AUGUSTA, Maine - Lawmakers are expecting to put in some long days and nights at the State House, where Gov. Paul LePage says he will veto some 200 bills still on his desk. He says he will also use his line item veto authority on hundreds of items in the state budget - items that passed by wide margins in the Legislature early this morning.
Gov. LePage told reporters Wednesday that he is angry and upset with lawmakers in both parties for the budget deal they reached. He has promised to veto it, but first he says he will veto hundreds of separate items in the budget.
LePage held an impromptu news conference in front of a Christmas tree decorated with ornaments featuring the faces of legislative leaders and members of the budget-writing Appropriations Committee.
"We need Mainers to understand their government is corrupt and we need to have Mainers demand better of us," LePage said. "This is going to be our little Christmas tree and this is the little piggy bank that the appropriators have behind the scenes where none of us is involved."
LePage blasted the leaders for holding their budget talks in private and says they are using a possible government shutdown as a scare tactic to get their budget passed. He said he is asking the state Supreme Court to give him an opinion on whether his proposal for a temporary budget to allow more time to negotiate a better budget is legal.
House Speaker Mark Eves, a Democrat from North Berwick, says he believes the budget will survive all of the governor’s threats. "I trust the individuals that we forged this agreement with," he said. "We all agreed - the four leaders from both parties - that this is something we are going to do tougher and we did that last night."
Republican Senate President Mike Thibodeau, from Winterport, agrees. He says if the governor wants to flood lawmakers with vetoes, that is within his power as governor. "Well, I mean, the governor has the responsibility to go through the budget and do what he thinks is in the best interests of the people of the state of Maine. And if he thinks that is line item vetoing 100, or 500 line items, that’s up to him."
Leaders say they were expecting a veto of the overall budget and are pretty confident the votes will hold. A regular veto takes a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to override. A line item veto is different. It only requires a simple majority.
But the state Constitution requires a separate vote on every line that is vetoed, and House Majority Leader Jeff McCabe, a Democrat from Skowhegan, says if the governor carries out his threat of vetoes it could add a week to the legislative session.
"And we have to get through the entire thing in the House before it is even sent to the Senate," McCabe says. "So, realistically, you are looking at about a day or two in the House. We estimated earlier it could be 15 to 20 hours, you know, so we have to strategize, we need to talk to Republican leadership, figure out how we get through this. That will be a daunting task."
The governor has until 8:00 Thursday morning to send his line item vetoes of the budget to the House. He has been working from a thick binder marked with several tabs that his staff has identified as budget items he will veto. The governor says it could be several hundred.
