With a Citizen’s Initiative Process ripe for abuse and for sale to any billionaire, is our time to self-govern over?
Just like we saw a few years ago with the Bear Baiting Referendum, it is pretty easy to have a pet project placed on the ballot for Maine elections.
It really doesn’t matter what the issue is, or if there is any Maine support for it. It doesn’t have to address a real problem nor does it need to have any grassroots effort anymore. All that is needed for someone to influence and change our way of life is a big enough bank account.
Our Citizen’s Initiative Process is something that is in place to allow us, regular Maine people, to have a say in our government. If our legislators are blind to an issue that is important enough to us to be addressed, we can petition by gathering enough signatures to have a question placed on the ballot in the next major election.
It sounds pretty foolproof and safe. It should be a tough process so only the most important issues make the cut. It is a chance to allow us to govern ourselves and demand change when needed. Unfortunately, there is a chink in our armor, and Michael Bloomberg, among other large corporations “from away,” have discovered it and are exploiting it to their full advantage.
This process has become perverted. I can’t imagine that those who authored the original Citizen’s Initiative Process had anything in mind outside of giving average, ordinary citizens, a voice in Maine politics. But unfortunately, it has become an inexpensive tool ripe for exploitation. This year it is Michael Bloomberg’s little cat toy he purchased to drive his New York City agenda for more gun control, and his investment is paying off in spades.
While Maine has a long and rich history of tradition and heritage with firearms, combined with one of the lowest violent crime rates in the entire nation, we should be safe from those big city politics. Because of the exploitation available in our petition process, we are now on the front lines of one of the biggest gun rights battles in our history.
“How did that happen” you ask? I will be happy to share the answer.
The entire issue of gun control has been a losing issue for a few decades now. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the entire United States was awash with feel good, emotion based, knee-jerk gun control laws. None of them changed the crime rate a single bit, and the areas with the strictest gun control laws continued to see high crime while those places, like Maine, continued to be safe.
In the early 2000s, the last of the federal gun control bills reached their sunset and were not renewed. Rural states like Maine continued to be safe places to live and raise families while many urban areas instituted those policies locally and continued to increase their crime rates. Numerous federal attempts at more gun control failed and those in the forefront of this issue got desperate. They vowed to go state by state, exploiting small groups of citizens and selling their snake-oil on a local level.
In Maine, because of our simple and generous way of life, it was easy. Almost one million dollars was pumped into our little state to pay workers to gather signatures. They paid their professional signature gathering hit-men from away to become “Maine Residents” and circulate petitions, paying them by the signature. Many people looking for much needed part-time holiday work got on board, no different than those temporary call center jobs during the holidays, and the fix was in. It was only to place it on the ballot, afterall, and have a discussion. At least that is what they claimed.
After the signatures were validated the question became destined for the ballot this November. There is no stopping it and the Governor has zero power to veto it. As of the time of this writing, over $3 million has been spent in Maine already, with less than one quarter of one percent (0.025%) of the money supporting this actually being raised in Maine.
Imagine the amount of propaganda you can purchase and spread in Maine with that much money. They will run ads in every newspaper and on every television and radio station promoting their big city agenda in a way that sounds “reasonable” and “acceptable.” It is anything but. We are in for a true modern day, David vs Goliath battle this November and we can’t afford to lose.
Please educate yourself about the true intentions of Universal Background Checks (UBC) and visit www.UBCBadforME.com for more information.
There is a copy of the actual law, with annotations explaining the numerous problems with it that they don’t want you to hear or even think about. It has nothing to do with gun sales and everything to do with control of law abiding Maine citizens. It will create a registry of ALL Maine gun owners and all their privately owned firearms, with felony level punishment for not complying.
UBC is indeed bad for Maine and we can’t allow it to pass. When I look at our wonderful way of life and compare it to the urban jungles that allow these controls on their law abiding citizens, I often think they should emulate our way of life.
We must send a message that Maine is NOT for sale, and fix this common practice of exploiting our Citizen’s Initiative Process.
