AUGUSTA, Maine - Gov. Paul LePage has carried through on his promise to issue line-item vetos in the $6.7 billion state budget. Earlier this week, LePage vowed that he would draw lines through hundreds of items in the budget, which was passed over his objections in a late-night vote. In the end, he rejected 64 items totaling about $60 million, and managed to spark a war of words with legislators in both parties.
LePage says there were a lot of items in the budget that deserved a veto but says he couldn't target those lines, such as General Assistance funding, that contained language but no dollar amounts. But he did hit 64 items, ranging from a few hundred dollars for the commission to study student hunger, to a major reduction in general purpose aid to education, which he wants to cut by nearly $40 million from what the Legislature has approved.
LePage is blasting two leading Democrats for what he calls excessive spending in the budget. LePage says one of them, House Speaker Mark Eves, slipped in funding for his former employer, a mental health services provider.
"One of them was, a couple of million dollars is going to Sweester, a parting gift from the speaker," LePage said. "I mean, that stuff is unwarranted."
Eves flatly denies the allegation. "That is not truthful. Secondly, I would say - as many people know - I was raised by a chaplain, my father is a chaplain. My mother is a school teacher. They installed values in me like honesty, truthfulness, integrity. When to hold your tongue."
LePage also went after Lewiston Democrat Peggy Rotundo, a member of the House who co-chairs the Appropriations Committee. "She is an architect of pork. She should be a pig farmer," LePage said.
Rotundo was clearly upset by the governor’s comments. "I have spent the last 23 years of my life as an elected official fighting my hardest, fighting for children, for the elderly, for other truly vulnerable people in my community and the state of Maine," she says. "This is who I am. And I would prefer not to dignify the governor’s disrespectful statement with any further comment."
And the governor did not spare fellow Republicans from his wrath over the budget compromise. LePage says he has expanded his promise to veto all bills sponsored by Democrats, and will also now target Republican-backed measures. "Unfortunately what I realized is that the Democrats, the Democrats, have convinced the Republicans to sponsor bills for them, so now it’s all bills."
GOP Senate President Mike Thibodeau, of Winterport, has supported one of LePage's top priorities - to abolish the state income tax, but says he does not think the governor’s recent tactics will help him get many of his line item vetoes sustained. "I don’t think that going back and sustaining line item vetoes is a high probability. I think it is unfortunate," Thibodeau says. "I get the governor certainly has that ability and authority."
Both Eves and Thibodeau say the governor’s veto spree will extend the length of the legislative session by forcing a lot more voting, which LePage has acknowledged this week. They expect the session will now go into July in order to handle any vetoed bills above and beyond the budget itself. They say it's not clear how much the extended session is costing taxpayers, but are working on an estimate.
