TABOR initiatives defeated in Maine and Washington

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A h/t to Flounder for a comment he posted earlier, "I think one of the biggest takeaways of the elections last night are that the right-wings TABOR Amendments failed in Maine and Washington."

During the Special Session this past summer, the Accidental Governor and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Russell Pearce agreed to include a mini-TABOR provision in the "Sham-Wow!" budget deal that failed to pass. We are likely to see these efforts revived in the next legislative regular session.

The right-wing think tanks that peddle the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) like a traveling medicine show selling a cure-all for what ails you and that pour millions of corporate cash into initiative and referendum campaigns have failed to garner enough signatures to qualify this destructive measure for the ballot in Arizona. (Hence the back-door attempt to covertly include its provisions in a budget resolution by Sen. Russell Pearce.)

As Flounder indicated, "TABOR 2" appeared on the ballot in the state of Maine. Maine Tax Relief Initiative, Question 4 (2009) – Ballotpedia, after the Maine Taxpayer Bill of Rights (2006) failed to pass with 53.99% of Maine voters rejecting that measure. "TABOR 2" was soundly defeated by Maine voters. TABOR goes down to defeat again (Kennebec Journal):

Maine voters on Tuesday soundly rejected Question 4, the so-called Taxpayers Bill of Rights. With 33 percent of precincts reporting, the measure was trailing 61 percent to 39 percent.

The TABOR referendum would have placed spending limits on state and local governments and required voter approval to raise taxes. It was the third anti-tax measure on the ballot in five years — all of which were defeated.

For TABOR's opponents, the victory was even bigger that the 2006 victory over a similar ballot measure, which was defeated by 8 percentage points.

The economic recession created an environment that made it easier to defeat Question 4, said Mark Gray, chairman of Citizens Unified for Maine's Future, the political action committee that opposed Question 4.

"The early polling in August showed the shaky economy was helping us," he said. "It created a lot of uncertainty. The last thing people want in a state of uncertainty is more uncertainty."

In addition, plummeting state revenues caused the Legislature to cut the current two-year budget by $500 million, making it difficult for Question 4 supporters to argue that spending was out-of-control, Gray said.

David Crocker, chairman of TABOR Now, the political action committee that ran the campaign, conceded defeat at about 10:45 p.m.

TABOR also appeared on the ballot in the state of Washington as Washington Initiative 1033 (2009) – Ballotpedia. TABOR was defeated by Washington voters with 55.38% of the vote. Eyman concedes defeat for I-1033 (Seattle Post-Intelligencer):

Tim Eyman, the backer of Initiative 1033, admitted Tuesday night that the effort to cap city, county and state revenue increases appeared headed for defeat…

I-1033 was trailing by a large margin. With about 1 million votes counted early Wednesday morning, 55 percent of voters in the state opposed the initiative, which critics said would cripple governments by restricting their revenues at recession-era levels. The measure was trailing by more than 100,000 votes.

* * *

The measure would have limited increases in annual revenue to the rate of inflation plus population growth. Any taxes above and beyond the revenue cap would have been used to lower property taxes the following year. The state's Rainy Day Fund would not have been subject to the cap, and politicians could have collected taxes above the limit by asking voters for approval.

No On I-1033 spokesman Scott Whiteaker said voters in areas that have historically supported Eyman-backed initiatives came out against the measure.

"It goes back to our strategy of educating people about what I-1033 would do to people's communities," Whiteaker said. "They see the damage that this recession has done every day in their communities and they know that this initiative would only make things worse."

Matthew Yglesias at Think Progress comments Voters Reject Anti-Government TABOR Proposals in Maine and Washington:

An excellent point from Kristina Wilfore who observes that if you want a decent test of the “tea party” movement you could do worse than to look at TABOR proposals that would put arbitrary caps on state government spending and force meaningful reductions in the size of government. Two such proposals were on the ballot last night in Washington and Maine and they lost:

A central tenant of the right-wing agenda has been rejected with the defeat of TABOR (known deceptively as the “taxpayer bill of rights”) in these two states – states that are diverse from each other in almost all respects. Maine’s measure went down with a resounding defeat, 60% to 40%, while Washington’s campaign came from behind with a 55% to 45% rebuff.

A few weeks ago, conservative columnist and tea party champion John Fund wrote in the WSJ that: “If voters in Maine or Washington state pass a taxpayer bill of rights, it will be a clear sign that even in blue states the public is coming to believe that government spending is out of control and that elected officials can no longer be trusted to rein it in. That’s a message that will likely reverberate in Congress regardless of who wins in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races.”

Iris Lav from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes that “by rejecting TABOR, officially Question 4 in Maine and I-1033 in Washington, voters have helped these states preserve needed public services and improve the business climate.”

It’s also worth emphasizing that the reason radical budget-cutters have started turning to TABOR ballot initiatives to get their way is that even politicians who like to talk about cutting government in the abstract don’t actually want to take responsibility for specific cuts.

Precisely the reason why the Accidental Governor and Sen. Russell Pearce tried to slip a mini-TABOR provision into the "Sham-Wow!" budget deal that thankfully failed. Keep a sharp eye on these wily Republicans – they are likely to try to revive TABOR.