From staff and wire reports

AUGUSTA – Rare bipartisan unanimity on the part of Maine lawmakers has put the kibosh on legislators’ newly issued license plates.

The reason: They look too much like New Hampshire’s regular vehicle tags to some lawmakers’ eyes.

“I haven’t felt that strongly about them,” said Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, “but there are people who felt passionately about it.”

Scuttling the plates, a move announced by Maine’s motor vehicle chief, quietly ends a mini-uproar that developed after tags were issued in late 2004 in time for the current two-year legislative session.

Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said Maine is going back to the old design – solid red background for senators and bright blue for representatives – as of March 1. Lawmakers will pay one-time replacement fees of $2 to get their new plates.

The plates will replace short-lived versions that were light blue on top and green on the bottom, with an image of the State House dome on the side. Some legislators complained that the design was uncomfortably similar to New Hampshire’s, and questioned why they were changed.

Other lawmakers said they didn’t care whether they got special plates at all, let alone what their tags looked like, because there are too many serious issues to deal with. A few legislators just smiled.

“I am amused at the whole thing,” said Rep. Patrick Flood, R-Winthrop.

Dunlap, who was in the Legislature until last year, acknowledged the dissatisfaction with the plates in a letter to legislative leaders, saying “it is not distinctive and … it is difficult to differentiate the Legislative plate from standard-issue designs of other states.”

Assistant Senate Majority Leader Kenneth Gagnon, a Waterville Democrat who helped design the plates, said some people complained they looked too much like Connecticut’s light-blue tags, which include a lighthouse image.

Dunlap went further, saying Maine’s blue-and-green issues “are difficult to read at a distance, a difficulty exacerbated by normal soiling associated with winter driving. Given these and other difficulties, I have made the determination that the new design will be discontinued.”

Stressing that the legislative plate is not intended as a vanity plate, Dunlap said it is “an important portal for inviting citizen engagement with members of the Legislature as they travel around their districts and the entire state. The current design has not satisfied that function.”

Rotundo said she’s been too busy focusing on the state’s proposed $5.7 billion budget to get involved in the license plate fray. Still, she’s heard the talk about the plates in the State House hallways.

“It’s bipartisan,” she said of sentiment to return to the blue and red plates.

Staff writer Doug Fletcher contributed to this report.