Session closes without deals on borrowing or tax relief
By Francis X. Quinn, Associated Press Writer | April 30, 2004
AUGUSTA, Maine -- The Maine Legislature concluded its extended 2004 spring session Friday morning but, after debating and negotiating all night, lawmakers failed to strike deals on property tax relief and new state borrowing.
Speculation about a new special legislative session was building already as House and Senate members speedily exited from the State House.
Following shortly upon the official departure of members of the House of Representatives, the state Senate adjourned at 8 a.m.
In pre-adjournment comments, Gov. John Baldacci and Senate President Beverly Daggett chose to look back on the entire 15 months of the 121st Legislature's tenure to cite a host of achievements.
Those ranged from budget-balancing during a period in which spending demands outstripped revenue to the creation of the Dirigo Health program, the establishment of a community college system and a merger of the state departments of human services and mental health.
"These are difficult challenging times but you folks have risen to the occasion," Baldacci told exhausted senators.
"I'm very proud of the accomplishments that we have had here," said Daggett, D-Augusta, who is the first woman to serve as the Senate's presiding officer.
Congratulating Senate members who stuck it out to the end, Daggett added an observation that legislators knew all about themselves: "The end of the session is a period of heightened stress and tension."
In both the Senate and House, late efforts to pass some tax relief legislation came to naught.
A resolution that would commit the Senate to endorsing a June ballot question calling for a major infusion of state money to bolster aid to local schools and ease local property tax pressures was rejected 20-14.
A package combining increases in taxes on tobacco and alcohol to raise funding for school aid and property tax relief programs failed in the House on a 62-76 tally.
Similarly, multiparty negotiations over proposed bond issues were unable to produce a requisite bipartisan accord.
Republicans pointedly noted the inability of the Democratic governor and Democratic majorities in both houses of the Legislature to secure winning coalitions on two key fiscal issues.
"Democrats could not reach an agreement on which tax they planned to increase on the people of Maine," House Minority Leader Joe Bruno, R-Raymond, said in a statement. "It's amazing the Democrats are fighting over which tax to increase. They simply don't understand Mainers are calling for lower taxes."
House Speaker Patrick Colwell, like Baldacci and Daggett, did not ignore the late session frustrations for Democrats but also did not dwell on them.
Lawmakers hoping to enact a property tax relief plan of their own made a "valiant effort," the Gardiner Democrat said, and "tried to move on a very difficult issue. ... It wasn't for lack of trying."
Baldacci's office said lawmakers could be summoned back to the State House in late August to take up anew bond proposals and the matter of property tax relief.
It was in late August one year ago that Maine lawmakers voted to put out to referendum a tax relief proposal designed to offer an alternative to a citizen initiative already cleared for the ballot that was backed by the Maine Municipal Association.
Neither proposal won enough support in last November's voting to become law and the MMA-backed plan, which would require the state to raise its share of local school costs to the 55 percent level immediately, will go back to voters for a final verdict in June.
Adding to pressure on the governor and state lawmakers to act on tax relief this year -- an election year -- is another looming November vote -- this time, on a proposal that would cap property taxes at $10 per $1,000 of assessed value, based on values in 1996-97.
The so-called Palesky ballot question -- featuring the initiative championed by anti-tax advocate Carol Palesky -- also would limit assessment increases to 2 percent a year while the property's ownership remains in a family.