Democratic leaders in the Maine Legislature signaled Friday that they plan to pass a new, two-year budget with or without Republican support after negotiations over a much smaller, emergency spending bill collapsed amid partisan differences.
Less than 24 hours after Senate Republican blocked the emergency funding bill, Democratic Senate President Mattie Daughtry and House Speaker Ryan Fecteau announced a new plan. Democrats will use their majorities in both chambers to quickly pass a two-year budget that essentially maintains the status quo.
The so-called "continuing services" budget would keep current government programs running, with no new initiatives but also no major cuts or tax increases.
"While we had hoped to pass a responsible supplemental budget to address urgent needs, political brinkmanship prevented that from happening," Daughtry said in a statement. "Now, we must focus on passing an initial budget to ensure critical services remain funded and our constituents are not the ones who suffer from partisan gridlock. The fiscal uncertainty we are seeing in Washington can be avoided here in Maine.”
Republicans responded by accusing Democratic leaders of orchestrating a “sham budget process.”
"It's not a surprise, they've just proved everybody right that said they were going to do that," said Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, the House Republican leader, who represents Winter Harbor. "What I'm most disappointed about is that the Senate Democrats let the supplemental budget die last night. It can't be explained as anything other than juvenile or inexperienced . . . There were many options to not let that die. We spent hours upon hours to trying to negotiate that and we got it to the one-inch line."
The $121 million emergency or supplemental budget bill aims to plug a $118 million budget gap in the state's Medicaid program, MaineCare, as well as provide $2 million to try to prevent a spruce budworm infestation in the forests of northern Maine. The bill covers the current budget, which expires on June 30.
The bill required two-thirds support in both chambers in order to take effect as an emergency measure but it failed two votes short in the Senate on Thursday after passing the House with strong bipartisan support two days earlier. Bills that are not passed as emergency measures do not go into effect until 90 days after the Legislature adjourns. And the Maine Department of Health and Human Services has already begun decreasing or withholding MaineCare payments to hospitals, pharmacies and other health care providers because of the current shortfall.
Republicans have been suggesting for months that they expected to be shut out or at least sidelined during the two-year budgeting process. They had leverage on this week's stopgap spending bill because, as an emergency measure, it needed Republican votes to take effect immediately. They used that leverage to press for stricter eligibility requirements for MaineCare and the municipal welfare program known as General Assistance.
Democrats agreed to some changes. But Senate Republicans voted against the compromise because they wanted longer-term changes to the program.
"We made it very clear that we are not going to bail out a welfare program that is failing," Assistant Republican Leader Sen. Matt Harrington of Sanford said during Thursday's debate. Harrington accused the majority Democrats of quote "playing a game of chicken" with programs that many older Mainers and those with developmental disabilities rely upon.
"The compassionate thing to do here, if we care about the many people on MaineCare, is to fix it so that it is there for the truly needy," Harrington said.
If Democrats are successful, this will be the third biennial budget that they've passed largely or exclusive with their own votes. That's a major departure from the way things were done in Maine for decades. With just a few exceptions, lawmakers passed state budgets with bipartisan, two-thirds support in both chambers.
But Fecteau, Maine's Democratic House Speaker, said things have changed in recent legislative cycles. And he pointed to the Republican opposition to the current $121 million supplemental budget as proof of that change.
"The last two months have been really frustrating," Fecteau, D-Biddeford, said in an interview.
Fecteau accused Republicans of "blowing up" two separate, bipartisan agreements so far this year that were negotiated by the budget-writing committee and then by legislative leaders from both parties. Supplemental budgets are typically much easier to enact, so Fecteau said the problems do not bode well for the much larger and more complex negotiations over a more than $11 billion two-year budget, especially when the state is facing its first projected revenue shortfall in more than a decade.
Both he and Daughtry said they are still open to having the more difficult policy discussions with Republicans as part of a second budget bill. But only after the first one is done.
"This is not going to be an easy budget year," Fecteau said. "And my Republicans colleagues, although I disagree with them on the issues, they have a lot to offer and they have some input that I think is valuable to the process. So I hope they remain engaged at the table even though they don't have the leverage of a government shutdown."
Faulkingham steered the blame back onto Democrats, however.
"The reason why there's mistrust is because of the way that Democrats have negotiated with Republicans over the last four years, passing majority budgets without even an attempt to negotiate with Republicans," he said. "Anad then when Republicans do get an initiative in budgets, they turn around and take them out later. So why would the Republicans believe anything otherwise?"
Democrats are still working under a very tight deadline. They will have to craft and pass a baseline budget by April 1 in order for it to take effect by July.
