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Michael Cianchette is a Navy reservist who served in Afghanistan. He is in-house counsel to a number of businesses in southern Maine and was a chief counsel to former Gov. Paul LePage.
Referendums are back. Except when they aren’t.
Much like the statewide ballot, Portland has seen a glut of referendums over the past several years. Many of them were pushed by groups on the far left flank of the political spectrum, such as “Progressive Portland” and the Democratic Socialists of America.
Unlike the State House, referendum questions in Portland cannot be changed for five years without another citywide vote. On Monday, the city council was considering asking voters whether that rule should continue, or whether – with a two-thirds vote – the council could amend a referendum after 18 months.
The changes were sponsored by Mayor Kate Synder, herself elected in a citywide vote. She also suggested adding fiscal impact statements to questions, based on the idea that things cost money. And she thought that future referenda should always land on a November ballot to try and capture the highest amount of turnout. Sounds reasonable.
Yet the far left pounced.
They deemed the changes outlined in the prospective referendum “anti-democratic.” In an ironic twist, they were trying to get the council to stop a referendum.
They got their way. On a 6-3 vote, the city council decided against asking the voters about changes. I’ll leave it to you to decide where the moniker “anti-democratic” really applies.
There is a reason why, at a certain size community, we move away from direct democracy and towards representative democracy. Both are democratic, but they have different use cases.
In small towns throughout Maine, town meetings keep the heritage of direct democracy alive. It works; the questions placed before the town are generally straightforward. A warrant article on buying a new plow truck can be understood by most.
A well-moderated town meeting provides ample opportunity for the group to debate the merits, voters commit the time necessary to inform themselves, and then they vote and live with the consequences.
But bigger stages create more complicated challenges.
One of the questions apparently headed to the statewide ballot this fall concerns restrictions on political funding. The bill was vetoed by Gov. Janet Mills on Wednesday evening and, if legislative votes hold, that veto will be sustained. Since it was an initiative, voters get to weigh in if it fails to become law in Augusta.
Mills’ veto message runs three pages, with six additional pages included outlining the concerns of the press and broadcasters. In sum, it is a pretty complex issue.
Voters probably will not dive into the minutiae of federal court cases cited by the governor and advocates, nor will they parse the legislative legalese contained in the proposal. Call it “rational ignorance,” but logically most people are better served spending their time elsewhere.
Which is why we elect people to use their time to grapple with these issues on our behalf and make judgment calls.
Ballot question reform is sorely needed both at the state level and in several municipalities, including Portland. Plain, straightforward questions – Should Maine readopt the 1901 flag? Should future referendums only appear on the November ballot? – are fine. They are like the “new plow truck” town meeting warrant article; clear, simple, and understandable.
Yet incredibly complex policy changes, dealing with myriad aspects of the Maine and U.S. Constitutions? Or entirely new regulatory bureaucracies purporting to manage thousands of housing units? These are the things we elect people to work through on our behalf.
If a group is organized enough to push complex referendum questions, they are organized enough to get their allies elected to office and enact the policy they want.
And really complex issues should be dealt with through our representative democracy and its institutions, not at the ballot box.
