On July 1, one day before the deadline, nearly 100,000 signatures opposing the new law were submitted to Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, almost double what is needed for a people’s referendum. After certifying more than 60,000 signatures, Dunlap agreed Sept. 3 to add the referendum to the Nov. 3 ballot.

Gov. Baldacci signed the law May 6, an hour after the Maine Senate passed the bill. Sept. 12 would have been the first day same-sex couples in Maine could legally marry, according to Dunlap, but because of the people’s veto it has been indefinitely postponed.

Question No. 1 will read: “Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious institutions to refuse to perform these marriages?”

C.J. Bearce, the University of Maine campus organizer with League of Young Voters, an organization that encourages young people to engage in the democratic process, anticipated the law would be met with resistance.

“We hit the ground running with the assumption that they [opposition groups] would [resist],” Bearce said.

Bearce is one of three campus organizers for League of Young Voters in Maine. He started out volunteering and has since decided to dedicate more of his time to the organization.

“We’re trying to get a lot of local donations and raise money the grass roots way,” Bearce said.

Groups such as Equality Maine, a coalition partner with League of Young Voters, began campaigning around the same time the opposition first circulated petitions.

Equality Maine works closely with the Rainbow Resource Center — a resource center for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community at UMaine — and has received support from university clubs like Wilde Stein, Progressive Student Alliance and the Student Women’s Association.

UMaine College Republicans member Timothy Woodman plans to vote for overturning Maine’s gay marriage law this fall. He is in favor of No. 1 because “religious organizations will no longer be forced to perform same sex marriages,” he said.

“The College Republicans as a whole do not have a stance,” said College Republicans Vice President Joe Grace. “It doesn’t need to be made into a partisan issue.”

According to Mary Conroy, a volunteer coordinator and deputy communications director at Stand for Marriage Maine, the group that organized the people’s veto, it is supported financially by four national sources: the National Organization for Marriage, the Maine chapter of Focus on the Family, the Portland Roman Catholic Diocese and Family Resource. A full list of Stand for Marriage Maine supporters is available on its Web site: standformarriagemaine.com.

In July, with two months of campaigning behind them, Stand for Marriage Maine members had raised $350,000.

“I have friends who are homosexual. … They don’t think [the law] is a big deal. It’d be a big deal to get rid of it,” said Lindsey James, a fourth-year psychology student.

Mary Emmi contributed to this report.

FOR THE RECORD: A previous version of this article mistated the name of the Student Women’s Association — not the Student Women’s Alliance — and used the word transexual in place of the word transgender.

On Thursday, Oct. 16, in coordination with UMaine UVote, the College Democrats and College Republicans hosted Rock the Vote.

“This event is about getting as many students to vote as possible,” said Ben Goodman, communications coordinator for the Campus Coalition of Change. “Young people can make the difference, so it’s a huge deal.”

Memorial Union was buzzing with students, and the excitement over the current political season was palpable. Booths for the respective political parties handed out stickers, posters and T-shirts and gave everyone an opportunity to register to vote.

In addition to the political atmosphere, student a capella groups entertained the crowd. The Maine Steiners, Bear Vocals and Renaissance impressed with their variety, covering songs from Bon Jovi to John Legend.

“Even though we have different political beliefs, it’s about coming together to get students to vote,” said Emily Cain, Orono’s Maine State Representative. “Every student has the power and the right to vote, and we want people to get excited.”

Cain, a UMaine graduate, was one of the original organizers of Rock the Vote in 2004. “Voting is not just for old people. Young voters are going to be the secret ingredient to this election,” Cain said.

Zach Jackman, president of the UM College Republicans, said, “We’ve seen amazing involvement so far this season. There are a record number of voters, and this event is crucial because we want even more people to come out on Nov. 4.”

Among the political booths was an interesting table advertising PowerVote. “PowerVote is a non-partisan pledge supporting long-term energy solutions,” said Amy Becker, a PowerVote representative. “People can pledge to support renewable energy. If we get enough pledges, we can force Congress to re-evaluate our current energy situation.” More info can be found at powervote.org.

Maine state law allows voters to register on election day. UMaine students can wait until Nov. 4 to vote, but now they have a unique opportunity: On Oct. 23, the university will hold an early voting day. Students need only bring a valid Maine driver’s license to the Union from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and they can vote two weeks before the election.

“Early voting day is . a great way to avoid the long lines at the polls on election day,” Goodman said.

The evening of entertainment and political discourse continued the annual tradition of hoping to pique student interest in voting.

“Maine will be a pivotal factor in this presidential race, and the University of Maine is the largest university in the state. Students need to be involved,” Goodman said.

First, Kyle Michaud was ejected from his executive position as UMaine College Republican Secretary. The reasoning was that his conduct within the group meetings became disagreeable. He engaged members in off-color debates outside of the meeting itinerary numerous times. Many of our group members felt targeted by his remarks, including one member who left in the middle of the meeting because of his flagrant disregard for group conduct.

