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Article snippet: AUGUSTA, Me. — Government workers marched outside the State House here chanting, “Do your job!” on Monday as Maine kept children’s caseworkers at home and shut down other offices deemed nonessential, and lawmakers worked on a deal late into the night. The governor signed a new budget at 1:03 a.m. on Tuesday, but not before residents saw state business temporarily upended. A standoff over a tax increase left Illinois teetering on the edge of a potentially devastating credit downgrade. And a deadlock over a raid on the funds of New Jersey’s largest health insurer kept the state’s parks and beaches closed for a third straight day, though lawmakers reached a settlement late Monday. Stalled negotiations have left at least eight states without budgets several days into a new fiscal year. But the effects have been felt most starkly in three of them, where outspoken Republican governors clashed with Democratic-controlled legislative chambers. If those three impasses highlighted the perils of divided state government, which has grown increasingly rare in an era of single-party rule, they also underscored the limits of the Republican Party’s ascendancy on the state level. The governors share more than a party label: They are, to a man, proud provocateurs who have tried to enact conservative policies in blue states through badgering and political intimidation. Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Paul R. LePage of Maine have routinely tried to humiliate and overwhelm thei... Link to the full article to read more