The bill was moving to enactment when Representatives Jeremy Fischer (D-Presque Isle) and Linda Valentino (D-Saco) joined the Republican opposition to defeat it. Fischer told MEA representatives that "I was not here when the cliff was created and it is not my responsibility to fix it."

LD 1693 in its original form, as crafted by MEA and the Maine State Employees Union, would have included teachers hired since July 1993 and narrowed the disparity, or cliff, between past retiree benefits and current benefits

"This is a slap in the face for teachers and state employees," concludes MEA President Chris Galgay. "The retirement cliff is bad public policy not only because it is unfair, but because it keeps teachers in the classroom longer than they want to be there. That is not good for students, for teachers, or for Maine."

The "Cliff Correction" bill garnered support from Maine Public Employees Retirement System Trustees and from Democrats on the Labor Committee. Early in the special session it was gaining momentum with majority support, largely along party lines with the Democratic caucus favoring and the Republican caucus opposed.

Unfortunately, Senator John Martin (D-Aroostook County) and Senator Joseph Brannigan (D-Cumberland County) broke ranks with their caucus and announced their opposition, saying that they were aware of what their votes had been in 1993 and they were standing by their earlier decisions to decrease retirement benefits.

Given their intransigence and the strong possibility of losing the entire bill, a compromise measure emerged that lowered the retirement penalty for only those teachers and state employees who had been employed before July 1, 1993 but did not have sufficient service (10 years) to be grandparented under the old benefit plan.

The rationale expressed was that an injustice had been done to those employed in 1993 because they had been hired with a promise of certain retirement benefits and then had the rug pulled out from underneath them.

Attached to the amended version of LD 1693 was a directive to study the feasibility of creating a uniform health insurance program for educators and state employees and to study the possibility of social security for new hires and a supplemental state retirement system benefit.

The less comprehensive and lower-cost compromise gained much-needed support from Senator Kevin Raye (R-Washington County), Senator Earle McCormick (R-Kennebec County), and Senator Walter Gooley (R-Franklin County) and gained majority votes in the Senate and House before being assigned to the Appropriation table for future financial consideration.

In the critical Appropriations Committee vote, those voting against were: Senator Karl Turner (R-Cumberland County) and Representatives Sawin Millet (R-Waterford), Patrick Flood (R-Winthrop), John Robinson (R-Raymond), Jane Crosby Giles (R-Belfast), Jeremy Fischer (D-Presque Isle), and Linda Valentino (D-Saco).

And, those voting in favor were: Senators Peggy Rotundo (D-Androscoggin County) and John Martin (D-Aroostook County) and Representatives Margret Craven (D-Lewiston), Janet Mills (D-Farmington), Emily Cain (D-Orono), and David Webster (D-Freeport).