution still provides the opportunity for the citizens to block an obnoxious bill with a citizen’s veto. That’s how the people stopped the Baldacci borrowing plan and that may be the tool we’ll need to use to stop this latest attack on voters’ rights.

Barbara Merrill of Appleton is an attorney and a state representative for District 44. She is an independent candidate for governor.