AUGUSTA, Maine — For Democrats hoping for a flood of victories in next year’s legislative elections, developments at the State House — and in the courts — couldn’t be going much better.
Republicans are fighting among themselves, and a slew of Democrat-sponsored bills that seemed doomed to succumb to Gov. Paul LePage’s veto pen are on their way to becoming law. But below the shattered veneer of Maine’s Republican Party unity, a major problem for Democrats remains: Republicans still own the state’s policy agenda.
As the legislative session wound to its historic, unprecedented close, infighting in the GOP raged as House and Senate Republicans split on a range of issues, most notably the biennial budget.
LePage maneuvered himself onto a political island as he and his surrogates publicly attacked Senate Republicans in their hometowns. It all culminated Thursday in a Maine Supreme Judicial Court decision that slammed the door on LePage’s late-session veto antics.
The governor’s failed gambit resulted in 65 new laws — many of which would never have made it to the books if Republican lawmakers had been given the opportunity to sustain LePage’s vetoes. But his failed interpretation of Maine’s Constitution as it relates to legislative adjournment means they will never have that chance.
If we all hadn’t just lived through it, this chain of events would seem like political satire conjured by a team of Onion writers — or a fantasy novel written by Democratic Party scribes.
Since the 1990s, presidential election years have favored Democratic candidates in Maine. U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree’s near-lock in the 1st U.S. House District and the absence of a statewide race — in which Democrats have fared abysmally since John Baldacci won his second Blaine House term in 2006 — means the party can concentrate on trying to oust U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin from the 2nd District and adding numbers in the Legislature.
LePage’s defeats and open feuds with some of the Legislature’s highest-profile Republicans — such as Senate President Mike Thibodeau and Majority Leader Garrett Mason — have optimism spreading among Democrats that the splintered Republican base might help them regain control of the Senate and add to their House majority at the polls next November.
But what will they run on?
Running against LePage didn’t work in 2014 and it won’t work in 2016.
Republicans who stormed into the State House with LePage in 2010 lost their legislative majorities in 2012, in large part because of excitement around the presidential election. Democratic campaigners pilloried LePage, but the party’s surge in 2012 had more to do with support for Barack Obama and same-sex marriage than dissatisfaction with LePage.
Republicans and LePage came roaring back in 2014, taking convincing control of the Senate and Blaine House despite a withering campaign by Democrats and their allies against the governor’s bombastic and divisive style and Republicans who backed him on vetoes and important bills.
Second-term LePage only has intensified his style, which isn’t likely to lead to a major erosion of the Republican base or sway independents, the largest segment of Maine’s electorate, who see government dysfunction as a bipartisan effort that can’t just be pinned on the governor.
Besides, LePage isn’t running for office anymore.
And while Democrats have thrown everything they’ve got at LePage for 4½ years, very few big ideas have emerged from their side of the aisle. The Democrats’ policy agenda largely has consisted of counterpunching.
Democratic lawmakers unveiled their tax plan months after LePage’s, clearly a counter to his aggressive effort to overhaul Maine’s tax code. Likewise, Democrats’ grading system for schools’ performance, proposed mining rules and most of their welfare reform initiatives represent reactions to LePage proposals.
Marquee Democratic issues have failed to gain traction in Maine.
Support for same-sex marriage was the most recent galvanizing issue for Maine Democrats.The party cemented its place with progressive, urban and young voters in 2009 when Baldacci signed same-sex marriage into law. Frustration over a citizen’s veto of that law later in 2009 rallied supporters and set the stage for a well-run 2012 campaign that broadened its focus to the entire electorate, making Maine voters among the first in the nation to enact a same-sex marriage law at the polls.
Since then, the major issues for Democrats have been Medicaid expansion and raising the state’s minimum wage.
Medicaid expansion has been defeated by LePage and legislative Republicans so many times most Mainers have lost count, and Republicans have so battered the concept of any kind of welfare expansion that making this a central campaign issue could be a break-even concept at best.
There might be more political oomph around raising the minimum wage, though the party largely has handed off that fight to the Maine People’s Alliance, which is collecting signatures to put a wage increase on the 2016 ballot. That could be an advantage for Democrats, except—
There will be so many questions on the ballot that an advantage for either party could be a wash.
— Recreational marijuana legalization
— A repeal of the state income tax
— A citizen’s veto of a bill that continues General Assistance for some immigrants
There are groups vying to plant all those issues on the 2016 ballot, which, along with the presidential election, could lead to a huge voter turnout from throughout the political spectrum, negating the Democrats’ advantage.
Democrats scored victories in the Legislature this year, but most of them were from a defensive posture.
Democrats — with help from some Republicans — unraveled LePage’s budget proposal by saving municipal revenue sharing, increasing funding for education past what he proposed, watering down his tax cuts and defeating most of his welfare reform initiatives. They defeated a LePage proposal to eliminate Medicaid payments for methadone treatments for drug addicts while halving his proposal to increase the number of drug crime investigators, prosecutors and judges.
Democrats legitimately can claim victories on all those fronts but only in terms of blunting LePage’s initiatives. They didn’t put much new on the table that would resonate with voters.
Their legislative victories — more school spending, aid for asylum seekers, preserving addiction treatment resources and revenue sharing — will be attacked by Republicans with arguments that, thanks to LePage, have become well entrenched in the public conversation: Maine is an overtaxed welfare state with a government spending problem.
Another factor is perhaps the highest-profile bill that became law this session: a repeal of the state’s concealed handgun permit requirement. Democrats from rural districts largely sided with Republicans to pass the bill over opposition from Democrats who represent urban areas. In places such as Portland, a Democratic stronghold that has experienced a number of high-profile armed crimes this year, the issue could drive progressive voters toward Green Independent Party candidates or away from the polls altogether. National gun rights groups also could pump money into the coffers of Republican candidates as a way to reduce the chances that the law would be repealed or watered down.
Legislative races are won at the district level, so it will be incumbent upon the Maine Democratic Party’s new chairman, Phil Bartlett, to recruit candidates who are well respected within their communities. But with an open presidency and LePage vowing to unleash his political machine against candidates who stand in the way of achieving his agenda, the electorate’s perception of the Democratic Party as a whole likely will play a larger role than usual in 2016’s legislative races.
Meanwhile, Maine still has problems and Democrats need to articulate a viable plan for the future.
LePage has been crystal clear about his overall vision for Maine: lower taxes, less social services spending and austere budgets. Now that Democrats have, for the most part, deflected or moderated many of the governor’s proposals, it’s time for them to articulate a vision of their own.
With about four months until the Legislature’s return to the State House and full-on campaign season, voters’ questions about how Democrats would govern Maine — other than “not like LePage” — largely remain unanswered.
