PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster says Mitt Romney has won the Maine caucuses by a slim margin, giving him a much needed boost following losses in three other contests in the past week.

The former Massachusetts governor defeated Ron Paul, the only other GOP hopeful competing in the state. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich did not actively participate in the contest.

Party leaders announced the results Saturday. The caucuses began February 4 and continued through the week. Some Maine communities have yet to hold their caucuses, though party leaders say they don’t plan to count those votes.

Romney easily won the Maine caucuses in 2008.

Read more at the Associated Press.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – Mitt Romney hoped to avoid a fourth straight election setback Saturday in the GOP presidential nomination race, but feisty Ron Paul could extend that losing streak with a victory in Maine’s caucuses.

Romney, the one-time front-runner, stepped up efforts to court Republicans in recent days, reflecting growing concern about the outcome of what has become a two-man race in Maine.

Neither Newt Gingrich nor Rick Santorum, who won in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado on Tuesday, is actively competing in Maine, where party officials planned to declare a winner Saturday evening.

Romney wants Maine voters to help in his struggle to convince his party’s conservative wing that he should be the candidate they back. The former Massachusetts governor said in a Washington speech Friday that he was “a severely conservative Republican governor.”

Paul, a libertarian-minded Texas congressman, is fighting to prove he’s capable of winning at all, particularly in a state where his campaign has focused considerable attention. He has scored a few top three finishes in other early voting states, but his strategy is based on winning some of the smaller caucus contests where his passionate base of support can have an oversized impact.

There is no reliable polling to gauge the state of the Maine election, which drew fewer than 5,500 voters from across the state four years ago. But Romney’s recent activities suggest a victory is by no means assured, despite the natural advantages of being a former New England governor competing in a state he won with more than 50 percent of the vote four years ago.

He changed his schedule Friday night to add personal appearances at two caucuses Saturday; he had planned to take the day off.

Read more at the Associated Press.

Because of the faltering economy and slowed tax revenue, the Clark County School District needs to cut $78 million from its budget over the next two years. The district must do this either by freezing teacher pay and finding a more affordable employee health insurance carrier, or by laying off 1,000 educators as early as next month.

The first alternative is obviously preferable, because students would be adversely affected by larger class sizes and the loss of many enthusiastic young teachers. Unfortunately, the second option may be unavoidable, because the district has been unable to negotiate a new contract with its teachers union, the Clark County Education Association (CCEA).

CCSD is the fifth largest school district in the nation, serving around 310,000 students in 340 schools in and around Las Vegas. The district is also the largest employer in Nevada with some 33,000 employees, 18,000 of which are teachers.

The main sticking point seems to be the district’s desire to find a less expensive health insurance provider. CCEA members currently receive health insurance from the Teachers Health Trust, a company actually owned and operated by their union.

Most people would describe the union’s insistence on selling its own company’s expensive insurance product to the school district as a conflict of interest, but union officials either don’t agree or don’t care.

The teachers union declared a bargaining impasse last summer. While the two sides could conceivably still reach a deal, it seems most likely that an arbitrator will make the final decision about wage freezes and the fate of the union-owned insurance company. The arbiter is legally bound to choose one side over the other.

“There’s no middle ground,” said district spokeswoman Amanda Fulkerson. “If the district wins, no layoffs and a pay freeze. If the union wins, some get raises, and others get laid off.”

Is the union protecting Health Trust?

The question must be asked: Why is the teachers union jeopardizing the careers and financial futures of 1,000 of its members?

CCEA President Ruben Murillo, Jr. has made it clear the union does not want to accept a pay freeze and has charged school officials as being “disingenuous to the public regarding [the district’s] financial situation.”

“Listen, teachers don’t go into teaching to get rich, but they certainly don’t go into the profession to live in the poorhouse,” Murillo recently wrote in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

A pay freeze would be a hardship for teachers, but it would be nothing more than many other employees in the public and private sectors have accepted in recent years. CCSD’s administrators, support staff and police have all agreed to a pay freeze, “leaving the teachers standing alone,” writes the Review-Journal.

Apparently union leaders and veteran teachers, who are in little jeopardy of layoff, are more interested in a raise than allowing their younger peers to remain on the job and provide smaller class sizes for students. Sadly, that attitude is fairly common among teachers’ unions around the nation. School administrators describe it as union members “eating their young.”

Many observers believe CCEA officials are also determined to preserve the monopoly the union-owned Teachers Health Trust has on the school’s health insurance business.

The Teachers Health Trust was established in 1983, after the Clark County district got fed up with regular rate increases from another carrier.

It was written into the district’s collective bargaining contract with the CCEA that the district would pay a monthly per-employee fee to the union-owned Teachers Health Trust. In return, the union would be solely responsible for managing the insurance fund for members. The CCEA president even selects the individuals who serve on THT’s Board of Trustees.

The deal written into the collective bargaining agreement gives Teachers Health Trust a monopoly on the school’s health insurance business. If other insurance companies were allowed to bid for the district’s business, it would almost certainly drive prices down.

