A bill that would amend the school consolidation law to allow for school unions and empowered local school committees has stalled in the House after legislators gave it less than the two-thirds vote needed on Tuesday.

That's bad news for proponents because it not only means the bill has to go through another series of votes in the House and Senate, but also that it may not have the backing needed, at least as of Tuesday, to override the governor's expected veto.

The two-thirds vote is required on the bill as written because it includes an emergency preamble that would allow it go into effect immediately upon passage. If that preamble is stripped off, a simple majority can enact the proposal.

Last week both the House and Senate gave the bill two-thirds support, but the vote Tuesday in the House was 97 to 45, with nine members absent. The bill as written needed 101 votes. The bill was tabled in the House after the vote was taken.

The proposal is being championed in the House by Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, D-North Haven, whose constituents on Mount Desert Island have a school union they want to preserve. There are more than 120 communities statewide that currently belong to unions.

The governor is expected to veto the bill because it would create more school districts than the 80 required in the state's new school consolidation law and cedes budget power to local school committees. That would make it more difficult to achieve efficiencies and cost savings, the administration argues.