Things have returned to normal, or thereabouts, following the biennial tractor pull over the state budget – will it be majority or two-thirds? – with the usual bruised feelings among the Republican minority over Democrats’ decision to push ahead with the former.
Technically, we’re now in special session, but since all bills were carried over, and Gov. Janet Mills called everyone back about five minutes after Republicans declined consent, it matters very little outside the State House.
But it matters inside. We again have predictions “nothing will get done” because Republicans will block anything they can; that seems unlikely.
There are plenty of budget decisions left – spending for “current services” was considerably less than what Mills proposed – and a two-thirds budget for “new spending” puts everyone back in the game, including legislative Democrats who don’t always agree with the governor.
Yet this business of adjourning and reconvening and spending time deciding whether or not seems a huge waste of time, especially since there’s no constitutional requirement the budget be done this way.
The requirement there is – unusually tough, as state constitutions go – says that only “emergency” legislation, passed by two-thirds, takes effect immediately. Everything else waits until 90 days after adjournment.
In olden days, with adjournment in March, that left plenty of time before the fiscal year began July 1. Now that “long” sessions run into June, however, budgets become de facto emergencies absent earlier provisions.
A gentleman’s agreement between parties held until 1991, when a Republican firebrand, Senate Minority Leader Charles Webster, decided it would be a great idea to threaten a state government shutdown not over the budget, but to wring further concessions from majority Democrats over worker’s compensation.
Webster carried out his threat, government was chaotically closed most of July, and a level of suspicion and mistrust between Ds and Rs set in, never completely dispelled.
Partisan tensions rose sharply again during the LePage administration and in 2017, when Democrats had already agreed to repeal a voter-approved income tax surcharge, House Republicans led by Ken Fredette briefly shut things down again to get their way on the rooms-and-meals tax, of all things.
Amidst this backdrop, it’s hardly surprising Mills’s first budget went the majority route in 2019. Democrats weren’t taking chances.
This time on the session’s organizing day, when Mills wanted immediate approval of more tax refund checks, House Republicans went along but Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart balked, providing a clue.
What if all the theatrics, of so little interest to the public and so little value toward passing good legislation, could simply go away? It turns out they can.
In 1974, Maine’s legendary Ed Muskie helped push through the Congressional Budget Act, and became the Senate’s first Budget Committee chairman.
One of its provisions moved the federal fiscal year from July 1 to Oct. 1; only two states, Alabama and Michigan, followed. Maine considered, but declined.
It should do so now, and restore the 90-day “cushion.” These artificial budget “crises” exist nowhere else – not in Congress, whatever its other dysfunctions, nor in the other 49 states; they all have majority budgets.
It would take some planning. One 15-month budget year would have to be set, but it would simply mean stretching comparable spending over an additional quarter.
Passing the bill next year would allow Mills’s final biennial budget to create the transition for a new governor in 2027, an appropriate point to inaugurate the new system.
The bill, like any regular legislation, would require only a majority in House and Senate and signature by the governor.
One shouldn’t assume Democrats will leap to the task. Budget-writing committees are fairly set in their ways.
And some Republicans will be mightily upset to see some of their “leverage” disappear, permanently. Yet should it ever have existed?
One of the bedrock principles of democracy is majority rule. The maneuverings of leaders like Webster, Fredette and potential successors is, in constitutional terms, a misuse of power.
With an Oct. 1 fiscal year, the political ground would shift, and in a positive way.
There are other ways for a minority to remain relevant – on constitutional amendments, for instances, and on bond issues. Or by having better arguments on the many bills where party-line arguments don’t convince.
Armed with big surpluses thus far, Mills hasn’t shown much interest in bonds, but sensible borrowing has its place. Bonds could be used for Republican priorities such as support for the disabled, and nursing homes.
If Republicans want to dictate terms on the budget, they need to win majorities. Employing a gimmick to reach these goals, even a “traditional” one, should be permanently retired.
Douglas Rooks, a Maine editor, commentator and reporter since 1984, is the author of three books, and is now researching the life and career of a U.S. Chief Justice. He welcomes comment at drooks@tds.net
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