The Maine Secretary of State’s Office released the question wording for a potential People’s Veto of the recently signed supplemental budget.
Dov Sacks, the Durham attorney who filed the application, however, has said that he is no longer pursuing the effort.
Maine Public reported Wednesday afternoon that the People’s Veto will officially not be moving forward, as the Secretary of State’s Office had been officially notified that Sacks would not be actively seeking signatures.
In Maine, a People’s Veto allows voters to “repeal a piece of legislation passed by the legislature” by using “the initiative and referendum process.”
To earn a place on the ballot, these petitions must each receive more than 67,000 signatures, a number that is calculated based on the turnout levels from the most recent gubernatorial election.
Had the People’s Veto made it to the ballot in November, the question would have read:
“Do you want to stop additional funding for state programs and services, more funding for schools, and tax changes by rejecting the state’s 2026 supplemental budget?”
“We’re not in a position to be spending $500 million when we have all the fraud we have and when the rainy day fund was raided to do it,” Sacks told the Portland Press Herald of his decision to move away from the effort.
“There were a lot of problems with [the budget],” Sacks said. “Those are still strong, but the reasons we are not proceeding are more strategic.”
Sacks went on to explain that he has decided to go in a different direction “to stop wasteful and fraudulent Democratic spending,” citing the immense amount of time and effort necessary to successfully gather signatures for a People’s Veto.
The Portland outlet went on to quote Sacks as having criticized Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ wording of the potential ballot question, suggesting that she manipulated the language so as to influence the outcome.
Around this same time last year, a Republican state lawmaker spearheaded an effort to overturn the biennial budget approved along party lines.
Ultimately, enough signatures were not gathered to put the People’s Veto on the ballot.
