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AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Janet Mills will not sign a state budget unless it includes $300 relief checks in a move that amounts to a high-stakes trade offer with progressives.
The governor is working with her party’s legislative leaders to muscle the final spending proposal of her tenure through the State House. It comes as she remains an underdog in the Democratic primary against progressive political newcomer Graham Platner for the right to take on U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in November.
Mills’ standing in that race has weakened her political hand in Augusta. Legislative Democrats have already lopped more than 200,000 Mainers off the list to receive checks relative to the governor’s January proposal. But a millionaire tax inserted into the deal by lawmakers could sway the Platner supporters who have been dubious of the checks or opposed to them.
Lawmakers in the State House were buzzing Thursday about Mills’ vow to Democrats she would not sign a budget that does not include the checks. Her spokesperson, Ben Goodman, confirmed that, saying she worked with top lawmakers in her party to move the plan through the budget panel the previous night.
That version retained the $300 checks but brought the number of Mainers receiving them from 725,000 in Mills’ original proposal to 514,000. It also added the tax on income over $1 million, a longtime white whale from progressives that the governor opposed for her entire tenure and advocated against last year.
Sen. Mike Tipping, D-Orono, a sharp check critic who works for the Platner-endorsing Maine People’s Alliance, said Thursday he is still learning about the budget proposal but is “glad to see the millionaire tax.”
“I support the negotiated budget compromise,” Rep. Gary Friedmann, D-Bar Harbor, who stood with Platner at a recent news conference in response to attack ads from Mills, wrote in a text message.
One of the problems for Mills is that the money used for the checks is coming out of the state’s “rainy day fund,” something Republicans oppose and many Democrats find unnecessary. The governor pitched it as part of a broader “affordability agenda” in a nod to the issue dominating national politics.
Mills’ proposal is in danger because of the razor-thin margins in the House of Representative, which has 75 Democrats, 72 Republicans and two liberal-leaning independents. Just a few Democratic breaks would doom the far-reaching spending adjustment, which will not hit the chamber floors until at least Monday.