AUGUSTA — State lawmakers gave themselves a timeout early Wednesday morning when they voted to extend by five days their current work session and then went on recess until Tuesday, June 30.
The Legislature still has before it a host of work, not the least of which is finalizing a $6.7 billion budget package that will fund state government for the next two years.
Lawmakers also hope to approve a $100 million borrowing or bonding package for public infrastructure improvements and other projects, including about $40 million for highways and bridges, which would go before voters statewide for approval in November.
Legislative leaders expect Republican Gov. Paul LePage to veto the budget package largely because it doesn’t reduce income taxes as much as LePage wanted and doesn’t enact a series of reforms to the state’s welfare programs.
The move to stretch the session for an additional five days, which came after an earlier five-day extension, is the latest twist in what’s been an unprecedented and combative lawmaking session that’s featured a politically divided Legislature tussling with each other and LePage over spending priorities and changing how the state raises revenue from taxpayers.
House Speaker Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, said Wednesday that overturning a possible LePage veto of the budget bill is the top docket item for rank-and-file lawmakers when they return to work next week.
“That’s the first and most important item that we will be taking up,” Eves said. Without two-thirds support of both the House and the Senate, the Legislature could be pushed into a government shutdown that would take effect July 1.
The budget-writing Appropriations Committee is expected to meet Thursday and decide which of the hundreds of new bills passed this year will be funded in the new budget and which will be tossed aside or carried into the next lawmaking session that begins in January 2016.
While lawmakers can use up to five days, Eves said he was confident they would need only two to finish their work, noting they would come back on June 30 and then return again July 16 to hold votes on any additional vetoes that could be issued by LePage.
Senate President Mike Thibodeau, R-Winterport, on Wednesday said his hopes for June 30 included a continuation of bipartisan cooperation, both on the veto votes and other bills that would be coming up for consideration.
Thibodeau voiced hesitant hope that it was possible LePage may allow the budget to go into effect without his signature and would not veto it.
“I guess the governor has a whole host of options at his disposal,” Thibodeau said. “He could sign it, let it become law without his signature or veto.”
LePage spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett said Wednesday she couldn’t comment or speculate on what LePage would do with the budget bill.
Last week, LePage issued 64 line-item budget vetoes, which forced more than 256 roll-call votes in the House and Senate, all of them in favor of overturning.
Eves said that as many as 200 bills could still be vetoed by LePage.
LePage has issued an unprecedented number of vetoes during his five years as governor and has said recently he intends to veto every bill put on his desk, partially in protest of the Legislature not putting a ballot question before voters to eliminate the state’s income tax.
Eves said the House in recent weeks had become pretty adept at overturning LePage’s vetoes and were on a 25-veto-per-hour pace.
The Senate likewise has been overriding vetoes at an unprecedented rate.
Eves said there was little doubt the volume of LePage’s vetoes had slowed the pace of the Legislature and delayed its final adjournment for 2015. LePage made clear during a recent news conference that was his intent, saying the Legislature had wasted about five months of his time and now he intended to waste some of theirs.
But Bennett said Wednesday lawmakers couldn’t blame LePage for being unable to complete their duties on time this year.
“It’s typical of Democrats to blame the governor,” Bennett said. “However, Democrats held the majority in every single committee this session where bills pass through and it was at Democrats’ direction to hold up the budget for nearly five months.”
Bennett said little to nothing was done during the months of February, March and April.
“For Democrats to say that a few vetoes are holding them up and costing taxpayers’ money is laughable,” she said. “The governor cannot take action on bills until they are sent to his desk. He is held to a stringent deadline having only a certain number of days to take action, including veto. Democrats sent the bulk of these bills to him during the last weeks of session, and now are blaming him for exercising his authority.”
In his budget, LePage sought steep income tax reductions, paid for with an expansion of the sales tax and coupled to welfare reforms, but he was largely rebuffed by a Legislature in which Republicans control the Senate and Democrats control the House.
LePage has suggested his overwhelming victory at the polls along with a new Republican majority in the Senate and a increase of 10 Republican seats in the House was a mandate from voters that they were endorsing his policies
But Eves has repeatedly reminded LePage and his Republican allies that Democrats still hold the majority in the House and that in a divided government, both sides of the aisle need to make concessions and offer compromise.
While Democrats said they wanted any tax cuts to mostly benefit working-class Mainers, Senate Republicans fully rejected any expansion of the state’s sales tax.
The result has been one of political high drama, including a news conference by LePage last week where he used an artificial Christmas tree and toy pigs to illustrate how lawmakers had loaded the state budget with gifts of pork to themselves and their districts or special-interest groups.
On Tuesday, lawmakers overturned two dozen LePage vetoes before they moved toward finalizing their session, which ended at about 1 a.m. Wednesday with the votes to extend for another five days.
Under the state’s constitution, lawmakers can only extend the lawmaking session two times for no more than 10 days total.
The Legislature is also expecting an overall budget veto from LePage, which would have to be overturned to keep state government open.
House Republicans, who caucused before largely agreeing with Democrats to the extended session in a 120-21 vote, said they were frustrated with the slow pace of action in the Legislature. But the Senate agreed to extend, with all 35 senators voting in favor of the extension.
Some Republicans voting against extending the session said they wanted to extend for fewer than five days and suggested the Legislature could wrap up its work in just three more days.
State Rep. Ken Fredette, R-Newport, the House minority leader, said during a floor speech in the House chamber early Wednesday morning that his caucus was truly frustrated and wanted to see the session come to an “expeditious” end.
Both Thibodeau and state Rep. Sara Gideon, D-Freeport, the House assistant majority leader, said there was little doubt lawmakers could benefit from a few days away from politics and the State House.
“People really need the rest; it’s been exhausting and people just don’t have the bandwidth to keep working in this way,” Gideon said. “Taking a break is really good for folks.”
Gideon said some rest would hopefully help lawmakers continue with what’s largely been a bipartisan effort to move bills they’ve worked on and agreed to forward despite LePage’s vetoes.
Thibodeau said Senate Republicans were likewise looking forward to a pause in the action.
“This gives us a chance to all go home and get recharged and finish up the important business the people have given us to do,” Thibodeau said.
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