AUGUSTA (AP) – Democrats got their way in committee but now must maintain party discipline in the full House of Representatives and Senate to enact their spending priorities into law.

Debate will begin in the House and Democratic leaders there scheduled caucus meetings for Tuesday evening and Wednesday noon.

With another day to prepare amendments, House lawmakers are expected to take up substantive debate on a two-year spending plan for state government on Thursday.

Democrats, with slim House and Senate majorities, hold enough votes to enact a bill themselves. But Republican opposition sufficient to deprive the majority party of two-thirds in the House and Senate ordinarily would mean an enacted measure could not take effect until 90 days after the end of the legislative session.

To avoid such a delay and ensure that new budget provisions are in place for the July 1 start of a new fiscal year, Democrats plan to pass budget legislation by April 1 or thereabouts and then technically adjourn the legislative session.

Adjournment would start the 90-day clock ticking. Meanwhile, the Legislature would be called back into a so-called special session to resume its chores.

Such a parliamentary maneuver, which Democrats have used before, would inevitably raise Republican ire. Democrats are willing to risk that, but need to keep their members in line to make the tactic work.

Toward that end, Senate Democrats held a caucus Tuesday.

Currently, the Democratic edge over Republicans in the House is 76-73. The House also has one Green member and one independent.

In the Senate, Democrats outnumber Republicans 19-16.

Urging that budget deliberations be extended, Republicans had proposed a continuing resolution to guarantee current levels of funding for state government. That idea was rejected by Democrats as unwarranted delay and the Democratic majority of the Appropriations Committee put the finishing touches on its plan over the weekend.

Democratic leaders maintain that the bulk of the final product had proven to be acceptable to Republicans as well as Democrats.

“We’re really only talking about 7 percent of this budget,” House Speaker John Richardson, D-Brunswick, told reporters Tuesday.

A major point of dispute remains a Wall Street borrowing pegged at up to $450 million in revenue bonds. If that item once fit Richardson’s description of mutually agreed upon provisions, it no longer seems to.

Republican Rep. Sawin Millett of Waterford, an Appropriations panelist, told reporters Tuesday there had been bipartisan support for some type of bonding plan “until it went astray.”