In the interest of the fullest of disclosures, I worked both as a volunteer and paid consultant to defeat Question 4 on last week's ballot, TABOR II as it was called.

In the eyes of TABOR's supporters, I am a parasite, part of the taxpayer-bleeding class because I once worked for state government. So be it, guilty as charged, and proud of it.

Government isn't an evil thing; it's not even a bad thing. But you wouldn't know that from listening to the vitriol that came from the campaign supporting TABOR. The motto of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, the drafters of TABOR II, is "We the People."

Since government is their avowed enemy, it must be surmised that elected officials and state and local government employees aren't people. While I've never been close to anybody who has served as president, all the governors, representatives, senators, legislators and municipal officials I have known over the past 32 years breathe the same air and get dressed every morning just like regular Joe and Jane the Plumbers.

We now know that the view of Maine Heritage Policy Center, its funders and its supporters is a minority view. Maine people drove a stake in the heart of TABOR II last week.

In 2006, TABOR I was more narrowly defeated by 8 percentage points; this time it was a 20-point margin. Not one county in Maine came close to supporting TABOR II. The closest county was Piscataquis County, with the margin of 54.63 percent voting "no" and 45.37 percent voting "yes."

The other citizen's initiative placed on the ballot by the Maine Heritage Policy Center fared even more poorly.

Question 2, the excise tax question, was defeated by a margin of more than 49 percentage points. Three out of every four people who went to the polls voted against cutting excise taxes, because they figured out that all government isn't bad and all government services aren't a waste of money.

A third citizen's initiative authored by the Maine Heritage Policy Center didn't make it to the ballot because not enough signatures were certified. Who knows? Perhaps that one would have fared better, but maybe not.

TABOR II severely divided the business community at a time when it should be united with a single focus on moving Maine out of its recession by investing in jobs. Instead, Maine businesses felt the need either to invest in the Maine Heritage Policy Center or contribute to defeat its anti-government initiatives.

The Maine Heritage Policy Center can contribute to the public debate in Maine, but not through more anti-government attacks that represent a clear minority. The leaders of the center are former Republican elected officials and most of their primary funders are historical funders of the Republican Party.

Instead of siphoning funds from the Republican Party, the center should help reposition the party to be an effective player in representative government. While "We the People" resonates, the fact is that our democracy was founded as a republic, based on the premise of representative government.

The Maine Constitution was amended to allow for direct initiative by its citizens to act as a backstop for representative government, not to replace it.

Resorting to direct initiatives to decide complicated matters of fiscal and tax policy is using a chainsaw for surgery instead of a scalpel. When a direct initiative will have fiscal impacts to Maine taxpayers that are not analyzed in even a token way, they can have dangerous and unanticipated consequences.

TABOR II made sweeping and detailed changes to budgetary procedures that would have required the hiring of more state employees in the controller's office to even implement. The public debate didn't focus on those details, because they are hard to relegate to sound bites that would have captured the imagination of voters.

The Legislature should consider imposing some requirements for fiscal analysis of citizen's initiatives before they get placed on a ballot so that we don't have to rely on campaign sound bites to get at the truth.

Maine Heritage Policy Center should consider focusing on electing Republicans to the Legislature who can influence the debate over fiscal policy in a forum more appropriate to a democracy founded on the principle of representative government.

Kay Rand is former chief of staff for Maine independent Gov. Angus King.