AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Legislature returns to work at the State House today to vote on new bonds for capital projects. The special session is needed because lawmakers were unable to agree on a bond plan before adjournment in June.
The $163 million package is more than $70 million less than the package that failed more than two months ago. That original package sought to include all the bond proposals in a single yes or no vote, but Republicans objected to that. They said they wanted to support some bonds, but not others.
This time there are four separate bonds with separate votes:
- Transportation: $105 million
- Land conservation, replenishing the Land for Maine’s Future program: $20 million
- Environmental protection, money for wastewater treatment, other environmental work and home energy loans: $15 million
- Economic development, providing money to better equip career/ technical high school programs, and renovate National Guard facilities, but primarily $15 million for broadband expansion: $23 million total.
The broadband money and several other of the bond projects, including transportation, would leverage significant amounts of federal money, according to the Mills Administration.
The bonds require a 2/3 majority vote of the Legislature, which can only happen with some GOP support. The big question is whether there will be enough Republican support to pass them. There seems to be broad agreement in the Transportation bond, but the others are uncertain, Republicans have complained about the size of the overall budget, which is just under $8 billion for the next two years.
Several Republican members in June used the bond vote to complain about the increase of spending under the new administration and the Democratic majority. The size of the bond package has been reduced, but it is not known if that will be enough to gain GOP votes needed for the bonds to pass.
Those that do pass will be sent to Maine voters in November.
