AUGUSTA — The opening session of the Legislature on Wednesday was more like a giant family reunion than any sort of serious governing.
“Here we are again,” said state Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn.
Lawmakers chatted with old friends in the hallways, swapped stories with one another and, for the truly ambitious, searched out possible co-sponsors for bills that will remain mostly out of sight for another week or so.
State Rep. Jared Golden, a Lewiston Democrat who serves as his party’s whip, said more than 2,000 bills have been submitted. Brakey said 37 of them are his, likely one of the higher tallies.
The initial weeks of the session are typically slow and consist largely of shipping proposals out to committees after streamlining duplicate submissions, legislators said.
But the arrival of Gov. Paul LePage’s proposed two-year budget Friday will at least lay the groundwork for some of the toughest decisions the 186 legislators will face in the coming months. The governor has made it clear that he’ll be looking for major spending cuts, fewer state workers and other controversial steps.
Though LePage rarely gets what he wants from the Legislature, his spending plan serves as a starting point for the compromises and negotiations that turn a proposal into a budget by June.
State Sen. Nate Libby, D-Lewiston, said that with a Republican-controlled Senate and a Democratic-led House, both parties have no choice but to seek common ground if they want to get anything done.
He said legislators have shown they can work together pretty well, often in opposition to LePage.
“We presume the governor will veto legislation indiscriminately,” Libby said.
Golden said it was too early to tell what sorts of measures lawmakers will get behind.
But the halls of the State House were full of people offering ideas, pressing for everything from health care for all to easing the way for farmers to sell more produce directly to consumers without getting caught up in bureaucratic red tape.
One of those seeking to catch legislators’ attention was Margot Hayes of Montville, a crusader for medical marijuana.
Hayes said she’s concerned the passage of the referendum allowing recreational marijuana will be used to wipe out a successful medical marijuana program, an idea that LePage has already touted a few times on radio shows.
She said it’s important to continue to make cannabis available through the medical marijuana program and to ensure the funds it raises don’t wind up being tapped for recreational use oversight.
“We are feeling so super scared” at the possibility officials might dismantle what the cannabis community fought so hard to create, Hayes said.
But issues as divisive as marijuana weren’t on the table at the start of the session.
It was a day of quirky tradition, from the introduction of the doctor of the day to Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason’s history lesson of the day. The Lisbon Falls Republican told his colleagues that construction on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco started on Jan. 5, 1933, one of the most memorable public works projects of the Great Depression.
Libby said he loves the whole atmosphere and enjoys being at the State House in the middle of it all.
Brakey was a little more wary.
Citing an 1866 maxim from lawyer Gideon J. Tucker in a New York surrogate case, Brakey said that “no man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.”
“People in Maine should be on guard,” Brakey said, adding that he will be, too.
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