In some states, union-affiliated insurance companies openly share their profits with the union. While we have no evidence that this occurs in Clark County, we have to wonder if the union would stand to lose a lot of kickback money if Teachers Health Trust lost the school district’s $10 million-a-month business.

What we know for sure is that the inability to seek competitive insurance bids has cost the school district a bundle.

The district believes it can significantly trim those costs by switching to a private health insurance provider, although the amount of the savings has not been announced.

“Savings to the taxpayers will be in the millions of dollars, monies which will be used to offset lost positions and potential salary cuts and to fund district programs and operations that enhance student achievement,” reads a district fact sheet.

Union insurance scams in other states

The CCEA is not the first teachers union to form its own insurance company and pressure local school boards into purchasing that company’s overpriced coverage.

The Maine Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, established its own insurance entity, the Maine Education Association Benefits Trust, in 1993.

The Benefits Trust “ facilitates” the purchase of employee health insurance for Maine’s public schools, essentially selling them coverage provided by the state’s largest carrier, Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

Nearly every school district in the state has been lulled into joining this system over the years, according to officials in several Maine school districts. The Benefits Trust/Anthem scam, which discourages outside competition, has driven insurance prices through the roof for Maine schools.

The Michigan Education Association owns its own insurance company, called the Michigan Education Special Services Association (MESSA). For years local union negotiators have pressed school boards to purchase MESSA employee health insurance, despite its high cost.

As a result, roughly half of the districts in the state carry some form of MESSA insurance, and many are struggling with the continually rising cost of premiums. As in Maine, many Michigan school officials have accused MESSA of refusing to provide insurance claim records that are necessary to attract bids from competitors.

The Michigan Education Association also receives annual kickbacks from MESSA, in exchange for effective representation at the school board bargaining table. In 2009, MESSA reported net assets of $259 million. In 2010, MESSA shared $5 million with the MEA.

The Wisconsin Education Association Council also created an insurance entity, called WEA Trust, several decades ago. For years local union negotiators pressed school boards to purchase employee health insurance from WEA Trust, often at a very high price.

At one point, about three-quarters of the state’s school districts purchased insurance from WEA Trust, helping the union-affiliated insurance company build assets worth $674 million in 2008, according to government records.

EAG published a 2010 analysis of WEA Trust, which revealed that most of the school districts in the state with the highest insurance costs are clients of WEA Trust. Many school administrators said it was very difficult to convince their local unions to allow them to seek bids for less expensive health coverage.

All three of those union-affiliated insurance companies have attracted close scrutiny since a wave of reform-minded lawmakers were elected in November 2010.

Lawmakers in Maine, Wisconsin and Michigan have recently taken steps to give school districts more freedom to accept competitive bids for employee health insurance, thereby ending or at least eroding the expensive monopoly held by union-affiliated insurance companies.

In Clark County, that job is being left to an arbitrator. All the students and taxpayers can do is hope the arbitrator does the right thing for the school district and community, even if that angers the self-serving union.

Holder claimed that the Department of Justice would be “fair” in reviewing such laws, but also quoted a misleading charge made by Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who claimed there was a “systematic attempt” to prevent minority voters from exercising their rights. Holder specifically singled out “new photo identification requirements” in Texas and South Carolina, and applauded Maine’s voters for preserving same-day registration.

The fact is that requiring voters to provide photo identification is standard practice in much of the democratic world–even, and especially, in poor countries with a history of struggle against racism and colonialism.

In South Africa, for example, where black people were denied the vote until 1994, the new democratic government requires every registered voter–black or white, rich or poor–to bring official photo ID to the polls.

Indians show photo ID to vote (Photo credit: AP/Biswaranjan Rout)

India’s election commission issues a special photo identification card to voters when they register, which they must present at the polls:

The Election Commission of India has made voter identification mandatory at the time of poll. The electors have to identify themselves with either Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC) issued by the Commission or any other documentary proof as prescribed by the Commission.

In Europe, the official EU Handbook for Election Observation acknowledges that voters are required to show identification in many countries, and suggests that observers verify that all voters are subject to the same ID check (166). Even the Carter Center for Human Rights, which monitors democratic elections all over the world, identifies “a requirement for identification” as a “reasonable limitation” on universal suffrage.

(Update: That’s not to say international practice should govern American practice at the federal, state, or local level, but it certainly undermines the notion that photo identification is somehow motivated by a desire to keep people from exercising their rights. The opposite is true: voter ID laws are intended to protect voters’ rights against fraud and manipulation by those who would subvert their will.)

The idea that requiring American voters to show photo identification when they vote is racist is simply absurd. It’s a requirement enforced regularly by Holder’s labor union allies. It’s also a requirement demanded by federal agencies that provide welfare and other benefits. If there’s no destitute South African too poor to obtain photo ID, there is surely no American who deserves pity for failing to obtain the same in order to vote.

Holder’s attack on photo identification is crude partisanship, a fact made clear by his attack on Texas’s new congressional map. The federal government, he proudly notes, is challenging Republican-controlled Texas for failing to provide adequate representation for Hispanic voters. Yet Holder has ignored Illinois, where his fellow Democrats have cut Hispanics out of redistricting, and Republicans have tried to challenge the map in court.

