School consolidation repeal effort starved for cash
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Kennebec Journal: The advocates pushing a repeal of Maine's school district consolidation mandate are conducting their campaign on a shoestring budget. The Maine Coalition to Save Schools, the political action committee that collected enough voter signatures to force a repeal question on November's ballot, collected $175 in campaign contributions this spring. "There's interest," coalition Chairman Skip Greenlaw said. "There's not a lot of money." Voters will decide in November whether to repeal a mandate legislators approved in June 2007 that intended to cut the number of school districts to 80 from 290 to save on school administrative costs. Opposition to the law thwarted mergers in more than 100 school districts. The first district mergers under the law took place July 1, leaving Maine with 218 school systems. Consolidation opponents held off on serious fundraising efforts for much of the spring, Greenlaw said, as they focused on lobbying legislators to overturn the consolidation law. Legislators' June votes to keep the law on the books sent the decision to voters. "It didn't make any sense to go out and fundraise if there was a possibility the Legislature was going to repeal it," Greenlaw said. "We're cranking it up right now."
While the anti-consolidation coalition is short on cash, it's too early to write off the group's efforts, said University of Maine at Farmington political science professor Jim Melcher. "For the people who care about the issue, they tend to care very intensely and may well donate to it later," he said. Greenlaw has said the crux of the campaign against school consolidation is convincing voters in Maine's cities and larger towns to support the repeal, although their school districts were not forced to merge with neighbors. Regardless of whether the consolidation law's opponents have enough cash to publicize their message, Melcher noted they'll be competing for attention with campaigns to overturn Maine's same-sex marriage law, institute a taxpayer bill of rights and cut excise taxes. "For a lot of people, it's not as polarizing as the tax issue and the same-sex marriage issue," he said.
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