AUGUSTA

The Maine House and Senate both voted Wednesday to override Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s veto of the state budget for the next two years, avoiding a state government shutdown and temporarily raising sales, meals and lodging taxes.

The House voted 114-34 just after noon Wednesday. The Senate followed with a 26-9 vote. Both tallies exceeded the two-thirds threshold required by law to override the veto and enact a two-year budget, which will take effect on July 1. Wednesday’s votes on the budget veto mark the first time that the Democrat-controlled Legislature has overridden one of LePage’s more than 40 vetoes this session.

The vote in the House followed two hours of intense debate from both parties. The Senate vote also followed nearly two hours of debate.

Sen. Dawn Hill, D-York, who chairs the legislative committee that crafted the budget deal, cast the override vote in stark terms. “Today, you can no longer vote whether or not you agree with the budget or whether you like the budget. That’s a concern you can bring up when we return in January,” she said. “But today, your vote will be either to shut down or not to shut down and I hope you will think seriously about that.”

The Senate vote came down to whether enough Republicans would stand by their original votes in support of the budget in order to override LePage’s veto. Two of those Republicans urged their colleagues to reject the veto.

Sen. Brian Langley, R-Ellsworth, said his vote to override LePage’s veto was meant to support the lawmakers who negotiated a budget during the past six months.

“This budget is ugly. We have no great options. We were briefed that we were voting for things we were diametrically opposed to,” he said. “My vote today is a statement of support for our Republican team on the Appropriations Committee. For what it’s worth, I’ve got your back.”

Sen. Tom Saviello of Wilton, another of the Republicans to support the budget the first time around, touted Republican victories in the budget. Income tax cuts lawmakers passed two years ago that have been championed by LePage and Republicans remain intact, he said, as well as a Republican-backed proposal forming a work group to review unfunded mandates on towns and cities.

“Today, I vote with my friend, and fellow logger, Troy Jackson,” Saviello said, referring to LePage’s comments last week about the Democratic senator from Aroostook County.

Some House members spoke in similar terms, while many of the budget opponents said concern for constituents caused them to stick with their original votes against the deal.

“This budget represents poor choices and misplaced priorities,” said Rep. Lawrence Lockman, R-Amherst. “It represents politics as usual in Augusta, a surrender to the status quo and a dangerous disregard for the challenges facing our state. … Mainers cannot afford to pay any more taxes.”

Rep. Jeff Timberlake, R-Turner, agreed and said he supports neither the current budget compromise nor Gov. Paul LePage’s original proposal.

“I don’t want to raise any taxes,” he said. “I want smaller government and I believe we can do it. We’re headed for chaos and if we continue at this level it won’t be sustainable.”

Rep. Jarrod Crockett, R-Bethel, is one of the Republicans who voted against the budget earlier this month but flipped his vote on Wednesday.

“A state shutdown is a failure for all of us, there’s no question about that,” he said. “I’m either voting for a budget that I don’t necessarily love or I can vote for a government shutdown. That’s what the people back home see this as.”

Rep. Benjamin Chipman, I-Portland, is another lawmaker who switched his vote to support the override Wednesday after voting June 13 against the budget. He said he changed his vote because a budget must be passed by Monday to avoid a state government shutdown.

“We’re in a really tough spot right now,” said Chipman. “We don’t have a lot of time to renegotiate the budget and nobody wants to see a state shutdown. We don’t have a lot of options. Somehow we have to find a way to go forward.”

Rep. Kathleen Chase, R-Wells, the ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee, said the stakes were too high to sustain LePage’s veto.

“Voting [no] is absolutely nothing less than chaos,” she said.

Rep. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, who co-chairs the Appropriations Committee, said the budget isn’t perfect but a state shutdown would be devastating.

“There isn’t a member in this chamber who couldn’t find fault with some aspect of this budget,” said Rotundo. “Yet this is a true compromise. … In a divided government we cannot demand all or nothing.”

Tension began building over the biennial budget soon after LePage proposed it in January. Maine municipalities, along with numerous legislators, immediately singled out LePage’s proposal to zero out funding for the four-decade-old municipal revenue sharing program for two years and his bids to cut back property tax relief programs as the major battleground. Together, those proposals would have saved some $275 million over the biennium, according to LePage.

A unanimous coalition of lawmakers on the Appropriations Committee disagreed and wrote a budget package that avoids nearly 65 percent of the revenue sharing cuts and restores some of the property tax relief programs. The lawmakers also introduced a $30 million hike in spending on public schools and funds to restore merit and longevity pay for state workers who have had their salaries frozen for more than four years.

Most Republicans, including LePage, agreed that the original budget document contained many provisions that they didn’t like, but the real conflict came with the committee’s final decisions, which included temporarily raising the sales tax from 5 percent to 5.5 percent and the meals and lodging tax from 7 percent to 8 percent. LePage immediately began talking about a veto, which he followed through with on Monday.

The biennial budget, because it was passed so late in the legislative session and is considered an emergency measure, required a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate. The enactment votes barely met that threshold, 102-43 in the House and 25-10 in the Senate. Five GOP senators and 23 House Republicans joined all Democratic senators and most House Democrats in voting June 13 to enact the budget.

Wednesday’s House vote wasn’t as close, with some Democrats, Republicans and independents who originally opposed the budget voting to override the veto. Many cited the threat of a state government shutdown as their motivation.

Without a budget in place by July 1, all but essential services of state government would shut down, repeating a 1991 scenario that Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature have said they want to avoid.

On Thursday, the governor proposed a temporary 60-day budget in the form of the continuing resolutions used by Congress to pay for ongoing government functions while he and legislators negotiate a new budget deal. Maine Attorney General Janet Mills, a Democrat, said such a plan would violate the Maine Constitution, but Michael Cianchette, LePage’s chief legal counsel, said a short-term budget that does not call for state government to spend more than it takes in would not violate the Maine Constitution and could be presented as an emergency bill.

House Minority Leader Kenneth Fredette, R-Newport, said LePage’s proposal was “unreasonable.”

“If there were a viable alternative, a path to inject more Republicans values into this budget, I would consider it,” said Fredette. “The choice we have is a shutdown or a budget compromise. The time for negotiation has passed. There is no plan B, nor have I been approached with a plan B.”

The votes to override the budget veto put legislators in a position Wednesday to divvy up about $1.25 million for roughly 130 bills that passed without dedicated funding. The bills that gain funding will go to LePage, who could veto them, sign them or let them take effect without his signature.