AUGUSTA — For the second time in less than a week the Legislature voted to extend its lawmaking session for an additional five days with votes early Wednesday morning.
Lawmakers are winding up their work in what’s been a contentious, 6-month lawmaking session highlighted by a split between House and Senate Republicans on a budget proposal offered by Republican Gov. Paul LePage.
In his budget, LePage sought steep income tax reductions, paid for with an expansion of state’s sales tax and coupled to welfare reforms but he was largely rebuffed by a Legislature, where Republicans control the Senate and Democrats the House of Representatives.
Speaker of the House Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, has repeatedly reminded LePage and his Republican allies 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 press conference by LePage last week where he used an artificial Christmas tree to show how lawmakers had loaded the state budget with gifts to themselves and their districts or special interest groups.
LePage also wanted the Legislature to support a statewide ballot question asking voters to amend the constitution to repeal the state’s income tax outright. That ask, which requires a two-thirds support in the Legislature, was also rebuffed by lawmakers.
The governor then promised to veto all bills with a Democratic sponsor in retaliation for their resistance to his budget and tax proposals. He subsequently promised to veto all bills period and then largely followed through on his threat.
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 LePage’s vetoes.
While LePage’s staff has said lawmakers would have been working deep into June regardless of his veto actions, many lawmakers have said his actions have extended their work by as much as 10 additional days at a cost to taxpayers of between $130,000 to $180,000.
LePage told reporters last week that lawmakers had wasted his time for the five months so he intended to waste their time now.
On Tuesday, lawmakers overturned another two dozen of the LePage’s 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 will need 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.
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 three more days.
State Rep. Ken Fredette, R-Newport, the House minority leader said his caucus was truly frustrated and wanted to see the session come to an “expeditious” end.
Under the extension, lawmakers will return to take up their remaining work and any remaining vetoes from LePage, including an expected veto of the state budget at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, June 30.
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