AUGUSTA – The wording of the five citizens’ initiative questions that will appear on the Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016 Referendum Election ballot is now finalized, Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap announced Thursday.
The order of these citizens’ initiative questions on the ballot will be determined by a random drawing on Monday, June 27 at 11 a.m. This drawing is open to the public. It will take place in the lobby of the Maine State Archives in the Cultural Building, 230 State St., Augusta.
Below is the title of each initiative and the final wording for how it will appear on the ballot:
An Act To Establish Ranked-Choice Voting. “Do you want to allow voters to rank their choices of candidates in elections for U.S. Senate, Congress, Governor, State Senate, and State Representative, and to have ballots counted at the state level in multiple rounds in which last-place candidates are eliminated until a candidate wins by majority?”
An Act To Establish The Fund to Advance Public Kindergarten to Grade 12 Education. “Do you want to add a 3% tax on individual Maine taxable income above $200,000 to create a state fund that would provide direct support for student learning in kindergarten through 12th grade public education?”
An Act To Legalize Marijuana. “Do you want to allow the possession and use of marijuana under state law by persons who are at least 21 years of age, and allow the cultivation, manufacture, distribution, testing, and sale of marijuana and marijuana products subject to state regulation, taxation and local ordinance?”
An Act to Raise the Minimum Wage. “Do you want to raise the minimum hourly wage of $7.50 to $9 in 2017, with annual $1 increases up to $12 in 2020, and annual cost-of-living increases thereafter; and do you want to raise the direct wage for service workers who receive tips from half the minimum wage to $5 in 2017, with annual $1 increases until it reaches the adjusted minimum wage?”
An Act to Require Background Checks for Gun Sales. “Do you want to require background checks prior to the sale or transfer of firearms between individuals not licensed as firearms dealers, with failure to do so punishable by law, and with some exceptions for family members, hunting, self-defense, lawful competitions, and shooting range activity?”
The full text of each proposed bill is available for viewing on the Bureau of Corporations, Elections and Commissions’ Citizens’ Initiatives webpage, along with proponent information.
Dunlap received 185 comments on these initiatives during the 30-day public comment period, which was open Friday, May 13 through Monday, June 13. These comments, from individuals and organizations throughout the state, were taken into consideration to draft the final language of the ballot question.
“We try to capture as much of the essence of the legislation as possible when we draft the ballot questions,” said Dunlap. “That was a real challenge with these five initiatives because these are not simple pieces of legislation, and I feel like we owe it to the voters to try and make sure they really understand the ramifications of each one.”
The Bureau of Corporations, Elections and Commissions will be creating a Citizens’ Guide to the 2016 Election in the coming months and all voters are encouraged to read it to inform themselves of the details of each bill, which cannot be fully addressed in the ballot questions.
In addition to the citizens’ initiative questions, the November Referendum Election ballot will also include one bond question, LD 1694, which will appear below the citizens’ initiative questions on the ballot:
An Act To Authorize a General Fund Bond Issue To Improve Highways, Bridges and Multimodal Facilities. “Do you favor a $100,000,000 bond issue for construction, reconstruction and rehabilitation of highways and bridges and for facilities, equipment and property acquisition related to ports, harbors, marine transportation, freight and passenger railroads, aviation, transit and bicycle and pedestrian trails, to be used to match an estimated $137,000,000 in federal and other funds?”
For more information about the November 2016 elections, visit http://maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/upcoming/index.html. Information on voter registration and locating your polling place can also be found on the Corporations, Elections and Commissions website.
Why is it the federal matching funding for transportation is proportionally lower as each year goes by ?
The first five referenda are being financed, principally, by OUT OF STATE MONEY. Keep that in mind.
The TRUTH about the “supremacy clause” – our Constitution does not delegate to the national government authority to restrict our arms, ammunition, regulate firearms dealers, do background checks, etc. The national government may not lawfully circumvent this restriction by means of a treaty wherein the signatory governments agree to disarm their Citizens or Subjects.
https://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/?s=The+TRUTH+about+the+%22supremacy+clause
Re: “Require Background Checks for Gun Sales”
Currently, there are only 2 ways to legally sell a gun in the US to a private citizen. One is a private sale between individuals (typically like between family and friends) or by a gun dealer licensed with a Federal Firearms License (FFL) from the federal BATF. Only individuals with an FFL can run a background check through the government NICS database of prohibited persons. Private citizens cannot. Note that a person can purchase a firearm online, but the physical transfer of the firearm still must go through an FFL at the seller or an FFL local to the buyer. So anyone wanting to improve the process should encourage the federal government to do 2 things:
1) Allow any small gun dealer to get an FFL without having a storefront. Currently, thanks to the Clinton administration’s effort to reduce the supply of guns, you can’t get an FFL if you want to sell guns only at gun shows (Google BATFE form 5310 FFL application and look at question 18a). As a result someone that wants to sell guns but can’t afford the inventory costs, zoning challenges and overhead of a storefront has to sell illegally or discretely at the edge of the law as a “private individual” and hence can’t run a background check. Rather than throwing these “kitchen table” sellers out of the system like Clinton did hoping they would go away, they should allow them to get an FFL and subject them to BATF rules, audits and oversight like they were before the Clinton administration let political anti-gun ideology get in the way.
