AUGUSTA — As they prepare for the upcoming lawmaking session, Republican leaders in the Legislature said Monday they hope to home in on key policy initiatives, including more welfare reform, lowering energy costs and reducing tax burdens.

Democrats, now in the minority in the Senate, said they will take a measured approach as they work with their GOP colleagues.

State Sen. Michael Thibodeau, R-Winterport, and state Rep. Ken Fredette, R-Newport, said they believe Maine voters sent a clear message last week when they re-elected Republican Gov. Paul LePage and returned the Senate to Republican control.  

“Welfare fraud and getting a handle on the high cost of energy are among the top priorities for the Republican caucus,” Thibodeau said. “Make no mistake, folks want something done about that.”

Thibodeau, who is widely expected to be the next state Senate president, said Republicans would likely bring back, in some fashion, a slate of bills rejected by Democratic majorities in 2013 and 2014 that include prohibiting the use of state-issued Electronic Benefit Transfer cards beyond Maine’s borders.

Republicans are also likely to bring back bills that required welfare applicants to show they are looking for work, as well as stiffer penalties, including the possible lifetime loss of benefits for those who are caught abusing the system.

Bills that further limit cash withdrawals and what can be purchased with welfare benefits could also be in the mix for 2015.

“It’s not fair to ask somebody to go to work at 4 o’clock in the morning for $8 or $9 an hour as a store clerk and then have them, have to watch as somebody who comes in with an EBT card to buy scratch-off tickets,” Thibodeau said, recalling a story from his own hometown. “That infuriates somebody who is working really, really hard, trying to make it on their own and do their part. It’s not fair and it’s not right.”

Thibodeau said the focus for Republicans is to ensure benefits are there for the most vulnerable in Maine and are not going to people who could and should be working.

A sales tax increase from 5 percent to 5.5 percent and enacted over LePage’s veto in 2014, is set to sunset in June 2015 and Thibodeau said he has no intention of not letting that take place. He also was firm when it came to any other types of tax increases for Maine. 

“It’s automatically going to revert back to where it should be and I will assure you this: I have no intention of increasing taxes moving forward,” Thibodeau said.

While voters still selected more Democrats than Republicans to the state House of Representatives — Republicans also gained back seats in the lower chamber drawing down the Democratic majority from 89 to 79 seats.

Fredette, who is expected to continue as the Republican minority leader in the House, largely concurred with Thibodeau on welfare issues and said he’s hopeful Democratic leadership in the House will want to work cooperatively with their Republican counterparts. He said from welfare reform to energy to taxes to other policy initiatives the session’s success or failure will hinge on, “the tone Democrats take.”

“If the Democrats approach this session with an open mind, in terms of working with the governor, the Senate majority and the House minority, I’m certain we can get some things done,” Fredette said. “But it is going to take an adjustment of the tone over the past two years. Once you do that, there are many things that are possible this session that were impossible last session.”

Fredette said he was personally interested in continuing to advance legislation that would help Maine reduce its costs for electricity and other sources of energy. He said efforts to help bring more natural gas to Maine could move forward in 2015 and also suggested the Legislature would revisit the state’s renewable energy portfolio standards, including provisions that exclude hydropower dams that are larger than 100 megawatts in generating capacity from that mix.

Fredette said while it’s true any law or policy changes advanced in 2015 would not have an immediate impact on the cost of energy in Maine this coming winter, changes would set the state on the right trajectory to reduce the cost of energy over the next two to five years.

“What the people of Maine expect is that we have a plan to address this in the future,” Fredette said. “Nobody is happy about paying higher short-term energy but at least if the people of Maine see our leaders have provided a path for reducing those energy costs in the long term, that’s what people want to see.”

Fredette said the Legislature has to show with meaningful legislation that it is reacting to what is an emerging crisis for businesses large and small and especially for the state’s lowest-income individuals.

“There are multiple approaches to this issue, if we all can work together toward what’s in the best interest of Maine people,” Fredette said.  

Key to how all legislation progresses in 2015 will also be in the specific composition and leadership of the Legislature’s 19 joint standing committees that cover everything from the state budget to the rules of the Legislature.

Fredette said voters issued a “mandate” for more conservative policies when they selected LePage with nearly 50 percent of the vote Nov. 4 while also sending more Republicans to the Legislature than they did in 2012.

Thibodeau said he, too, believes the message was clear and that he hopes his Democratic counterparts in the Legislature, including Rep. Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, heard the same message. 

“If he didn’t get the same message as I did, then he was standing at a different polling location and they had different ideas,” Thibodeau said. “But I clearly heard the folks back home and they want stuff done and they are tired of the partisan bickering and I look forward to working with whoever is the speaker of the House, to make sure we do good things for the people of Maine.”

Eves, the speaker of the House, is largely expected to be chosen for the job again by his Democratic colleagues when they caucus at the State House on Wednesday.

Eves said Monday that he, too, was hopeful Republicans and Democrats would be looking for avenues of compromise.

“I really don’t have interest in over these (next) two years of fighting and bickering and not getting things done,” Eves said. “I really do genuinely want to work with the governor and the Republicans to see where we can find agreement, knowing that’s not going to happen all the time.” 

But he said there were already key items, including a proposal he’s championing to help more elderly Mainers live in their own homes longer. He said there is also some agreement on property tax relief, health care, education and transportation that may prove productive for lawmakers in 2015.

Eves said he didn’t see last Tuesday’s results as the mandate from the voters the way his Republican counterparts do, but he did say Republicans swept state legislatures across the country but Maine Democrats did better protecting their seats, despite losses, than other Democratic majorities.

“We were able to hold, in what I consider a Republican wave year, a pretty strong majority in the House,” Eves said. “I would not call it a mandate, I would say this is an opportunity to work together and we should do that.”

Eves also said he hoped to reach out to LePage and wanted to try and “push the reset button” to improve lines of communication and cooperation with the governor.

“We are going to try again, whether it’s welfare reform, or any other issues we’ve talked about, we are going to really try to put our best foot forward and in good faith try to identify these areas,” Eves said. “No doors are shut and we look forward to looking at their proposals.”

sthistle@sunjournal.com

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