The right wingnuts in my home state of Maine are close to getting the 60,000 signatures needed to put a “people’s veto” on the next election ballot to overturn same-sex marriage in Maine. I really want to see the names on the ballot because I would bet that my brother’s name is among the signatures on the ballot. I learned from my recent trip that I can expect very little support for “the way I am” from them. Their adherence to the Republican Party far outweighs their support for me.
Maine weighs voters as having equivalent power to that of formal branches of government through the “people’s veto” process. Any person or organization can veto a law simply by putting a petition forward with 60,000 signatures to put a veto on the ballot in the next state election.
But, I also know that Mainers are notorious for wanting to keep government out of their lives regardless of the intent of a law. When the seat belt and bottle bills were passed years ago, Mainers decried passage of the intrusive laws regardless of the safety impact of seat belts and the ec0-friendly benefit of bottle redemption.