2) Give anyone free, public, anonymous online access to the NICS database. I don’t understand why a federal database of people prohibited from owning firearms can’t be available in the public domain like federal databases for s_x offenders. Unlike the s_x offender database, the NICS system is really a go/no go process and no useful information has to be displayed to facilitate phishing expeditions for identity theft other than what was already known by the user making the query. It’s certainly no more revealing than the FAA’s pilot and mechanic license query system, which provides more detailed information on presumably law-abiding citizens. Once this system is implemented, you then tell private sellers if you sell or give a firearm to someone and don’t retain documented proof that says you did a favorable NICS check on the buyer, you could be held liable if they commit a gun-related crime. This would effectively close the so-called private sale loophole and still preserve the anonymity of the parties involved the same way the current background check system does now. If a private sale firearm shows up at a crime scene, the BATF follows their current procedure of using the serial number of the firearm to contact the manufacturer and ultimately the last FFL that sold the firearm to a private citizen to obtain that citizen’s name and address from the ATF form 4473 the FFL is required to keep on file. That citizen is then contacted and produces the piece of paper from the NICS background check that identifies the second private citizen who is then contacted, and so forth.
The real benefit of this proposal is how it can help identify the illusive killer with questionable behavior patterns or mental health issues that is causing so many problems. As it stands now there is no easy, fast, non-bureaucratic method for someone to determine if a suspicious person (client, neighbor, employee, student, etc) is a potential threat to society. If someone thinks an individual could be a threat, a query to a public NICS database would at least tell him or her in a few seconds if the individual could obtain a firearm. Then, armed with that information the appropriate authorities could be notified and they could decide if it was erroneous information or whether to investigate further. As it stands now, if you tell authorities you know a suspicious person they will probably ignore you, but if you tell them you know such a person and by the way according to the NICS database he can buy a firearm, they will probably be more inclined to investigate rather than risk embarrassment later if the worst happens. The same would be true if you see a suspicious acquaintance with a firearm when the NICS query says he’s prohibited from having one. It would also help provide piece of mind and a method for victims of violent crimes to ensure their assailants either on parole or still at large have not been excluded from the database because of some bureaucratic foul-up.
Other specific public safety issues where it would be useful are:
allow potential victims to vet known stalkers or acquaintances under a restraining order
allow gun clubs to vet potential members
allow shooting ranges to vet suspicious customers
help prevent straw purchases by allowing FFL’s to vet all individuals involved with the purchase of a firearm as a gift
allow mental health workers to vet troubled individuals like the Aurora Colorado theater killer
allow resource officers and school officials to vet suspicious students like the Arapahoe High School killer in Colorado
allow the family of the mentally troubled Lafayette, LA killer to verify he couldn’t purchase a firearm
allow police officers to vet anyone they contact – (note the routine background checks performed by police often do not include information about firearms because they don’t directly access the NICS database)
Re: “An Act to Require Background Checks for Gun Sales.”
The title of this proposal is word doctored to be innocuous but the devil is in the details. It is really progressive speak for ultimately wanting to pass laws to monitor and control loans, transfers or physical access of firearms, ammunition, or “high capacity” magazines to distant relatives, friends, significant others, roommates, employees, or other acquaintances you have known for years. You can see this philosophy reflected in the laws passed in CO and WA and proposed in NV, ME and OR. Since many of these affected people are single and in a rising demographic of voters, opponents of this law should publicize the fact to these people that if they have or want to have firearms, they could be inadvertently breaking the law with their living arrangements and be subject to intimidation and entrapment by overzealous and unscrupulous authorities who are aligned with an anti-gun agenda. The only so called “loophole” that needs closing is the reluctance to enforce existing laws. You could start by quit allowing people who use a gun illegally to plea bargain away the illegal firearms offense. The feds are one of the worst offenders. Straw purchases and lying on the 4473 form you have to fill out for a background check to purchase a firearm is a felony punishable by 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine – yet in 2010 76142 people failed the background check, 4732 were deemed worthy of prosecution and only 62 were prosecuted.