By Andy O’Brien
Republicans in the Maine House of Representatives are trying to force cuts to housing assistance currently provided by General Assistance (GA). Their leverage is the MaineCare payments intended for hospitals and other healthcare providers.
In early February, the Maine House of Representatives passed a $121 million supplemental budget, which included $118 million to make up a shortfall in MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program. However, Republicans are not giving the budget the two-thirds support of the Senate needed for it to go into effect immediately.
In response, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services has informed hospitals and other healthcare providers that it may have to withhold some payments starting in March.
“Today Republicans decided to vote against the interests of Maine people, Maine nursing homes, Maine hospitals, and the vitality of Maine’s western and northern forests,” said House Speaker Ryan Fecteau (D-weDist. 132, Biddeford) at a press conference on Feb. 11. “This year, the Legislature has been presented with a supplemental that includes actual emergency items. True emergencies, which if delayed will have real impacts across our state.” The supplemental budget includes funding to stop the spread of the spruce budworm, a ravenous insect that threatens the state’s $800 million logging industry.
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Republicans and Democrats on the Legislature’s powerful Joint Standing Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee voted 11-0 on Feb. 4 to advance a supplemental budget that left out cuts to GA proposed by Gov. Janet Mills. The governor’s proposal would have restricted GA housing assistance for low-income Mainers to a maximum of three months in a 12-month period, per household, for all qualified applicants. The measure would have also prohibited municipalities from exceeding the maximum levels of assistance for any of GA’s assistance categories for more than 30 days out of a 12-month period.
However, the next day, Feb. 5, Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee member Rep. Ken Fredette (R-Dist. 33, Newport), who had been absent for the vote the previous evening, voted against the budget deal.
Speaking to the Bangor Daily News, Fredette said he did not believe his caucus or Republican leaders would support the budget unless it included the GA cuts. Republicans on the committee then reversed their positions to side with Fredette, but Democrats blocked their effort to put the GA cuts back into the supplemental budget.
In a statement, Fecteau said Fredette “prefers to create chaos rather than honoring the work of his Republican colleagues who showed up in committee, earnestly negotiated, and came to an agreement with Democrats.”
On Feb. 11, Minority House Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Dist. 12, Winter Harbor), released a video comparing Republican efforts to cut housing assistance for destitute people to the actions of Joshua Chamberlain, the Civil War hero and later governor of Maine, who ordered a bayonet charge to fend off Confederate troops at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.
“They were told to ‘hold the line’ to save the Union Army,” said Faulkingham, speaking in front of a portrait of Chamberlain. “Now tonight us Republicans are here to hold the line for you. We’re here to hold the line for fiscal responsibility.”
Republicans and Democrats are scheduled to take up the budget again on Feb. 25, but Democrats could still pass the supplemental budget as an emergency measure without Republican support.
In 2023, Democrats passed a state budget with a simple majority, then adjourned the legislative session to start the clock on the 90-day waiting period. Gov. Janet Mills then called a special session so the legislature could finish its work.
This parliamentary move allowed the budget to take effect before the end of the fiscal year in June. Republicans claimed the action was unconstitutional, but the Maine Supreme Judicial Court dismissed the lawsuit. Whether or not Democrats will use a similar strategy this time, to ensure healthcare providers continue to be paid and services continue to be rendered, remains to be seen.
