We probably wouldn’t want to brag about it, but Maine pioneered the modern government shutdown. It was the Republican minority in the Legislature that decided in 1991, shortly after John McKernan had been narrowly re-elected, that it should shut down state government as a means to win budget concessions and force reductions in workers compensation benefits.

They convinced McKernan, a moderate Republican who should have known better, to back their move and, even though the budget was completed and ready for a vote, the shutdown occurred on July 1.

It continued on and off for weeks, until Republicans finally got a workers comp bill to their liking. But it didn’t work.

An actuarial study showed the costs of the “reformed” system were just as high. It wasn’t until the next year, when the Legislature created a Blue Ribbon commission whose recommendations had to be accepted or rejected as a package that we finally got somewhere.

And a key element of the reformed system was a new, nonprofit insurance company, Maine Employer’s Mutual, or MEMIC, that Republicans opposed and Democratic House leader Libby Mitchell had championed.

That bit of history has been largely forgotten or misremembered, but it’s important because it’s also been forgotten in Washington: Shutdowns don’t work. And they tarnish the reputations of everyone involved.

McKernan left office with record-low poll ratings. Republicans made no gains in the next election, although they did briefly control the Senate after 1994, the Newt Gingrich sweep that echoed across the nation.

Ah, Newt Gingrich. Flush with his success and the “Contract with America,” Gingrich decided it would be a great idea to shut down the federal government to further his aims.

The federal shutdown worked about as well as Maine’s. Democrat Bill Clinton was re-elected overwhelmingly and, after the 1998 mid-term elections, Gingrich was forced to resign.

The only lasting legacy of the state and federal shutdowns is that people think about them more often. And if they’re thinkable, they can happen again.

Maine would have had a shutdown this year had not enough Republicans joined to override the governor’s budget veto. The Washington shutdown occurred because Speaker John Boehner wasn’t willing to make the same decision his Maine counterpart, Minority Leader Ken Fredette, did in opposing a governor of his own party.

Boehner decided not to allow a budget vote, unlike the earlier “fiscal cliff” law that raised taxes on the wealthy, and Washington closed up shop again.

No one knows how it will end, except that Republicans – as the sole initiators – will get much of the blame. That only stands to reason. If you’re the ones always trying to shut down the government, while the public overwhelmingly opposes shutdowns, you won’t come out ahead.

At least when Gingrich did it, consequences of a national shutdown were largely unknown. Maine’s experience hardly registered – though it was prophetic – and Gingrich was riding a short-lived wave of popularity.

That can hardly be said of Boehner. His party was trounced in the 2012 presidential election – and lost the popular vote in five of the last six. House Republicans even lost the 2012 popular vote, surviving only because of gerrymandered districts. It’s hard to envision any scenario where the shutdown improves GOP prospects.

The shutdown has featured a flurry of attempts by Republicans to employ “leverage” to further goals that they can’t gain through the democratic process. In that category, one can place Gov. Paul LePage’s sudden decision Wednesday to declare a civil emergency.

Governors do take on emergency powers at times, for specific reasons. Gov. John Baldacci took such a step to deal with a flu epidemic in 2009, and several governors suspended work-hour rules to allow fuel oil deliveries during natural disasters. McKernan, notably, assumed such powers when 10,000 state workers were off the job.

But LePage faces no such pressures, and provided no reason for his proclamation. True, if the federal shutdown continues past the Oct. 17, debt-ceiling trigger – highly unlikely – the state might start feeling the pinch.

But when LePage acted to briefly furlough 56 workers at a disability claims center in Winthrop, he didn’t have to. As the division director put it, “The federal government has agreed to fund us once appropriations are in place” — that is, when the federal shutdown ends, everyone will be paid.

LePage is already issuing layoff notices that aren’t required, so his stated concern for state workers being able to collect unemployment is unconvincing.

It will probably get still more tangled before it’s over. Once again, no one will come out looking good, but the authors of the shutdown will pay the biggest price.

Douglas Rooks is a former daily and weekly newspaper editor who has covered the State House for 28 years. He can be reached at [email protected].