In a rebuke of lawmakers, Mills says she will not sign bills enacted on ‘veto day’

Gov. Janet Mills gives State of the State address at the Maine State House in Augusta. (Jim Neuger/Maine Morning Star)

Gov. Janet Mills will not be signing any of the 35 bills lawmakers sent to her desk late last week.

That means legislation to establish a unit to enforce violations of the Maine Civil Rights Act, expand health insurance options for childcare providers, increase the state’s clean elections program, and formalize the renaming of places through a designated state board, among others, will not become law. 

In a letter dated Tuesday, the governor said she had two primary objections with signing the bills. First, she reiterated her concerns about the state’s fiscal standing, citing “flattening revenues and the need to sustain the existing commitments we have made to important programs.”

The additional spending in the enacted bills, she said, “would cost more money in future years that we would have to square against existing programs.” She argued such spending “is a discussion better had in the context of the forthcoming biennial budget,” which will be negotiated next spring.

Further, Mills said she has a fundamental objection to the Legislature enacting dozens of additional bills after its adjournment deadline. She argued that if the Legislature wants to extend the session, they either need to “amend the adjournment statute, which would require emergency legislation approved by two-thirds of each body,” or comply with options presented within the statute, for example getting two-thirds of the body to support a five-day extension.

“In this case, the Legislature complied with neither of those two options,” she wrote. “In my judgment, the constitution cannot be interpreted to permit the Legislature to ignore its constitutionally required adjournment statute by a simple majority vote. Otherwise, the constitution’s requirement to establish an adjournment deadline in statute would be meaningless, and the statutory adjournment deadline would have no practical effect.”

She went on to say, “Operating in this way leaves me gravely concerned because it is an erosion of important norms that are central to the conduct of public business and the creation of public policy.”

Mills argued that signing the bills — “no matter how much I may see value in some of them” — would create a precedent for future legislatures to do the same.

“Constitutional norms, no matter how inconvenient and even when they may be an impediment to achieving good policy aims, nonetheless provide important institutional safeguards,” Mills added, concluding with a commitment to examine the issues that these bills attempt to address during the next legislative session.

Legislators respond

However, some lawmakers and legislative staff argue there is precedent to taking action on bills after the adjournment deadline. 

Secretary of the Senate Darek Grant told Maine Morning Star that the last Legislature, the 130th, did other business aside from vetoes after statutory adjournment. 

“There was no official extension order,” Grant said, “but there was no objection by members to take up the matters.”

Grant told lawmakers Tuesday that, in contrast, the governor’s recent actions could set a new precedent. 

In a letter addressed to the 131st Legislature, Grant wrote that when his office delivered bills enacted by the Senate to the governor on Friday, the Office of the Governor refused to accept them. 

“When I learned that the presentation of the enacted members had not been accepted, I made a second attempt to present the bills to the Governor’s Office and was also refused — a first in my tenure as Secretary of the Senate,” Grant wrote. 

When it appeared the Legislature would adjourn for the year later that night, Grant wrote, “I received a text message indicating that the Governor’s Office would now accept the presentment of the enacted bills.”

The Maine Constitution does not allow the governor to reject bills that have been duly enacted from being presented. 

“A terrible precedent could be set if the Legislature allowed the Executive to reject the presentment of enacted legislation,” Grant wrote. 

A spokesperson for House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland) said the letters from Grant and the governor “confirm that the only responsible option for the House on Friday was to adjourn sine die.”

However, the spokesperson said “the Speaker is deeply disappointed these remaining initiatives, comprising years of good work, will not be signed by the governor.”

In a joint statement, Senate President Troy Jackson (D-Aroostook), Majority Leader Eloise Vitelli (D-Sagadahoc) and Assistant Majority Leader Mattie Daughtry (D-Cumberland) similarly expressed their deep disappointment in the governor’s decision. 

“Each of these initiatives — from legislation to establish a rape kit tracking program to measures to improve child welfare — underwent a public hearing, thoughtful deliberation in committee, rigorous debate on the floor of the House and Senate, and were recommended for funding by the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee,” the Senate leaders wrote. “These bills deserved the same thoughtful consideration by the governor based on their merits.”

The senators wrote that the governor is within her right to not allow these bills to become law, however, “to cast aspersions on the Legislature or claim that the Legislature acted inappropriately is not only wrong but not for the Chief Executive to determine.”

Many bipartisan bills ultimately failed to become law, which House Republican Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) said should and could have been passed before statutory adjournment in April. 

“Democrats wasted precious time in the Appropriations Committee trying to rob the highway fund, the liquor fund, stiff dairy farmers, cut rural state trooper patrols, and raid retirees pensions, instead of using that time to run many good bipartisan bills off the table,” Faulkingham said. The Democratic majority of the committee initially reversed ongoing highway fund revenue, pension changes and assistance for dairy farmers, but walked back the decisions days before statutory adjournment after much objection. 

Sen. Rick Bennett (R-Oxford) said there were many bills that he and much of his caucus felt should have become law, including several he voted to allow the possibility to enact just ahead of Friday, such as making megayachts subject to impact fees and requiring MaineCare reimbursement for treatment for emotional dysregulation disorders.

“Many of the bills that were passed had negligible, if any, fiscal impact,” Bennett said, “and it was, I thought, a shame that [Mills] took a kind of carte blanche approach to vetoing.”

Bennett said there are mixed views in the Senate GOP caucus about the appropriateness of the governor’s action. “That’s not to say that passing slews of bills on ‘veto day’ is a good precedent, but she seemed to me to be interfering a bit in legislative prerogative,” Bennett added.

Among the 35 bills that will die without the governor’s signature are several education-related measures that Education Committee co-chair Rep. Michael Brennan (D-Portland) told Maine Morning Star that he plans to make a reality through other means. 

For example, one would have had the Department of Education issue a yearly report outlining the demographic profile of public school students. It did not have a fiscal note as the plan was for the department to absorb any related costs. 

“I’ll be asking them to do that,” Brennan said, “but it’ll be voluntary as opposed to any statute telling him to do it.” 

A bill that proposed a pilot of Wabanaki-centered curriculum in non-Native high schools will also die without the governor’s signature. “There may be private money or foundation in Maine that might want to fund that as a pilot project,” Brennan suggested as another possibility. 

An advisory council to ensure Wabanaki and African American studies requirements are effectively taught in schools will also not become law. 

“We are disappointed that our hard work on the Wabanaki Studies law and other tribal matters came up short,” Penobscot Nation Tribal Ambassador Maulian Bryant told Maine Morning Star. “However we will look ahead to the next Legislature and we are happy with the progress that was made in the 131st.”

Advocates for other issues also said they are now looking to the next session to advance measures that the governor declined to sign. For one, the progressive Maine Center for Economic Policy had supported bills to establish a civil rights unit, require hospitals to provide free care and increase the consideration of demographic data in the legislative process, which policy analyst James Myall hopes to work on again next session. 

“It does always set things back when you have to revisit an issue in the next legislature,” Myall said. “Even if some folks are returning, some people need to get up to speed. It’s never quite as simple as picking up where you left off.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include reactions from legislators and legislative staff.

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