AUGUSTA, Maine — Republicans in the Maine House of Representatives voted to force a gridlocked Legislature to adjourn by Wednesday’s end in a dispute with Democrats over a spending package, but the session stretched into Thursday for procedural reasons.
A fight over changes to the state tax code and funding for Medicaid expansion boiled over at the State House in a political game of chicken on Wednesday, which began with House Speaker Sara Gideon of Freeport and fellow Democrats delaying action on several Republican bills.
The tabled bills included one from Gov. Paul LePage that would shield elderly Mainers from foreclosure and several uncontroversial measures as Democrats battled with House Minority Leader Ken Fredette, R-Newport, who stirred the State House on Tuesday by saying that House Republicans may not extend the session.
The five-day extension — which required two-thirds votes in both chambers — was unanimously passed in the Republican-led Maine Senate. But before 7 p.m. on Wednesday, 66 Republicans voted against it in the House, where they also worked against Senate Republicans in the 2017 budget battle that produced Maine’s first government shutdown since 1991.
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