enlarge Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer

TABOR supporters Martin Sheehan, left, and David Crocker watch early returns Tuesday in South Portland. Crocker said supporters will regroup.

enlarge Gordon Chibroski/ Staff Photographer

Leticia Martinez, left, Jake Sweeney, center, and Mark Gray of Citizens Unified for Maine’s Future watch early returns online Tuesday evening.

Maine voters on Tuesday soundly rejected Question 4, the so-called Taxpayers Bill of Rights. With 87 percent of precincts reporting just after 1 a.m., the measure was trailing 60.4 percent to 39.6 percent.

The TABOR referendum would have placed spending limits on state and local governments and required voter approval to raise taxes. It was the third anti-tax measure on the ballot in five years – all of which were defeated.

For TABOR’s opponents, the victory was even bigger than the 2006 victory over a similar ballot measure, which was defeated by 8 percentage points. 

The economic recession created an environment that made it easier to defeat Question 4, said Mark Gray, chairman of Citizens Unified for Maine’s Future, the political action committee that opposed the measure.

“The early polling in August showed the shaky economy was helping us,” he said. “It created a lot of uncertainty. The last thing people want in a state of uncertainty is more uncertainty.”

In addition, plummeting state revenues caused the Legislature to cut the current two-year budget by $500 million, making it difficult for Question 4 supporters to argue that spending was out of control, Gray said.

At the campaign’s victory party at Rivalries in Portland, he told a crowd of about 75 people that he hopes Question 4’s defeat will send a message to out-of-state interests to stop pushing similar referendum questions on the state ballot.

David Crocker, chairman of TABOR Now, the political action committee that ran the campaign, conceded defeat at about 10:40 p.m.

He told about 30 supporters gathered at the Merry Manor Inn in South Portland that opponents used the recession to their advantage by fanning people’s anxieties.

“The message from our opponents is fear, and fear is a difficult emotion to overcome,” he said.

Crocker said the defeat will not drive him and the measure’s supporters away. He said supporters will regroup and “hammer away” at the Legislature to rein in spending.

Question 4 had some early political momentum and held a significant edge in the polls until a month ago, but it was crushed in a lopsided campaign led by municipal leaders and public-employee unions. Opponents outspent supporters 10-to-1 on television ads.

Opponents – led by Maine Education Association and the Maine Municipal Association – ran a series of television commercials that portrayed TABOR as a risky measure that would cause cuts to services, such as schools and health programs. The ads began appearing five weeks ago, at the cost of $900,000.

Proponents argued that Question 4 would not cut services but simply constrain growth to the rate of inflation. TABOR Now began running its only television commercial in the final week of the campaign, at a total cost of $90,000.

TABOR Now had trouble raising money. Its campaign was funded primarily by individual contributions from Maine residents, but it failed to attract money from out-of-state groups.

Citizens Unified raised $1.7 million, according the campaign finance report it filed on Oct. 29. TABOR Now reported raising $160,000.

Citizens Unified received several large donations, including donation from the Service Employees International Union, the National Education Association and the Maine State Employees Association.

In fact, TABOR supporters spent more money getting the citizen initiative on the ballot than they did during the campaign. Maine Leads, the political action committee that paid volunteers to gather signatures and got the question on the ballot, received more than $200,000 in donations from out-of-state anti-tax groups in 2007 and 2008.

The business community had mixed views of TABOR.While the Maine Merchants Association and the Portland Regional Chamber supported Question...