AUGUSTA, Maine — The 128th Maine Legislature, which presided over a state shutdown last year and stretched nearly five months past its scheduled end in 2018, closed its work for the year on Thursday — but not without dealing with Gov. Paul LePage’s late threat to call it back.
This Legislature was defined by battles between Senate Republicans and their odd allies, the Democrats, against the Republican governor and the minority group of mostly conservative House Republicans in whom LePage’s legislative power almost solely rested.
That was truest during the summer 2017 fight over the two-year budget. LePage forced a shutdown after vetoing a budget from Senate Republicans and Democrats, and relying on House Republicans to block it and other proposals until they cut a deal ending the three-day shutdown.
The same divide played in 2018 and on Thursday, when an incensed LePage said legislative leaders wouldn’t advance a governor’s bill aimed at shielding elderly Mainers from municipal foreclosures. Among others, he blamed Senate President Mike Thibodeau, R-Winterport, and said he hoped Senate Republicans get “destroyed” in the November elections if they block it.
To read the rest of “With nothing left to fight about, Maine legislators go home,” an article by contributing Bangor Daily News staff writer Michael Shepherd, please follow this link to the BDN online.