Holder cited a Republican in Maryland who was convicted of trying to trick black voters into staying home. Yet there is also ample evidence of voter fraud by Democrats–such as in the 2008 primary in Indiana, or in the ongoing effort to recall Republican governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin. Holder’s attack on sincere attempts to stop voter fraud is itself a fraud that abuses the civil rights legacy to disenfranchise the public at large.

Maine Governor Paul LePage is no stranger to hard times. He left home at 11 after a rough childhood, spending time on the streets, yet managed to finish both high school and college. He later went on to work as a Pepsi-Cola truck driver, at a meat-packing plant and as a short-order cook.

This is the story of Gov. Paul LePage, who, in a little more than six months, has ushered in sweeping reforms for Maine — a record of accomplishments it might take other governors years to achieve. What’s even more remarkable is that LePage is a tea party-backed conservative making significant strides in supposedly hostile New England.

LePage visited Heritage recently and shared the piece of advice that have inspired him throughout his life — just 10 two-letter words: “If it is to be, it is up to me.”

Our interview with LePage runs about 4 minutes. Hosted by Rob Bluey and produced by Brandon Stewart, with the help of Hannah Sternberg.

From the Associated Press:

Maine (AP) – Maine voters repealed a state law Tuesday that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed, dealing the gay rights movement a heartbreaking defeat in New England, the corner of the country most supportive of gay marriage.

Gay marriage has now lost in every single state—31 in all—in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine—known for its moderate, independent-minded electorate—and mounted an energetic, well-financed campaign.

With 87 percent of the precincts reporting, gay-marriage foes had 53 percent of the votes.

“The institution of marriage has been preserved in Maine and across the nation,” declared Frank Schubert, chief organizer for the winning side.

Gay-marriage supporters refused to concede, holding out hope that that the tide might turn as the final returns came in.

“We’re here for the long haul and whether it’s just all night and into the morning, or it’s next week or next month or next year, we will be here,” said Jesse Connolly, manager of the pro-gay marriage campaign. “We’ll be here fighting. We’ll be working. We will regroup.”

Read the full article here.

As Americans rise up all across the country to challenge a political elite that many believe does not listen to them, it is important to consider the tools that people in many states have employed to directly affect change: the petition.

In Missouri, our Constitution includes the following passage:

The people reserve power to propose and enact or reject laws and amendments to the constitution by the initiative, independent of the general assembly, and also reserve power to approve or reject by referendum any act of the general assembly, except as hereinafter provided.  (Article 3, Section 49)

The document  clearly states that the people possess the right to initiate laws and constitutional amendments, even though they grant those same powers to their representatives in the legislature.  This is an important since it permits the people to enact laws directly and without going through the standard legislative process.

Unfortunately, in Missouri and other states where the people enjoy this right, the initiative process is continually under assault from state legislatures—Republican and Democrat alike—even to the point of adopting unconstitutional limitations to them.  Such efforts have included the following:

• A 1969 law in Oklahoma required that petition circulators be state residents.  In December 2008, the Tenth Circuit Court unanimously struck down that law as unconstitutional.  The Court did the same to a similar law in Colorado in 2002.

• A 2005 law in Ohio that restricted petition gatherers from being paid per signature was struck down by the Sixth Circuit Court struck in March 2008.  Ohio appealed the decision but the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear it.  Similar pay-per-signature regulations have been overruled by federal district courts in Idaho, Maine, Mississippi and Washington.

• A Colorado law that required petitioners to wear badges with their name and whether they were a volunteer or paid circulator was struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1999.

A common argument for limiting the petition process is that it puts too much money into politics or that it invites fraud.  Yet courts have found this not to be the case.  In the 2005 ruling against Ohio, the Court concluded that prohibiting payment per signature would increase the costs and the time necessary to obtain the required signatures. The Court also rejected the evidence that this particular form of payment resulted in fraud.

Other legislators worry that petition drives can be funded and operated by people living out-of-state.  In a December interview with the Springfield News-Leader, Rep. Michael Parson (R-133) said, “What’s happening is a company or a special-interest group can come in from out of the state, basically unload the signature gathers (from a bus), do a marketing campaign and change the Constitution of the State of Missouri.”  It is important to note that Parson’s concern about out-of-state money and campaign workers doesn’t extend to candidate elections, like his own. His legislative efforts would only regulate out of state activity on campaigns for ballot initiatives, not campaigns for politicians. 

Organizations such as Citizens in Charge are dedicated to preserving petition rights and even expanding them into new states.  This is the first place tea party organizers should turn when considering how to leverage their clout.  Ballotpedia.org is a website offering information about various ballot initiatives in Missouri and elsewhere.  This service is important, because often the keys to the petition process are held by the executive and legislative branches—the very groups that the petition process is intended to circumvent.  Even if a petition makes it to the ballot, the language that appears on the ballot may be written to opponents to change.

The Missouri general assembly recently debated real and substantive improvements to the initiative process, but the legislation did not survive the frenzied final few hours of the session.  Look for these efforts to continue in January, and to remain a battleground all over the country.