Legislators in the Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety have advanced a proposal Wednesday to absorb the Capitol Police into the Maine State Police over the coming years.

The bill, LD 2165, would bring the Capitol Police’s 17 officers under the Maine State Police by attrition — Capitol Police officers who resign or retire would be replaced by State Police troopers. A State Police lieutenant would be tapped as the permanent head of the Capitol Police, which currently operates as a separate law enforcement agency that provides security to the Maine State House and the Capitol Complex.

Legislators reported the bill ought to pass, 7-5, along party lines.

The bill, sponsored by House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, and originated by Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuk, faced opposition from Republican legislators who said the proposal would create inefficiencies in Capitol Police operations.

Sauschuk said the bill came about after conversations with Capitol Police officers shortly after the former chief, Matthew Clancy, resigned in October. Clancy was placed on leave after being arrested and accused of assaulting an officer while inebriated at a bar in Hallowell. Clancy is facing a criminal charge of assault.

Currently, the department is led by Maine State Police Lt. Greg Roy.

The most “elegant and simple solution,” Rep. Donald Ardell, R-Monticello, said, would be to simply hire a new police chief rather than to absorb the entire department.

“I am unconvinced of the need to create any changes, large or small,” Ardell said.

Maine State Law Enforcement Agency Executive Director Kevin Anderson led the opposition to the bill on behalf of the Capitol Police officers represented by the union in a public hearing earlier this month. In testimony submitted to the committee, Anderson said the pay disparities between legacy Capitol Police officers and new State Police troopers would be unacceptable.

The troopers would be paid at the existing State Police rate, which is $12 to $15 more than Capitol Police, Anderson wrote.

“During impact bargaining held with the Department of Public Safety it was revealed that Troopers assigned to the Capitol Police role will wear the State Trooper uniform and Capitol Police Officers will wear the current uniform,” Anderson wrote in his testimony. “Currently the Department had not agreed to address the huge pay parity issue this bill will create if it is enacted and begins to be implemented.”

Sauschuk said his primary rationale for advocating the change was operational efficiency. Allowing State Police to lead the department and implement its own protocols would create more cohesion between units, he said, especially as effective protection for legislators has become more front-of-mind.

Maine lawmakers have seen a marked uptick in violent threats made against them in recent years. The Capitol Complex has been locked down for a number of bomb threats in the same time period.

“For us, in order to immediately access resources that may be available with the State Police, I thought that it made more sense to consolidate those two units,” Sauschuk told lawmakers Wednesday. “If we have resource allocation, we have operational efficiencies and then we have crisis response — those are the three headers I think we can do a better job at with a larger unit, plugging the Capitol Police in with the Maine State Police.”

Sauschuk said the Capitol Police troop, as it would be referred to, would operate with the same training, reporting software, body cameras and dispatch systems as the State Police, streamlining operations.

For each new State Police trooper hired in place of a resigning or retiring Capitol Police officer, the position would need to be re-classified under the bill, a move that requires legislative approval and an adjustment in pay and benefits.

State Police troopers stationed at the Capitol would still have duties elsewhere, Sauschuk said, but the department maintains minimum staffing levels at important locations to ensure safety, even in mass-response situations.

The bill heads to the Senate or House floor next.