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Michael Cianchette is a Navy reservist who served in Afghanistan. He is in-house counsel to a number of businesses in southern Maine and was a chief counsel to former Gov. Paul LePage.
Back in high school, I had a curfew. “Nothing good happens after midnight” was a saying many of us probably heard as kids.
Someone should remind the Maine Legislature.
In the wee hours of the morning last Saturday, the Democrats of the Appropriations Committee pushed through a major change in the state budget. Specifically, they sought to partially undo last year’s bipartisan effort to create permanent funding for Maine’s roads and bridges.
Nothing good happens after midnight.
Even more, they attempted to wrest authority over the Highway Fund budget away from the Legislature’s Transportation Committee. The latter has had that jurisdiction for decades.
Nothing good happens after midnight.
If that wasn’t enough, they also sought to increase taxes on retirees, undoing a tax reduction that was championed by Republicans and signed into law just last year.
Nothing good happens after midnight.
In fairness, several Democrats called out their colleagues. The Maine Wire reported that recently resigned Rep. Lynne Williams of Bar Harbor had some harsh words for the power play. Gov. Janet Mills’ office was more measured, but not less critical.
It appears that Democrats are now reconsidering their early morning efforts to upend both recent changes and longstanding traditions. That’s good.
But it raises the question about why they are dealing with these issues after midnight in the first place. Particularly when nearly 150,000 power customers remained in the dark following the early April wallop.
Legislative majorities flexing their muscle to get their way is nothing new. However, it normally occurs in the light of day, not the dark of night.
The after-midnight hijinx highlights problems with the way our Legislature works. Given the hundreds of bills still in process, all next week — school vacation for many — they will be in Augusta to move paper around. The Appropriations Committee will be meeting to hash out millions upon millions in spending.
There’s got to be a better way.
Fortunately, reform is in the air. Democratic attempts to remove the Highway Fund budget from the Transportation Committee opens up an opportunity to discuss how the current process works. GOP Sen. Rick Bennett is pushing rule changes to rein in abuses from “concept drafts,” a problem in their own right.
The Legislature is at a point in the year where tempers flare, nerves get hit, and craziness occurs after dark. That includes awful statements by two GOP members claiming the Lewiston shooting was some form of divine retribution. Thursday afternoon, those members were appropriately censured by the House and they rightly, contritely apologized.
The members of the 131st Legislature are condemned to live in this chaos. Yet, they could work to leave a better system for those who will follow them.
Nominally, we have a citizen Legislature today. Yet how many people are unable to think about running for office because their day job does not allow them to spend five days a week in Augusta?
How many parents don’t want to give up their kids’ school vacation to sit in the State House for hours on end?
How many citizens can’t reasonably sit in a committee backroom, only to convene after midnight to push a partisan power play?
Regardless of the current rush to finish their work, there are few initiatives that are true emergencies which require a new law be passed immediately. Instead, they could take more time to let the committees work at a more considered, less frenzied pace to deal with the myriad proposals before them.
With a little more consideration and less press of time, regular Mainers — whether legislators or citizens — could truly engage with the process. And it would be a great way to let people work in the daylight.
Because nothing good happens after midnight.