Posted inJournal Tribune

Maine lawmakers set special session for next week

3 min read

Maine lawmakers are poised to return next week for a special session to vote on a supplemental budget package, and perhaps other unfinished business, but Gov. Paul LePage already is criticizing them for taking “the easy way out.”

House Republicans, who effectively had been the lone holdouts, agreed Thursday to come back after getting assurances that funding for Medicaid expansion — approved last year by voters — would not be included in any spending bill.

Pursuant to the state constitution, the legislature may convene “on the call of the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House, with the consent of a majority of the Members of the Legislature of each political party.”

House Republican Leader Ken Fredette of Newport said in a statement that members of his caucus were polled and enough of them agreed on a special session.

Senate Republicans and House and Senate Democrats were expected to do the same.

The session has been scheduled for Tuesday, June 19 and could last up to three days.

LePage, though, made clear he’s not happy and even took a shot at members of his own party.

“A year ago, House Republicans shut down state government to make sure bad policies did not pass. Now they are giving in because it’s an election year,” the governor said in a transcript of his weekly radio remarks released Thursday morning.

The Legislature adjourned amid gridlock on May 2 after disagreements between Democrats who wanted funding for a voter-approved expansion of Medicaid and Republicans who wanted to slow minimum wage increases.

Many have criticized lawmakers for leaving their work unfinished. This month, a coalition of 126 diverse advocacy groups pressured the legislature to come back.

On Monday, the Legislature’s budget-writing Appropriations Committee voted unanimously to endorse a package of bills that would add about $41 million in spending to the state’s two-year budget, with much of the funding aimed at helping those with disabilities, the elderly or people in the grip of opioid use disorders.

Among the measures approved by the committee is one that would remove 300 people from a state waiting list for services for the disabled at a rate of 50 people a month, starting in October. Also included was $600,000 from the Fund for a Healthy Maine to help fund school-based health centers.

The committee agreed to hold a separate vote on Medicaid expansion funding — an issue that has roiled Republicans, including LePage, who has refused to move forward with expansion even after losing a legal battle two weeks ago.

Still missing are any borrowing measures that would go to statewide votes in November, including $100 million earmarked for roads, bridges and port facilities. That measure is an important one for the Maine Department of Transportation, which counts on about $100 million of borrowing each year to keep its ongoing work plan in action. The bill is also time-sensitive, according to transportation officials, who have said if the Legislature does its part by June 30, the end of the state’s fiscal year, that would allow the state to apply for a large amount of matching federal matching funds.

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