AUGUSTA – The day after winning a five-way race for re-election with 38 percent of the vote, Democratic Gov. John E. Baldacci promised Wednesday to make property tax relief his top priority for the next legislative session in a clear attempt to eliminate the need for future citizen initiative efforts to set statewide spending caps.

“We have to nail this property tax stuff,” he told State House reporters gathered for a morning meeting in his office. “So that has to be the first order of business. We’ll bring back LD 2, refine it and make it into a property tax package and have the Legislature deal with that first up. Its centerpiece will be freezing the valuation on permanent Maine residents to provide permanent relief.”

Meanwhile, the governor can look forward to a little more support for his tax relief plan since the incoming 123rd Legislature will feature significantly fewer Republicans in the House next year. Unofficial returns indicated political divisions in the House changed from 74 Democrats, 73 Republicans, one Green and three independents to 89 Democrats, 59 Republicans, two independents and one race that was still too close to call. In the 35-member Democratically controlled Senate, GOP lawmakers appear to have improved their numbers from 16 to 17, but they remain in the minority.

Baldacci hopes to convince the new Legislature to give him two-thirds support on the new property tax legislation that would then be sent out to the voters for approval as an amendment to the Maine Constitution. A similar measure received supermajority support in the House last year, but failed in the Senate by a single vote.

“We need to change the Constitution to go with current use valuation [on tax assessments] and freeze the property values for permanent residents – not seasonal or vacation homes or second home owners – so they won’t be taxed out of their homes,” Baldacci said. “It has to be the first order of business, and I want it to be a constitutional amendment on the ballot in June and have the citizens vote on it. I’m going to make it a requirement of the Legislature that they deal with this. We have to reach across the aisle and have discussions with Republican leaders, and I want to have those discussions as soon as they organize and choose their leaders.”

Baldacci defeated Republican nominee Chandler Woodcock, Green Independent Party standard-bearer Pat LaMarche, and independents Barbara Merrill and Phillip Morris NaPier. He recognized the long shadow cast by the Taxpayer Bill of Rights citizen initiative on the ballot that would have imposed spending limits at all levels of government in the state. Fifty-four percent of those voting Tuesday opposed the caps, but 46 percent were solidly behind the plan, according to unofficial results compiled by the Bangor Daily News.

Of Maine’s 16 counties, the initiative passed in only three: Androscoggin with 54 percent, and Lincoln and Oxford, each with 51 percent. The measure drew the greatest opposition in Aroostook County, where 62 percent of voters rejected the plan.

The numbers spoke loudly to the governor who did not perceive his Blaine House victory as a mandate or the TABOR decision as an outright rejection of tax reform.

“Anyone would be misreading the [TABOR] results if they thought people were voting for the status quo,” Baldacci said. “What they want is to have something that works better than what was proposed to them. If others interpret that as if ‘everything is fine,’ then that’s not the way the citizens feel. I’m very concerned about it, and that’s why [tax relief] will be the first order of business.”

Marv Druker, a political science professor at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College, agreed saying that the Legislature, the governor and special interest groups will have to work together to craft legislation that will address TABOR’s concerns.

“Otherwise, every two years Maine will have a proposal on the ballot to change the tax structure or spending patterns,” Druker said. “My sense is that legislators realize that, the governor realizes that and these special interest groups realize that.”

With Maine listed at or near the top of state rankings for overall tax burden, activists have taken tax reform to the ballot in each of the last two general elections. In 2004, Mainers rejected by a roughly 2-to-1 margin the Palesky tax cap initiative that would have limited property taxes to 1 percent of assessed value.

This year, the TABOR referendum asked voters if they wanted to limit government spending to the rate of inflation plus population growth with voter approval needed for all tax and fee increases.

Sandy Maisel, director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs at Colby College, said the intent of the voters was apparent by the numbers of those who voted for it.

“People are saying it’s a problem you’ve got to solve, and it won’t go away by sweeping it under the carpet,” Maisel said.

Many Republicans believed taxpayer discontent would launch TABOR, turning it into a kite that would carry GOP lawmakers aloft. Instead, Democratic House Speaker John Richardson of Brunswick said the citizen initiative became an anchor that dragged Republicans deep into the political abyss.

“TABOR was an issue that galvanized and energized the Democratic base and allowed us in an off-year election to get out the vote in a way that I haven’t seen in recent memory,” Richardson said. “I think, in some respects, TABOR backfired as a strategy to be included on the November ballot. It brought out Democrats in record numbers.”

Somber and visibly dejected, House Minority Leader David Bowles, R-Sanford, conceded Wednesday that Republicans in the House would be playing a diminished role in the legislative process for the next two years. While acknowledging TABOR and other factors undoubtedly influenced Tuesday’s rejection of many GOP candidates, Bowles offered himself up as a target for anyone wishing to assign blame for Republican losses.

“It is mine and mine alone,” he said. “I am the only one responsible for the outcome of this election. Obviously, I’m very disappointed, but you can’t blame this on any other place. I have failed, and I feel very badly about that.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.