The November 2016 election is more than 18 months away, but it already looks like the ballot will be packed with questions asking voters to decide weighty issues such as the state’s minimum wage, whether marijuana should be legalized and, perhaps, whether the state continues to collect income taxes.
This highlights two problems: It is too easy to get questions on the ballot in Maine, and the Legislature consistently punts on big issues, especially in the face of vetoes from Gov. Paul LePage.
The first problem is the easiest to solve: Increase the number of signatures needed to get an initiative on the ballot and require an even geographic distribution of signatures collected.
The number of valid signatures currently required to get a citizens initiative on the ballot in Maine is 61,123, which is 10 percent of the total votes cast in the last gubernatorial election.
Twenty-four states allow citizen-generated initiatives on the ballot. Signature requirements range from 2 percent of the population in North Dakota to 15 percent of votes cast in the most recent election in Wyoming.
Half the states that allow initiatives have requirements pertaining to the signatures’ geographic distribution. In Massachusetts, no more than a quarter can come from one county. Montana requires signatures from 5 percent of qualified voters in each of the state’s 34 legislative districts, and Nebraska requires signatures from 5 percent of registered voters in 38 of the the state’s 93 counties.
There are many reasons behind the Legislature’s failures. The pay is low; the sessions are long, which keeps many younger people with jobs from seeking seats; and too much time is spent on congratulatory sentiments and meaningless bills.
The Legislature has “retreated evermore into the trivial,” says longtime Republican lawmaker Peter Mills, who now heads the Maine Turnpike Authority. He became so fed up with the process, he prepared to resign from the Senate in the late ’90s before deciding against it.
“Because so many legislators are never taught how anything works, they content themselves with minor bills that tinker around the fringes of policy,” Mills wrote to Senate leadership at the time. “Many simply give up and occupy their time mailing out congratulatory letters to high school seniors or consoling constituents in disputes with the DHS. On the floor, we debate endlessly over [superficial] issues like seat belts and restaurant smoking without ever considering, for example, how GPA, revenue sharing and property tax exemptions impact our service center communities.”
Term limits have lessened expertise and forced lawmakers to more quickly try to make a name for themselves and rise through the leadership ranks. Worst of all, these amateur lawmakers are easy prey for lobbyists who often have spent years in the State House, says political scientist Mark Brewer of the University of Maine. Term limits have also shifted power from the Legislature to the executive branch, which is especially problematic with a governor who refuses to negotiate and readily vetoes bills that differ from his proposals.
To fix the Legislature’s structural problems, Brewer recommends ending term limits, hiring more staff for the Legislature and increasing lawmakers’ pay (coupled with a longer session). He would also lengthen Senate terms while shrinking the size of the House, both of which have been proposed and rejected before.
Most of these fixes are also supported by Rep. John Martin, who has served in the Legislature, with a few breaks, since 1964. “Anybody who knows anything about the legislative process knows that it’s not working. As more and more time goes by, you have less and less experienced legislators with no history of what’s going on,” Martin said. “The history comes from the executive branch departments or the lobbyists,” increasing their power.
A Martin-sponsored bill to eliminate term limits was rejected 10-1 last month by the State and Local Government Committee. Another bill of his, LD 406, would raise salaries for legislators and the governor, but that’s a hard sell to the public. Therefore, it’s unlikely to be supported in the State House.
Of course, another reason large issues such as tax caps and minimum wage aren’t likely to be settled in the Legislature are the major philosophical differences that inevitably exist between Democrats and Republicans.
Strengthening the Legislature so it can negotiate the complexities of issues like tax reform, education funding and health care is imperative, especially when lawmakers must stand up to a governor who is likely to reject any idea that didn’t originate in his office.
