AUGUSTA – Maine lawmakers seemed ready Tuesday, at least for now, to settle for an across-the-board pledge to abide by a state spending cap in lieu of more binding restrictions.

Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe had told state lawmakers his office believes a proposed rule for the full Legislature that would set a supermajority threshold for approving spending above a statutory cap is unconstitutional.

In the wake of Rowe’s written advisory, the House of Representatives scrapped a formal proposal that had been approved last week by the Senate.

The Senate’s acceptance of a supermajority standard had been cast by Democrats as a concession to bipartisanship and by Republicans as a first step that didn’t go far enough.

Follow-up action in the House subsequently snagged, pending the request for advice from Rowe, over the question of the requirement’s constitutionality.

Stricter fiscal cap overrides were an issue during last year’s referendum debate over a proposed Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which failed to win voter approval.

Just a few weeks before the election, the Maine State Chamber of Commerce announced its opposition to the citizen initiative but joined other groups in calling for an alternative that would address the method for overriding spending limits.

“We all agree that the Legislature must be accountable to produce a responsible budget,” House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, D-North Haven, said in a statement Tuesday after the House’s action. “But we needed to approach it in the right way. If the method is most likely a violation of the Constitution, we obviously need a better solution – and through our resolution to remain under the cap, I believe we’ve reached one.”

The House vote in favor of the pledge was 139-0. A later vote to reject the joint rule approved a week earlier by the Senate carried by 85-60.

For now, the question of a supermajority margin for a spending cap override is largely symbolic.

The existing statutory formula allows for general spending growth of 3.08 percent in the upcoming two-year budget cycle, a top Baldacci administration official said.