Ralph Chapman

Final Legislative Days

The Legislature finished its business last week shortly after 3am. The policies, procedures, and politics of the final hours of the session all suffer, regardless of majority party. To understand how this session got to its dismal end, we need to look at the budget and floor debate processes.

The Legislature has budgetary responsibility balanced by the right of the Governor to veto. The Legislature can override vetoes, but only by a two-thirds majority. Importantly, regular bills do not become law for ninety days after being signed whereas “emergency” (expedited) bills can become law immediately after being signed.

The budget process involves both a two-year budget and supplemental budgets. Incoming legislators assume power in December, six months before the end of the previous two-year budget cycle. Their first budgetary task is to deal with any adjustments needed to keep the government running while a new two-year budget is developed and passed. Afterwards, additional supplemental budgets are developed as needed for continuing adjustments.

If a biennial budget is not passed before the first of April, there will not be enough time for the ninety day delay before it has to take place at the start of the new fiscal year on July first unless it receives a two-thirds vote, which requires compromise with the minority party (as happened with the 2012-2013 budget). Supplemental budgets sometimes are not under such a tight time constraint and could be passed with a simple majority by the majority party (as happened last week with the 2013 supplemental budget). This is not always advantageous since without shared responsibility, the majority party may be politically vulnerable if the public is not happy with the result. (We will find out in November whether or not last week’s simple majority voted budget harms Republicans.) I voted against the budget passed by the Republicans.

Because of Department of Health and Human Services management difficulties, it was not possible to complete a supplemental budget before statutory adjournment last mid-April, so the Appropriations Committee split the budget into two pieces, one to keep the Government from shutting down for the rest of 2012, and one to take care of problems in 2013. The negotiated 2012 supplemental budget was upset by the Governor’s line item vetoes (sustained procedurally by the majority party) so that it was not possible for the Committee to come to any further agreement on the 2013 supplemental budget.

Floor debate, unlike Committee work, is rarely able to bring a solution to divisive matters. One technique for limiting the time taken making floor speeches, is to schedule them for very inconvenient times. Legislators prefer to end the misery of working in the early hours of the morning rather than to continue arguing. Of the forty roll-call votes taken in the final two days, only nine were taken during regular business hours, while twelve were taken after midnight. During the peak of the frenzy at 2am, nine bills were voted on in twenty minutes.

–Ralph Chapman 326-0899 chapmanHD37@gmail.com ralphchapman.org

Methods of Accomplishment

Public policy quality suffers as the legislative process deteriorates toward the end of the session. Contributing reasons are: constrained time to discuss or work through problems, tiredness and loss of attention to detail, a desire to finish rather than continue making the bills better, and the standard practice of holding very contentious bills to the end. The rushed schedule prevents legislators, much less the public, from having an opportunity to read the bills and amendments before they come up for a vote.

A possible solution involves changing the majority party control, an often heard rallying cry during the campaign season. This solution is predicated on the notion that one party is honorable while the other engages in political skulduggery. Analysis shows this to be flawed notion. Examples of poor policy, from times of both Democratic or Republican control, include school consolidation and health care insurance reform. Sometimes the ill-considered contentious poor policy is not partisan, such as the mining bill introduced this session by Democrats and both supported and opposed by some Democrats and Republicans.

Another method of working the legislative process is to engage with stakeholders over a long period of time to cooperatively find solutions. This approach rarely gets media attention but can provide significant accomplishment. This is the method of my personal preference.

I helped organize and participated in meetings, every few weeks for more than a year, among a dozen people representing four educational institutions, two political parties, a state agency, a non-profit organization, and others to work on the problems of the high school to college transition. The process produced an unprecedented collaboration that will enable students, within one year from their nominal high school graduation date, to earn a two-year Community College degree with transferable credits to the University of Maine. This model pilot program, currently reviewing student applications, begins this fall.

Another non-partisan issue area of importance to our district is finding ways to help nurture local farming. In addition to advocating for passage of the local ordinances and supporting and joining the newly formed Local Food RULES group, I have met with the Governor’s senior policy advisor and the Commissioner of Agriculture on these issues. Importantly, I have engaged many members (of both parties) of the legislature’s agriculture committee around these issues to pave the way for meaningful reform legislation over the next term.

It is not by accident that these efforts involve both the executive and legislative branches of state government. Both play a significant role in the formation of public policy. Regardless of the state-wide election results this fall, the current LePage administration will be in power until at least the end of 2014. It is crucial that we find ways to work effectively together for the common good.

Most importantly, it is citizen involvement in these and other issues, that truly makes a difference. I cannot stress enough how powerful citizens can be in affecting changes we need in our government.
–Ralph Chapman 326-0899 chapmanHD37@gmail.com ralphchapman.org