Democrats have lost their solid majorities in the Maine Legislature, with Republicans clearly in control of the Senate and Democrats holding a slight majority in the House. Final margins will have to wait for expected recounts.
Republicans have at least 20 of the 35 seats in the state Senate, and in two contested seats, Democrats have a slim lead, subject to a recount. Over in the House, Democrats have 79 seats, based on preliminary results, while Republicans hold 68 seats, and there are four independents.
That significantly changes the political dynamic at the State House. Rep. Ken Fredette of Newport is the current House minority leader. He says the Legislature as a whole elects the Attorney General and several other key offices, and in view of expected recounts, those races will be determined by the final results.
"The bottom line is that those seats are wide open: the secretary of state, the treasurer and the attorney general," he says. "I expect that we will see some very robust jockeying in the next few weeks."
With the overall composition of the Legislature still up in the air, current House Speaker Mark Eves, a Democrat from North Berwick, says those so-called positions will be hotly contested when the Constitutional Convention of the new Legislature convenes next month.
"The current folks that are in those positions, our current attorney general, secretary of state, are doing a fantastic job and certainly have my support and deserve to be returned to the job," Eves says. "But the good thing about what we get to do, in our decision, is what is best for Maine, and we all get a vote on that."
The current attorney general is Janet Mills, the secretary of state is Matt Dunlap and the state treasurer is Neria Douglass. All are Democrats. Current Senate Republican Leader Mike Thibodeau from Winterport, who is seeking the Senate presidency, says he will seek out the best candidates for the posts.
"We’ll be talking with some folks that are independents and seeing if we can’t make sure that we get the most qualified individuals to fill these positions that we possibly can," he says.
Thibodeau did not identify those potential candidates, but Gov. Paul LePage, in his victory speech, suggested that his independent rival in the governor's race, Eliot Cutler, would make a good attorney general.
There are two likely recounts in the Senate, both for seats where the Democrats apparently have won slim victories: Nate Libby, in the Lewiston Senate seat by 64 votes, and Cathy Breen, in the Yarmouth area seat, who has an unofficial win by just seven votes.
Current Senate President Justin Alfond, a Portland Democrat, says Democratic candidates fought hard, but just couldn't carry the day. "Our candidates did the work, we met the voters, I think we had a good message," Alfond says. "But, I think at the end of the day, the Republican’s message was stronger and more potent."
Alfond says he looks forward to working with Thibodeau in the new session. The shift in control also changes the make up of the governing body of the Legislature, the Legislative Council. That group will now be evenly split between the parties and that will have an impact on the process of deciding what bills are even considered in the second year of the two-year session.