Secondly, Kyle Michaud was not present for the discussion about CPAC funding, nor was he present for the General Student Senate meeting. We had slated our budget at $7,000 because we were so advised by a member of the student senate. This figure was realistic for the full funding of 25 members. This begs the question “Would we really jeopardize funding for our entire group to go to a much anticipated political event?” This simply doesn’t make sense.

During the College Republican meeting following the allotment of less than $2,000 from GSS, Kyle Michaud had mentioned that this was good news, because we could start a court case against the University of Maine General Student Senate due to bias. He wanted to obtain the minutes from the meeting as a basis for the ridiculous idea of a court case against GSS. Our group saw this as a rash decision that we would never support. We fully cooperated with GSS and look forward to doing so in the future.

When Kyle Michaud was asked to vacate his position on the executive board, he was in the middle of a project attempting to document professorial salaries and other expenditures by the university. He was eventually going to release this information at the cost of sullying the university’s image. It is ironic that all of a sudden he is interested in “protecting the university” after working on such projects.

Regarding the “Grossweiler controversy,” as Michaud calls it, this was an attempt on the part of our group to bring to light the stark contrast between liberal professors and conservative students on our campus. McDade took this case outside of the UMaine College Republicans to a non-governmental organization, The Leadership Institute. This and any action that McDade was engaged in occurred outside the auspices of the UMaine College Republicans.

Therefore, Michaud’s anachronistic claim of McDade being a “McCarthyist” is ill-founded. She withdrew from “The Today Show” primarily because of fear of reprisals from professors who did not share her zeal for academic freedom and fairness within the classroom.

As for me “thwarting” $10,000 from the university coffers, that’s purely a part of Michaud’s creative imagination. This was carried out after a press release regarding McDade’s experience with Grossweiler and the CPAC monies was released statewide. Numerous conservative donors were quite upset over this news and their choice – if they did so – to withdraw funding was purely their own, not due to any pressure by the UMaine College Republicans. Our group had no direct contact with any university donors whatsoever.

I believe that the student body should be made aware of such attempts by a former secretary with a damaged ego to besmirch the good name and reputation of the UMaine College Republicans. It should also be noted that when Kyle Michaud was asked to vacate his position on the executive board, he declined his appeal to be reinstated and instead chose to leave the group and attempt petty tactics to harm the group’s image.

Alison Geagan, Rebekah McDade and Luke deNatale contributed to this response.

The first situation was their plea to the GSS for funding for CPAC. This was the first of two incidents which I believe were meant to deliberately sabotage UMaine’s reputation. CR chairwoman Danielle Palmer asked for $7,000 in funding for a total of 25 students to attend the CPAC event – a few days of activity.

I attended both the meeting at which we were told of GSS’ response and the meeting in which we “organized” the trip, at which we came up with a rough head count. Both meetings took place in the Coe Room and numbered less than 10 to 12 students. One could claim that Palmer asked for a figure exceeding our true needs, and expected it to be reduced. However, the group asked for double and proceeded to make the case that they were discriminated against when the figure was cut by $5,000.

When the group began its discussion of what to do about the situation, there was no mention of taking the appropriate steps to address the situation. If GSS’ denial of the funds was due to our political orthodoxy, wouldn’t one want to prove this unequivocally?

They felt it unnecessary. I suggested that we wait until GSS’ minutes were made public and then take action. Instead, the chair and other members proceeded to contact conservative individuals that donate to the university and, they claim, convinced them to halt their contributions. One “success” mentioned by Palmer was $10,000 that she managed to convince the donor to withhold. In addition, Palmer and Nathan Walton, the head of the Maine Chapter of the College Republicans, made a press release crying foul over the incident.

The second situation is the Grossweiler controversy, which came closer to the actual results they were seeking. The group’s treasurer, Rebekah McDade, aided by the Leadership Institute, had made public the “anti-American” remarks that Grossweiler later maintained were examples of how an individual can challenge free speech and hence obtain extra credit.

McDade discussed her invitation to “The Today Show,” and expressed her fear of appearing because she felt the show was too liberal. McDade backed away from doing the show and it is easy to understand why: if she was made out to be a raving conservative McCarthyist, her plan to pad her resume at the expense of UMaine’s reputation would backfire. If she was truly offended and impelled to speak out against the comments, at least she could have called in to the show and made her case. Fox News, the network the CR’s had hoped would contact McDade, remained silent and so did she.

It is important for me to share my belief that the CR’s are engaging in a forced and calculated attempt to sabotage the reputation of the school. If Palmer has only thwarted the one $10,000 donation then I consider this university lucky. However, this type of behavior impacts us all. If McDade had found her way onto a Fox News broadcast, Grossweiler’s life would have been made far more difficult.

The student bodyshould know of this behavior and be armed by this information with the necessary tools to protect our university.

Kyle Michaud is a former secretary of the UMaine College Republicans.

