House fails to garner votes to enact $80 million, Part 2 budget

AUGUSTA – Efforts to enact an $80 million, Part 2 budget failed Tuesday night when members of the Maine House were unable to produce the 101 votes necessary to pass the proposal.

Although the budget package was favored 83-59, the House GOP caucus opposed the nearly $60 million in new taxes contained in the bill. The Republicans united to deny proponents the votes needed for the supermajority support the measure required. Lawmakers will reconvene today to try to craft a new spending plan requiring only majority support that is also acceptable to Gov. Angus S. King.

Without a two-thirds “supermajority,” the budget can’t, by law, take affect for 90 days, which would not be soon enough because the new fiscal year starts July 1.

A fallback proposal was not being discussed, but the plan is expected to be scaled back to some degree. The proposed 20-cent increase in the cigarette tax and the extension of a 7 percent meals tax to all Maine restaurants may also be revised.

“Obviously we’re disappointed that our Republican colleagues couldn’t support this very responsible, bipartisan budget,” said House Majority Leader Patrick Colwell, D-Gardiner. “We’ve developed it with the Republicans on the Appropriations Committee and the Senate Republicans supported it. But you’ve got to be an optimist to be in this job. Tomorrow’s a new day, we’ll put together our majority budget and maybe we can get some of them to come along with us.”

House Minority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Raymond, said it was the first time in 25 years he had seen House Republicans hold together in a critical vote. He hoped that the vote would strengthen the GOP’s hand in today’s round of negotiations on the majority budget in an effort to fund essential services without raising taxes.

“Leadership will get together again and look at this budget that was proposed and see the areas that we agree on that are essential and go from there,” Bruno said.

After affirmative votes in the House, the $75 million budget went to the Senate on Tuesday afternoon where it passed without a roll call vote after senators tacked on a $5 million amendment to increase municipal revenue sharing funds.

It was just another of many obstacles to obtaining 101 votes in the House. Significant differences between the Democrats and Republicans were evident on several issues including local educational reimbursement. In the budget’s second fiscal year, Democrats offered a 3 percent raise in reimbursement while the Republican budget boosted that figure to 4 percent. Democrats also rallied behind the majority report’s $4.6 million in new domestic violence prevention funding. Republicans offered $250,000 in an additional domestic violence money, promising to amend their budget to include an additional $4.4 million if Democrats voted for their plan.

Another distinction between the competing plans was reflected in their impact on the expected deficit in the budget package for the next Legislature that budget writers describe as an ongoing structural gap – the differences between anticipated state revenues and state spending. The budget plan favored by Democrats would have held the gap to something between $190 million and $220 million. Because the GOP plan contained no new tax revenues, it increased that deficit by $45 million.