A bill to remake Maine's two-house Legislature into one with a single chamber has initially cleared the state House of Representatives, but without the two-thirds level of support ultimately needed to send the issue out to voters. Supporters claim a single-body, or unicameral, Legislature would save taxpayers as much as $11 million by eliminating the costs associated with maintaining the 35-member state Senate. But critics say the bill will actually increase staff expenses while decreasing voter representation.

The question has been asked on several occasions in the past: In fact, this is the second time that state Rep. Linda Valentino has advanced a plan to abolish Maine's House and Senate and refashion the Legislature into one with a single 151-member body, inspired by Nebraska's unicameral Legislature.

And since Maine already has 151 members in its House, Valentino is essentially proposing that Maine voters be allowed to determine the future of the 35-member state Senate. But on the House floor, Valentino acknowledged a major challenge facing LD 804: "Not too many legislators want to vote themselves out of office," she said.

But that's what Valentino is essentially asking the Senate to do. And not simply by a majority. The change requies a constitutional amendment that would have to be approved by voters, so it must be endorsed by two-thirds of the House and Senate.

Valentino says if lawmakers are really concerned about cutting state government costs, they would back her plan to trim $11 million in legislative costs from the budget that currently funds state Senate expenses. She says Maine's two-house system is not really needed in a small state with 1.3 million people.

Nebraska, with a 49-member, non-partisan unicameral legislature, serves 1.8 million residents. And she says--despite arguments to the contrary--a unicameral system would also remove an unnecssary redundancy in government.

"What we consider a safeguard having the bill pass back and forth between the two bodies, oftentimes acts to shift the responsibility and accountability from one body to the other," Valentino said. "We need to have one set of eyes that knows that they are the ones who are fully accountable for reading and understanding what they are voting for or against."

Republican Rep. Michael Celli, of Brewer, urged his seatmates in the House to think of Valentino's bill as a plan to create a new representative body, rather than one that simply eliminates the Senate.

"This is not destroying one particular house; we're not getting rid of the Senate, OK?" he said. "This is just combining the two and making it smaller. As a matter of fact, as it states in the legislation, the members would be known as senators--so maybe they should think that they're getting rid of us instead."

"I believe that this would hurt the values for which Maine has been built on," said Rep. Ken Fredette. The Newport Republican says that one of the drawbacks of Valentino's bill is that more pressure would be placed on the members of the new single body, resulting in additional costs for increased legislative staff to pick up the added workload.

"In creating a unicameral legislature, all we will do is require more staff and more costs and it will give more power to staff," Fredette said.

Rep. Douglas Damon, a Bangor Republican, says there are many attractive aspects of a unicameral legislature--but despite the advantages, he says the current system does provide important checks and balances.

"As a business person all my life, if I designed a business model I would not have two systems--I'd have one system all pulling," Damon said. "But somewhere there has to be pushback and having a two-house system does allow that, so for me I cannot support it at this time, although it is an idea that we must consider further, thank you."

Rep. Terry Hayes, a Buckfield Democrat, says a unicameral Legislature would be just as responsive and deliberative as the state's current system. She refuted arguments that the single body would somehow provide decreased representation to those in rural areas.

"Rural areas will continue to be represented, there won't be a change, they'll be a change in the title that those of us who would represent them may have," Hayes said. "But we would continue to have the ratio, roughly, of about one representative--one senator, in this case--to about 8,500 folks. And rural areas benefit from that representation here in this body and it's diminished at the other end of the hall."

The House initially approved Valentino's bill in a 78-66 vote, far short of the two-thirds needed for passage. The bill now faces what's likely to be an even less favorable reception in the Senate.