Future voting is on the minds of a number of Mainers today, as volunteers for at least three statewide petition efforts will be at polls, seeking voter signatures on efforts to repeal Maine laws. Two of the efforts face a quick turnaround time July 17 to get more than 55,000 signatures just to be on the ballot for this coming November.
The petitions seek to repeal the Real ID law passed last spring, and to repeal a law that will impose taxes on a variety of products to fund Dirigo Health.
A third petition initiative will likely not go before voters until November 2009. It seeks to repeal the state's law protecting homosexuals from discrimination.
Real ID
Last spring, the state Legislature passed a law that adds to Maine's driver's license requirements to bring the state into closer compliance with the federal Real ID Act. The state was under pressure from the Bush administration to pass the law or face certain repercussions. Among them, the administration claimed, was that Mainers wouldn't be able to use their licenses to board airplanes.
The law is an invasion of privacy as well as an unfunded mandate, said petition organizer and Democratic activist Kathleen McGee of Bowdoinham.
McGee said Mainers will either be fingerprinted, have their retina scanned, or their faces scanned in order to get a license, and that the acquired information would be placed in a federal data base.
"It's way over the top," she said. "It turns our legal basis of 'innocent until proven guilty' on its head."
McGee's co-organizer is a Republican, and she said the effort has been attracting a broad spectrum of supporters, including libertarians, Green Party members, Ron Paul's We the People volunteers, and the Maine Civil Liberties Union.
"I've done this kind of work my whole life," said McGee of being a political organizer, "and I've never see the passion and concern about one issue than I've on this."
Poster Comment:
Resist!