While most state workers were forced to stay off their jobs on day three of a Maine government shutdown, others turned out for a rally at the capitol.
About three hundred of them congregated on the third floor where lawmakers are still working to pass a veto-proof state budget. Workers and union activists are turning up the heat on House Republicans and Gov. Paul LePage whom they blame for the impasse.
Before they began a march and rally in Capitol Park under the shadow of the State House, state workers heard from a person who is, perhaps, Governor LePage’s biggest political nemesis: Democratic Attorney General Janet Mills.
“Today I am proud, not just to be the attorney general and a constitutional officer but a state employee!” Mills shouted to the crowd. “Today’s the day to get it done! Today’s the day to get it done.”
Mills and LePage have repeatedly clashed over budget and policy matters. And this morning, Mills put that in focus. “This is not a ping pong match,” Mills told the crowd. “This is a state budget!”
“This is about getting the job done! Make the governor do the right thing,” she shouted to cheers. “Make the House Republicans do the right thing. There’s nothing to be debated anymore!”
The Maine House of Representatives passed the latest budget proposal by a vote of 92-54 on Monday afternoon, but it was still nearly ten votes shy of the two-thirds margin needed to approve emergency legislation, and also override an expected veto from Gov. Lepage. More votes in both the Senate and the House are expected. But, the governor and some House Republicans object to an increase in the lodging tax. And state workers like Polly Campbell of Brunswick are growing frustrated with where that leaves them.
“It’s made me feel as if I don’t matter, that I’m worthless,” Campbell says. “And I know that that’s not true.”
Campbell is the director of the forensic nursing program for the state. Her work is important, she says, but this affects all the people of Maine not just state employees. That’s a message echoed by retired state employee Jane Gilbert of Augusta. She remembers the state shutdown of 1991 when private contractors with the Maine Department of Transportation were sidelined. And she says she’s sorry to see history repeating itself.
“I’m here in solidarity with the workers and the public and private sector, I just gotta say,” Gilbert says. “It’s not just state workers that are gonna be out of work as a result of this shutdown. They’re shutting down the construction projects statewide, in the middle of the summer. This is not a fun time for people.”
Allison Perkins of Cornville is a mother of two who brought her three-month-old son, Pax, to the rally. She works for the Department of Health and Human Services as an eligibility specialist processing applications for MaineCare and food assistance, assistance she hopes she won’t need herself.
"It's gonna be really tough on my husband," says Perkins. "You know he's going to be the sole person trying to make ends meet and that's a lot of stress to put on anybody. That's the biggest worry, you know, is our own — being able to make ends meet. If we don't get paid again this month, it's very possible I may have to apply for those same services."
After marching past the Blaine House, the governor’s official residence, and chanting, “if we don’t get no budget, you don’t get no peace! No budget, no peace! No budget, no peace!” The workers and their supporters headed for the third floor of the State House where lawmakers continue to try to work out their differences. State workers are vowing to return every day with a larger crowd until a state budget is passed.