Group members are manning phone banks to talk to potential voters about current issues, and will soon be handing out literature explaining the Republican Party’s platform, all while campaigning for Republican candidates like gubernatorial hopeful Chandler Woodcock, and re-election campaigns like that of Sen. Olympia Snowe.

In this election year, the group is also focusing its energies on trying to address tax problems. Co-Vice Chairman Cameron Wise said that one of their biggest goals was “getting business back into Maine.”

“We really need to encourage businesses to boost our economy in Maine,” he said. The Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) is thought to be one way of addressing rising taxes, especially for small businesses. TABOR would establish limits on the growth of year-to-year expenditures for all levels of government, and establish limits on the abilities of the government to make new taxes. The College Republicans are working to convince voters to write TABOR into law by voting ‘Yes’ on Question 1 on the November ballot.

One of the biggest hurdles to getting the word out about Republican platforms and encouraging people to vote is the negative reputation of the Republican Party.

“We consider ourselves a minority on campus, as far as political views,” College Republicans chairman Luke deNatale said.

On the whole, the student body at UMaine leans towards liberal, rather than conservative, and Democratic, rather than Republican. “There is a lot of bandwagon dislike for the Republican Party,” Erik Harriman, Co-Vice Chairman.

But they are not as small a part of the student body as one might think. This past year, the group saw an increase in their membership of roughly four hundred. Many students have become more attracted to politics in the last few years, because of the introduction of hotly debated topics into the political atmosphere, such as the legality of same-sex marriage, or more recent state issues like the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

The new members come as a welcome boon to a party whose image has been suffering as the War in Iraq continues to draw negative publicity. The recent scandal with former Republican congressman Mark Foley has not helped matters.

“I think it’s definitely a lot harder,” said deNatale, referring to membership drives. “That’s not helping our cause.”

While the relatively small size of their group may sometimes seem like a hindrance, it has its advantages. “We’re a small group, but we’re very close-knit,” said deNatale. The group works closely with candidates and its members to outline strategies and to design and implement projects that go on throughout the year, not just during election time.

“As a group, we try to meet one-on-one with the candidates as much as possible,” said deNatale. This kind of interaction allows the group to be more effective in its campaigning and advertising.

The UMaine group is part of a statewide network, with 24 branches in various colleges and universities across Maine. The Maine College Republicans have more than 3,000 members in the state of Maine, and according to Chairman Nathaniel Y. Walton, “has become the national standard for promoting conservative values on college campuses and leading grassroots activism on behalf of local, state and national Republican candidates.”

For more information about the College Republicans, contact Luke deNatale, Mark Harriman, or Cameron Wise on FirstClass, or visit the Maine College Republicans Web site at http://www.mainecr.org/.

Sponsored by the University of Maine College Republicans, the convention was a chance for College Republican organizations from campuses all around the state to get together and celebrate the victory of President Bush’s re-election last November. Speakers praised the efforts during the election and said that the momentum that built up over the past year is only the beginning of what is becoming a success story for young Republicans in the state of Maine. Snowe expressed how excited she was to have such a strong young Republican base in the state.

“What you have done has been remarkable in and of itself,” Snowe said. “Bush won the demographic of 18 to 29 year olds in this state, so this is your victory.” Last year the College Republican National Committee named the UMaine College Republican Committee the “Best State Committee in America.”

Snowe was introduced at the beginning of the convention by Dan Schuberth, the state chairman of the College Republicans. Going along with the emotion of the room he added praise to the students of Maine campuses for their efforts in last year’s election.

“You guys were at the front of the battle lines,” Schuberth said to the audience.

Schuberth, who called Snowe “the most accomplished statesman in Maine’s history,” added that it was because of the youth effort that the Republicans were so successful.

To begin her speech Snowe recognized all the people in attendance who had helped the Republican Party and who assisted her with her campaigns. She emphasized her recognition and appreciation of the College Republicans as a collective and what they had done in the past year above all else.

“You helped to increase the voter turnout to the highest level since 1968,” she said.

Snowe then reflected on her own political journey. She spent her college days as a political science major at the University of Maine, and said she found it a struggle to exist as a College Republican and a college student.

“Being a College Republican in the 1960s was indeed an oxymoron,” Snowe said.

Snowe ended with a final praise of the efforts of the Maine College Republicans.

“In Maine we are blessed with so many natural resources,” Snowe said, “but none, frankly, as important as the young people of our state.”

As she closed she thanked the audience and encouraged them to persist in their efforts.

“This requires passion, commitment and empathy,” she said. “I thank you for what you have done and for what you will continue to do in the future.”

A brief intermission followed Snowe’s departure from the podium and allowed her to mingle with the crowd and a number of delegates.

Following Snowe’s speech, a number of other prominent figures in the Maine Republican Party’s landscape that spoke. Maine Republican Party Chairman Randy Bumps and Maine Rep. Stephen Bowen talked to the crowd. Letters from Republican National Committee member Peter Cainchette and Sen. Susan Collins were read.