The sad truth about the Maine Legislature
Creating an effective Maine Legislature requires finding 186 people with intelligence, integrity and initiative. Or to put it another way, it’s impossible.
Instead, legislative elections tend to attract a disproportionate collection of characters who are stupid, unbalanced or power-hungry. In some cases, all three.
This isn’t as big a problem as it might appear, because the vast bulk of legislators function mainly to fill up the seats. Only about 10 percent of them are capable of actually governing, and this minority does all the heavy lifting. The rest occupy themselves with fruitless plans to run for higher office or trying to figure out how to reap the most money from their lodging and mileage reimbursements.
So, the fact the new Legislature elected in November may be a little more conservative than the old one will make no discernible difference in terms of policy. Too many of the same faces will be back sporting the same mental and moral impediments to result in any fundamental improvements.
If this seems cynical, consider that after more than 40 years of observing activity under the State House dome in Augusta, astonishingly little has changed. We no longer allow lobbyists on the floor of the House and Senate during sessions. They now must do their arm-twisting and enticing in less public places. The old Augusta House hotel, where all the backroom deals were made, is gone, so now that sort of chicanery is relegated to Zoom. Being gay, smoking pot, and drinking in bars on Sunday have all become legal, but people were going to do those things whether the Legislature approved or not.
Does this mean there’s no place in the process for idealism? For that rare individual seeking to solve serious problems? Or to put it in blunter terms, for those naïve dolts who refuse to believe that steamroller heading for them isn’t going to stop?
I think history has answered that question, and the flattened evidence is buried out behind the Burton Cross State Office Building.
Given all this, it’s now fair to examine what sorts of positive change we can expect from the new Legislature. If I decided to leave the rest of this column blank, that would be as complete and comprehensive a summation of the likely outcome as any clutter of verbiage. Unfortunately, editors, like nature, abhor a vacuum. But unlike nature, editors take vengeance for such an occurrence on hapless writers, as if the laws of physics were somehow the poor scribe’s fault.
With this dire consequence in mind, here is the best — or depending on your viewpoint, the worst — that can be expected from the incoming Legislature.
The leadership in both chambers will be more competent. This isn’t excessive praise, since the outgoing Senate President, Troy Jackson, possessed the political skills of moldy cheese, and the departing Speaker of the House, Rachel Talbot Ross, was organizationally impaired in ways rarely seen outside of the U.S. Postal Service. Their replacements, Mattie Daughtry in the Senate and former not-especially-sucky Speaker Ryan Fecteau in the House, have yet to demonstrate their abilities to live down to their predecessors’ blundering levels.
Freshman legislators will introduce numerous ambitious bills that will prove to be identical to measures that have failed repeatedly in previous sessions. Slamming one’s head against the wall is an important right of passage in lawmaking, and the sooner the newbies learn this lesson, the sooner they can devote their remaining time in public service to treating their concussions.
There seems to be a nasty theological battle brewing among Republicans as to whether it’s Democrats who are in control of the weather and use hurricanes to punish conservatives, or it’s God who controls the forecast and employs meteorology to punish pro-choice liberals. But the GOP all agree climate change is a hoax.
Nevertheless, each daily session will begin with a prayer, which is sort of like beginning every New England Patriots game by dialing 9-1-1.
The big issue this session will be the budget, which initially shows the state is a billion dollars short of having enough money to keep doing everything just the way it has been. The usual method of dealing with this “structural deficit” (legislative language that means “we’re broke”) is to raise taxes, cut spending, or hope money falls from the sky. After much debate, the solution will turn out to be some combination of the three, with the only question being the percentage of wishful thinking in the final product.
Other weighty issues legislators will be asked to confront include homelessness, drug overdoses, health care, energy costs, and whether Indians should continue to be treated as second-class citizens. Any progress in solving these problems will be, at most, marginal.
Nevertheless, the Legislature will adjourn in June or thereabouts to the great relief of those who’ve escaped new legal burdens and to the consternation of those who failed to pray to either God or the Democrats for forgiveness.
Gavel me out of order by e-mailing aldiamon@herniahill.net.
