7 February 2025
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A short-term Maine budget was in peril Thursday after Democrats on a legislative committee shot down a Republican attempt to renegotiate a deal the parties made earlier in the week.
The fresh Republican opposition threatens to upend a budget that several of their members endorsed during a late-night series of votes Tuesday in the Legislature’s appropriations committee. It was pared down from an initial offer from Gov. Janet Mills, but it includes the closure of a $118 million Medicaid funding gap that was the highlight of her proposal.
The brinksmanship may delay funding and does not bode well for consensus in the Democratic-led Legislature around Mills’ separate two-year spending plan. It remains a minefield because it includes tax hikes that Republicans oppose and cuts to certain health programs that make the governor’s fellow Democrats uneasy.
Late Tuesday, all 11 appropriators who were present voted for the short-term budget, including three Republicans. But Rep. Ken Fredette, R-Newport, who had been absent, cast a vote against the proposal the next morning. In an interview, he said he did not believe his party’s leaders or his caucus would approve of what the Republican negotiators agreed to.
“Had cooler heads prevailed and people had fresh eyes on it … in the daylight, I think most of the people on the Republican side would have said, ‘Yeah, we’re not quite done in terms of this bill,’” he said late Wednesday.
It was clear by Thursday that he was right. Just before the State House was set to close due to a snowstorm at 1 p.m., Republican appropriators tried to get Democrats to reopen the budget to address lingering concerns. The majority party voted that attempt down along party lines, with Rep. Drew Gattine, D-Westbrook, saying he wants to get the bill to the floor on Tuesday.
Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart, R-Presque Isle, said he was under the impression that members would not be voting on the budget Tuesday, when he was unavailable to negotiate following a medical procedure. He said Democrats later put Republican members under the gun for a vote and that his side’s negotiators did not push back strongly enough.
Gattine said he and other Democratic leaders wanted to vote out the short-term budget last week and felt they had waited long enough to get it out of the way.
“People need to understand the urgency to these things, and ultimately, every legislator is accountable for their own vote,” he said in an interview.
The policy disagreement over the budget is narrow. Democrats removed a Mills proposal from the budget that would limit General Assistance to three months in a year per recipient. Republicans want to reinstate the change, which was intended to address ballooning costs in the program but was opposed by advocates who cited the housing affordability crisis.
Democrats can pass this budget on their own, but it will take three months to go into effect without two-thirds majorities in both chambers. That’s why Republicans had some leverage in the short-term deal.
“They just solidified that it isn’t going to pass,” Stewart said of Democrats on Thursday.
Correction: An earlier version of this story wrongly stated a vote breakdown on the short-term budget in a legislative committee. Three Republicans voted for it this week.