Entrance to the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee room in the Maine State House in Augusta. (Photo by Jim Neuger/Maine Morning Star)
The apparent unanimous support for a supplemental budget plan fell apart on Thursday when Republicans tried to reopen voting on the proposal, though ultimately did not have enough votes to do so.
The main purpose of the supplemental budget is to close the immediate Medicaid funding gap the state faces in the current fiscal year but the plan also includes other initiatives — though fewer than Gov. Janet Mills initially requested.
Rep. Kenneth Fredette (R-Newport) was absent when the committee closed voting on the supplemental budget after midnight on Wednesday morning. At that time, there was unanimous support among those present for the plan.
However, when casting his vote after the fact, Fredette said he discovered he was unable to cast a “no” vote due to a seemingly unforeseen restriction in the joint rules the Legislature passed last month.
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Under the joint rules, no new reports can be created by a member that wasn’t present at the time of voting, said Maureen Dawson, principal analyst for the Office of Fiscal and Program Review. This means Fredette can either log a vote abstaining or join an existing report, which in this case is only a unanimous vote in favor of the budget plan.
Republican budget lead Rep. Jack Ducharme of Madison praised the committee’s bipartisan work on Wednesday but urged his colleagues to reopen voting on Thursday, explaining that he and likely most lawmakers did not understand the implications of the rule.
“If you play through this scenario, particularly with a committee like this, where there are eight members of the majority and five members of the minority, this is a recipe so that the majority can do whatever they like,” Ducharme said. “And it is clear that, while maybe that’s not the intended consequence, that is the consequence.”
While Sen. Cameron Reny (D-Lincoln) said she was sympathetic to the challenges posed by the rule, she ultimately could not support reopening voting on the budget.
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“If this were a situation where just the Democrats had gotten together and we did this kind of sneaky move, I would absolutely be voting to reconsider,” Reny said. “But that’s not what happened. We worked really hard on a bipartisan report and I am sorry that a certain person was not here to be able to register their vote.”
Committee co-chair Rep. Drew Gattine (D-Westbrook) said debate about the rules should move to the Joint Rules Committee, which is expected to meet again halfway through the first regular session this spring, though an exact date has not yet been set.
“I appreciate the desire of the minority leads to accommodate their members,” Gattine said, “but there are members that aren’t here, who in my mind would be disenfranchised, if we walked back our work and took another vote today without them being here to participate.”
The motion to reconsider the budget plan failed 5-4 on Thursday, minutes before the State House closed due to the snow storm. This means the supplemental budget plan now moves to the House and Senate for consideration as a unanimous report, however the Republican pushback on Thursday leaves the likelihood of bipartisan support from full Legislature on shaky ground.
Further, the implications of the joint rule debate are likely to set a new tone for the budget committee, particularly as it shifts its work to the biennial budget.
Sen. Sue Bernard (R-Aroostook) said in order to ensure members have future opportunities to vote both for or against plans even if they are absent when votes are taken, Republicans intend to make most votes divided.
“You may have something that sounds good to a lot of people, but we’re going to make sure that it’s divided so that anyone who’s not here will have the opportunity to jump on board that divided report,” Bernard said. “I hate to say that, because I would like to see good will and good work and all of that like we had before.”
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