Maine Senate Fails to Pass Supplemental Spending Bill as Republicans Balk at “Lipstick on a Pig” Compromise

The Maine House and Senate spent the second half of Tuesday passing different versions of the state’s supplemental budget between the chambers, but again failed to enact the measure by the time the session came to an end that evening. At issue was LD 209, largely a bill to bail out the state’s Medicaid shortfall with an injection of $118 million dollars of spending beyond what the biennial budget appropriated.

The legislature could not agree on what ended up being an emergency version of the bill.

At the outset of the day, the Senate has a version of LD 209 that the House had sent them a week ago. This version did not have an ‘Emergency Clause’ that would have required a 2/3 vote to Enact the bill. All the Senate had to do yesterday was pass it with a simple majority and it would have worked its way to the desk of the Governor by the end of the day.

Instead, Senate President Mattie Daughtry (D-Cumberland) attached a four-page amendment to the bill. Her amendment added back the ‘Emergency Clause’ which triggered a new 2/3 vote threshold. It also added what appeared to be concessions to Republicans with including new guardrails on government assistance welfare spending and an independent audit of MaineCare (MediCare). The audit would seek to uncover for waste fraud and abuse in the MaineCare system.

[RELATED: Daughtry Amendment Adopted by Senate, Trading Emergency Housing Exemption for Modest Limits on General Assistance]

Daughtry presented these points hoping to entice Republican Senate members to support her bill. Several Republicans said her amendment made a bad bill better. The vote to change LD 209 from the House version into Daughtry’s version passed 31-2. This new emergency version of the bill was sent back to the House for agreement.

The House of Representatives received the bill and Minority Leader Faulkingham made a motion to recede and concur. Recede and concur is a motion to show that the House agrees with the new version of the bill and will send the new version back to the Senate for a final vote on agreement between the chambers.

Majority Leader Matt Moonen (D-Portland) requested a roll call on Faulkingham’s recede and concur motion. The motion passed 129-10 and the bill was “engrossed.” (Engrossment is the step before the final Enactment vote for legislation.) This was the first vote since the censure of Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn), who was barred as a result of that censure from being able to represent her constituents on that measure.

The Daughtry version of the bill was then sent back to the Senate for the final vote of Enactment. Final passage of the bill would require a 2/3 vote due the ‘Emergency Clause’ in the newly adopted Daughtry amendment.

The Senate took up the Enactment vote at 7:39pm. There was a very brief debate in which Assistant Minority Leader Sen. Matt Harrington (R-York) referred to the new version of the bill as a ‘Bailout for Medicaid’. Sen. Harrington was correct that the majority of the additional funding in the bill is to cover fiscal mismanagement of the state’s MaineCare system. It should also be noted that Democrats have held total control of Augusta and spending for the last six years and this $118 shortfall can be laid squarely at their feet.

The concessions offered by Daughtry were largely considered to be false promises by Senate Republicans. The General Assistance reforms would still allow illegal migrants to receive housing and shelter funds while tightening the screws on indigent Mainers. The proposed audit had no teeth for enforcement if the legislature does not want to address the waste, fraud and abuse. As such, one might call it “lipstick on a pig.”

Senator Jeff Timberlake (R-Androscoggin) reflected the mood of his Republican colleagues when he made an offer on the floor to vote for the bill if the Democrats would promise on record to not run a majority biennial budget. Democrats have run majority biennial budgets for the last two cycles with zero Republican input. After Timberlake made his offer, the only response from Democrats was silence and they quickly moved on to the next speaker.

The final vote for the Daughtry amended bill was 22-11 with two members excused from voting. That meant the bill failed to reach the 2/3 requirement of the 35 member Senate. After sending this news to House so it could start the process anew, the Senate adjourned for the evening.

The House took up the failed version of the Daughtry bill at 8:20pm. The debate was brief with a fiery speech from Speaker Ryan Fecteau (D-Biddeford) who railed against the Senate for not doing their work. He ended his remarks by saying the House has done its work and will insist on passage of the bill. The House returned the bill to the Senate on an insist motion. The motion won bipartisan support and passed 108-29.

The legislature will not be in session again until next Tuesday, March 18. For now, the Supplemental Budget remains stalled and will be taken up next in the Senate. It is unclear what course LD 209 will next take. There will be behind the scenes negotiations between legislative leaders and the appropriations committee over the coming days leading up to the next legislative session day. Anything could happen if compromise can be found, but compromise is always in short supply when one party holds all the power.