AUGUSTA — Even though a Democratic-backed plan to redraw Maine’s congressional district line has won a bipartisan advisory panel’s support, Republicans say they may use their legislative muscle to push through a more radical plan.
But a GOP leader said today he’d like to avoid that route, which would likely provoke a Democratic lawsuit, and expects the two sides will resume negotiations leading to a consensus plan before the Legislature meets Sept. 27 to take up the matter.
“We clearly don’t want this to go to the courts,” said Senate Majority Leader Jonathan Courtney, R-Springvale. “We don’t think that would be good for anyone involved.”
After the Redistricting Commission voted 8-7 Tuesday to embrace the Democratic plan, Republicans on the panel raised the possibility of using their legislative majority to bypass a statutory requirement of a two-thirds majority vote needed to approve a final plan to redraw the line between Maine’s two congressional districts.
Courtney said there are a number of examples in the past in which Democrats, then in the majority, got around two-thirds requirements by inserting language that effectively bypasses the rule.
“I don’t see it going down this road,” Courtney said, adding that Republicans are willing to negotiate further with the Democrats. He said that work would probably start after this weekend. Failure by the Legislature to adopt a plan would send the matter to the state Supreme Court.
The state Democratic Party issued a statement saying it was “surprising and disheartening” to hear Republicans talk about pushing their proposal through with only a majority vote. Democrats say they hope what they heard “was indeed just talk.”
“We expect our Republican colleagues to adhere to the two-thirds process of approving congressional districts, which is the current law and has been followed historically regardless of who controls the Legislature,” said Rep. Emily Cain, D-Orono, the House Democratic leader.
The Democrats’ plan, which was adopted with the tiebreaking vote of the independent Reapportionment Commission chairman, leaves Maine’s district line essentially intact; it leaves Cumberland, Knox, Lincoln, Sagadahoc, York and part of Kennebec counties in the 1st District.
The plan embraced by Republicans redraws the line from east-west to north-south and moves the hometown of Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, North Haven, out of the 1st District she represents into the 2nd.
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