Democrats pick Saxl for speaker’s post

AUGUSTA – Majority Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday agreed without dissent that the speaker’s gavel in the new Maine Legislature should go to Rep. Michael Saxl of Portland.

By making Saxl their nominee for presiding officer of the House, the newly elected Democrats in effect assured him of the job when the new House meets as a whole next month.

Saxl, 33, was House majority leader during the past session under Speaker Steven Rowe, another Portland Democrat.

Coming out of the Nov. 7 statewide elections, Democrats claimed 88 of the 151 House districts, with 62 credited to Republicans and one to an independent.

The first of six scheduled House recounts began Tuesday. One upheld a Democratic victory in Aroostook County.

Democrats also elected their floor leaders Tuesday, settling on Rep. Patrick Colwell of Gardiner as majority leader and Rep. William Norbert of Portland as deputy.

Minority Republicans will meet Thursday to elect their leadership team. The GOP voting will include a contest to replace Minority Leader Thomas Murphy, R-Kennebunk, who is stepping down.

“This is going to be a great two years,” Saxl told the Democratic caucus after Tuesday’s voting.

Outlining an agenda that highlighted education and health care, Saxl said voters would be demanding “action” and “innovation” from state lawmakers during the coming legislative session while insisting on “civility.”

“Their patience with bickering and partisanship and posturing is exhausted,” Saxl said, offering to work cooperatively with Republicans and independents to fulfill mutual pledges made during the 2000 campaign.

A lawyer who grew up in Bangor, Saxl will begin his fourth two-year term when the new House is sworn in. For the past six years, he has served in the House alongside his mother, Rep. Jane Saxl, D-Bangor.

Mrs. Saxl, barred by Maine’s four-term limit on consecutive legislative service from seeking re-election to the House, lost her bid for a state Senate seat in the Nov. 7 balloting.

The prospective speaker said Tuesday he hoped to help lead Maine to establish “universal access” to higher education within two years and toward “universal health care access.”

The latter of what he called “two ambitious but achievable goals” would not necessarily happen all at once under the proposal Saxl spelled out. Instead, he expressed a desire to “put a program in place that moves steadily over a fixed period of time” to make health insurance available to every Maine individual and family.

Saxl also said he planned to pay special attention to the issue of domestic and sexual violence in Maine.

In gaining the Democratic nomination for speaker, Saxl had faced token opposition from Rep. Albion Goodwin, D-Pembroke. Before Tuesday’s caucus voting, Goodwin withdrew his candidacy and called on his colleagues to back Saxl unanimously.

“There are only a few windows of opportunity in political life where significant action is possible,” Saxl said in remarks prepared for the caucus. “This is one of them.”

The subsequent caucus voting that elected Colwell, who will be entering his third term, and Norbert, who will be entering his second, resolved three-way contests for each post.

Colwell won a first ballot victory over Reps. Matthew Dunlap, D-Old Town, and John Tuttle, D-Sanford. A final tally was not established; once Colwell reached the majority threshold, counting stopped.

Norbert, too, won election on the first ballot in his race, defeating Reps. Rosita Gagne, D-Buckfield, and Joseph Clark, D-Millinocket.