After progressives in House retract opposition, Maine Legislature approves budget addition

This story has been updated.

After initial conflicting votes, both chambers of the Maine Legislature have now approved a roughly $320 million budget addition to the $11.3 billion biennial budget passed in March.

Earlier Wednesday, the Maine House of Representatives failed to advance the plan, with some Democrats joining Republicans in opposition. The Senate then cast a party-line vote in favor, sending the budget back to the House, where five of the six Democrats who cast initial votes against it retracted their opposition. 

While added appropriations in the plan total about $320 million, the bill has a lower fiscal note, $117 million, due to a range of cost cutting measures — taxes, some cuts, and transferring unexpected surpluses. The net cost is also lower than the roughly $127 million that remained after the initial budget passed in March. 

The Democratic majority on the Legislature’s Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee set the budget proposal early Saturday morning without Republican support. 

Committee sets budget plan with party-line vote

The plan rejects some of Gov. Janet Mills’ proposed cuts, such as to childcare programs and low-income food assistance, as well as proposed taxes on ambulances and pharmacies. However, the plan includes Mills’ proposed tax additions on streaming services, cannabis, pensions and cigarettes — the latter at an even higher amount than the governor requested.

“Republicans had started from a position of no new taxes and we remain in that posture,” Republican budget lead Rep. Jack Ducharme of Madison said on the House floor.

In the Senate, Minority Leader Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook) also criticized the majority party for not taking “a serious look back about our state’s financial disrepair,” nodding to the state budget audit he called for before session began.

But Republicans were not the only members of the House to have objections. 

The budget bill failed 71-77 on the first House vote, with six Democrats joining Republicans in opposition: Nina Milliken of Blue Hill, Sally Cluchey of Bowdoinham, Cheryl Golek of Harpswell, Grayson Lookner of Portland, Rafael Macias of Topsham and Sophie Warren of Scarborough.

The House later voted 75-73 to align with the Senate, with only Warren maintaining her opposition. 

Warren said she agreed with her colleagues who said there are critical initiatives in the plan, “but others go to increasing tax breaks for the wealthy, well-connected profitable business centers and those who can afford to pay more, while other critical initiatives are left out entirely.”

Warren’s remarks echoed those earlier shared by Milliken. Through tears, Milliken urged her colleagues to reject regressive taxes, which have a greater impact on people with lower incomes, and instead push for a model that taxes the wealthy more — even if the governor, who has opposed any income-based tax reform, ultimately vetoes it. 

“Democrats across this country right now are calling for Republican members of Congress to stand up to the executive branch, because they are a separate co-equal branch of government and they should be asserting their power as such,” Milliken said, referring to push back against President Donald Trump. 

“We are a separate co-equal branch of government,” she added. “We owe it to our constituents to do better, to tax people who are super wealthy, so that the poorest people in our communities see some relief.”

After both chambers narrowly rejected a “millionaire’s tax” in initial votes, the Senate reversed its stance Monday night, sending the measure back to the House to reconsider. It remained tabled as of 6 p.m. Wednesday. The proposal would place a tax surcharge of 2% on the portion of a resident’s taxable income beyond $1 million for single filers to be used to fund public K-12 education.

Lawmakers proposed a number of floor amendments to the budget throughout the day Wednesday but none passed. One proposal filed by Rep. Sally Cluchey (D-Bowdoinham) that sought to tack on the “millionaire’s tax” was never brought up on the floor.

The majority of both chambers enacted the bill Wednesday evening — the House by just one vote, 74-73, and the Senate 19-15, sending it to the governor. 

The budget plan also effectively stops the state’s free community college program for future graduating classes, against the governor’s request to make it permanent. Read about more of the details of the plan here. 

Several bills currently pending were also worked into the budget plan, including proposals to alter the child tax credit and real estate transfer tax. 

However, nearly 300 bills that passed both chambers but need funding still remain in limbo. These bills were placed on what’s called the appropriations table. The appropriations committee, which manages this table, will ultimately decide which proposals to fund with any remaining unappropriated money, a process called “running the table.”

Committee co-chair Sen. Peggy Rotundo (D-Androscoggin) told Maine Morning Star the committee does not plan to make those decisions until sometime next week. 

Some of those proposals are bills to establish a task force to suggest reform to the real estate property tax, ensure the already required teaching of Wabanaki and African American studies are effectively taught in Maine schools, provide more funding for family planning services, fund proper disposal of syringe litter and expand testing for forever chemicals in private wells, among others.

Sen. Cameron Reny (D-Lincoln), an appropriations committee member, said in a floor speech that the budget is as much about avoiding harm as it is about providing for Mainers, a sentiment both committee chairs also shared.

“This is not a flashy budget,” Rotundo said. “It’s a workhorse — steady, thoughtful and grounded in real need.” 

Rotundo asked her colleagues to vote for the budget “not because it gives everyone everything they want” but because “it reflects who we are, a state that cares deeply, spends responsibly and plans wisely for the future.” 

Rep. Drew Gattine (D-Westbrook) made a similar plea in the House earlier Wednesday. 

“This budget meets the moment,” Gattine said. “It addresses the biggest issues that Maine people are facing, and protects critical investments that we’ve made in the past in health care, food security, education, housing and child care.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Amy Bradstreet Arata (R-New Gloucester), another member of the appropriations committee, argued the budget plan was built on a “house of cards,” pointing out that it was balanced, in part, by an unexpected $24 million estate tax after two recent deaths and that it doesn’t provide the full expected cost-of-living increase for direct care workers. 

Also, projections for the following biennium present an approximately $246 million increase based on the ongoing spending in the budget plan. 

Republicans attempted several floor amendments to the budget, including to increase MaineCare funding for veterans homes, hire more state troopers, remove the proposed increase to the cigarette tax and ensure timely payments to service providers. 

Arata and Rep. Ken Fredette (R-Newport), who is also on the committee, argued that the state’s budgetary needs for the next fiscal year have already been met.

“This is a tax and spend supplemental budget,” Fredette said. 

In March, the Democratic majority pushed through a two-year budget plan without Republican support and formally adjourned in order to start the clock for those funds to become available in 90 days, which will be on Friday. 

Senate Republicans refused to back an alternative short-term plan that would have immediately filled the current deficit for MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, because it did not include structural reform to the program.

That budget continued funding for state services at the same level while also providing one-time funding for MaineCare and other urgent needs. But it didn’t include any of the policy changes Mills proposed to address the deficit and flattening revenues. 

Some Republican legislators tried to collect signatures to allow Maine voters to overturn the budget passed in March but failed to reach the needed threshold, the leader of the people’s veto effort, Rep. Gary Drinkwater of Milford, announced on Tuesday.