SENATE REPUBLICANS RUBBER STAMP GOVERNOR’S VETO

Republicans flip flop on their own

AUGUSTA – A majority of Senate Republicans failed to override Governor LePage’s veto of LD 521, a Republican sponsored measured aimed at improving the central school budgeting process for alternative organizational structures (AOS).

The bill received unanimous bipartisan support in the Education Committee, and was passed unanimously in both the House and the Senate.

“It’s clear that the Governor and some Republicans are more interested in do-nothing politics,” said Assistant Senate Majority Leader Troy Jackson (D-Allagash). “Time and again, the legislature is working hard to get things done and the Governor and some Republican lawmakers fall in lock step with his obstructionism.”

Twenty-three Senators voted to override the governor’s veto, including the bill’s sponsor Senator David Burns (R-Washington).

Senator James Hamper (R-Oxford), a cosponsor of the measure, flip-flopped and voted to sustain the veto, as did Senator Brian Langley (R-Ellsworth), who had supported the bill both in the Education Committee and on it’s initial passage in the Senate.