A version of this article was originally published in The Daily Brief, our Maine politics newsletter. Sign up here for daily news and insight from politics editor Michael Shepherd.
The Democratic budget power play back in March left lawmakers with no formal date in sight to leave Augusta for the year. While nobody knows when they are going to leave, they are racing to finish work now.
The biggest items of 2023 are awaiting floor votes. That includes the controversial abortion-rights bill from Gov. Janet Mills that was sent to the floors by.a committee with strong Republican opposition on Friday, plus a Democratic paid leave proposal that aims to forestall a 2024 referendum on the subject but comes with business opposition and concerns from Mills.
Lots of other items are tied up in budget negotiations that have been strange so far. The Democratic governor rolled out her $900 million supplemental spending proposal in May, something that was followed a day later by House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, relaying a message to the governor that she would not support a budget without Mills supporting tribal-rights bills.
Mills did not move in her opposition to those measures, and lawmakers have gone right on crafting a budget. The big question all along is whether Democrats could pivot from angering Republicans by passing a majority-only budget in the spring to bringing them into a consensus package now.
The odds have not looked good. The budget committee has been mostly working behind closed doors over the past few weeks, with several public sessions canceled over the last week. Last month, Rep. Sawin Millett, R-Waterford, said it was unlikely that the sides could get together by July 1.
There are other big-ticket packages that we have not even seen yet. For example, the gun-rights Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine was convening negotiations with Mills and Talbot Ross this spring on gun reforms after the April shootings in Bowdoin and Yarmouth, but no legislative product has come through yet.
Talbot Ross and progressives, meanwhile, have stricter gun control bills coming up for votes soon. United Democratic control of Augusta has been generally predictable over the last few years, but this Legislature is full of surprises.