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MHPC's Becker on his Role in TABOR (From the Maine Ethics Commission corrected transcript of 10/31/06 session, pgs 39-43 ) COMMISSIONER
MAVOUREEN THOMPSON: Yes, couple
questions. Dan or Bill or both,
would you say that either through staff time or research — staff research and
so forth for presentations and so forth, MHPC has spent more than $1,500 working
towards the — I mean the passage of TABOR? WILLIAM
BECKER:
In terms of our staff time, we've allocated it out, not towards the
passage or defeat of TABOR, we’ve really been prior provided, we've been
basically the experts on taxation and expenditure limitation laws, now in the
state for well over three years. Now
that's when we first issued our very, very, very first report as an
organization. We wrote them
[unintelligible] tax and expenditure limitation bills and then spent a number of
months drafting model legislation for what it would look like in the State of
Maine. So
not for the passage or defeat of TABOR, but for becoming policy experts in the
field of tax and expenditure limitation laws.
That's what we have done. That's
what we continue to be and that's what we've done for many other press, is
provide them with answers. I accept
[Unintelligible} from them says what is demanded when this happens?
Well what happens along those lines?
Well what is the handle on that? It's
really in the context of the Maine economy and that's really in the context in
which we talk about. THOMPSON:
So I think I heard an earlier speaker say that — that the Policy Center
actually wrote the Tabor referendum and so forth? BECKER:
No - THOMPSON:
(Interposing) Or to what extent were you involved in that? BECKER:
All right, we wrote back in 2004 — we wrote model legislations saying
okay, this was such a great idea in some other states.
What would it look like in the state of Maine?
And we spent about three or four months writing that, talking to experts,
economists, BHCs all over the country and then put it out there as model
legislation and two, it moved forward separately in two different ways, absent,
separate from our organization. One
to Senator Mary Andrews of York, doing it forward in a legislature as a piece of
legislation and that was actually somewhat amended before it got there and
secondly, Mary Adams [Unintelligible} submitted it as a citizen’s initiative
and that too was amended between the revisers office the secretary of state's
office before it got sent out as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
Our role is almost a year earlier than that, drafting a model legislation
to say how it would work in regards to Maine law. THOMPSON:
Did Andrews or Adams get your participation from the Center when in fact
their bills were debated before the legislative committee? BECKER:
We were called to testify, by the Tax Committee primarily. THOMPSON:
And were pros and cons indicated in that?
Sometimes the legislature will ask for people who are pro legislation and
con. BECKER:
Yes. THOMPSON:
And either to sign up and indicate or just to take turns and so forth for
the thing. Has there been a
testimony? BECKER:
We represented basically the authors of the model legislation.
That's the way we were represented. THOMPSON:
So you didn’t — you were not like on the pro side or the con side in
terms of - BECKER: (Interposing) I think we had been perceived that we went on the pro side because wrote it. We were obviously proud of something that we had drafted two, you know, a year earlier. But we represented it as the experts, as the policy experts on that piece of the model legislation. *** Later in his testimony that day, Becker reiterates this
point saying that it is part of MHPC’s general policy: THOMPSON: Do you take any pro or con stance on any other public issues? BECKER: We don't take any pro or con stance on any issue. (p. 59) However, the
documentation gathered by the Commission staff specifically contradicts
these claims as Ethics Commission Executive Director Jonathan Wayne summarized
the content of these documents in the cover letter of his 12/8 memo: At the hearing, Bill Becker testified for the Maine Heritage Policy Center (MHPC). The MHPC testified in support of LD 2075 (the MHPC thanked the committee for the opportunity to testify in 'full support' of the bill). When Mr. Becker signed up as the second witness, he placed a check-mark in the proponent column... The sign in sheet along with Becker's testimony is available here. *** |
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