Public power opponents get anti-debt measure on Maine ballot

Voters in Maine will face dueling referendums in November after a proposal requiring voter approval for large government debt expenditures garnered enough petition signatures to put it on the ballot, almost two months after rival campaigners succeeded in doing the same.

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows' office on Wednesday announced that the No Blank Check campaign proposal to require a popular referendum for any government debt issuances over $1 billion received 68,807 signatures, 1,125 above the threshold required for its inclusion on the ballot in an off-year election this November.

On Nov. 30, the secretary of state certified rival group Our Power's ballot question asking voters to approve a state takeover of Maine's two largest private energy providers that would likely require billions in new debt issuance to carry out.

"We think that's a bad idea for a whole lot of reasons," Willy Ritch, executive director at the No Blank Checks campaign, said. "The biggest issue is that it would require taking on huge debt, which all Mainers would be on the hook for."

Ritch is the executive director of the Maine Affordable Energy Coalition, a group that includes several private utility providers and labor unions that oppose Our Power's plans.

Those plans call for the state to acquire Central Maine Power Company and Versant Power, Maine's two largest utility providers, to form the Pine Tree Power Company, a private, non-profit company directed by an elected board of 13 to take over service for more than 800,000 customers in the state.

Our Power said on its website the takeover would cost $9 billion in total and help drive down steadily increasing energy costs caused by profiteering at the expense of service, as well as improve and climate-proof infrastructure and delivery networks.

Analysts hired by No Blank Check gave a "conservative but realistic" estimate of $13.5 billion, Ritch said, adding that the exact number is hard to nail down until the eminent domain proceedings, which he believes will likely be necessary should the plan be enacted, were to flesh out the true costs.

He also said cost increases in electric bills weren't due to profiteering.

"The utilities in question only provide transmission and distribution, which is a little less than half people's electric bills right now," he said. "The majority of people's electric bills now go to third parties, essentially, electric suppliers who provide fuel."

In a response to the announcement, Our Power said No Blank Checks received a lower total signature count and that their efforts were " fully funded by Central Maine Power's owners, saying they "openly misled voters and repeatedly broke the law" by buying "signatures from Maine voters at $25 a pop," though they provided no further evidence of the claims in their statement. 

Our Power did not respond to the request for comment and Ritch called the claims "slanderous."

According to Maine's laws, any petition signature-driven referendum is first voted on by the state legislature, which can choose to enact the bill as written or to send it forward to a statewide vote.

In a close vote in late June, lawmakers failed to ratify an earlier Pine Tree Power Company Proposal, with some elected officials requesting more clarity on the costs and taxes associated with the plan.

Both proposals will be put to a vote in the legislature in the coming months, but Ritch expects they will likely be passed on to a referendum.

If both proposals get the green light from voters, the stage will be set for a third referendum to approve the funds needed for the takeover of the utility companies.

"We're gonna spend a lot of time and a lot of effort talking to the public about the proposed takeover of utilities," Ritch said of No Blank Check's plans for the coming months. "A big part of that conversation will be education about the cost of these utilities."