Chamber of the House of Representatives in the Maine State House in Augusta. Sept. 5, 2023. | Jim Neuger, Maine Morning Star
The new year will bring state lawmakers back to Augusta for the first part of the 132nd session of the Maine Legislature, which many hope will be more transparent and efficient.
By January 10, 35 members of the Maine Senate and 151 members of the House of Representatives will have to file their bills, a deadline which is known as cloture. Most legislation is filed at the beginning of the first regular session, also called the “long session,” as it runs into June (whereas the “short session” ends in April).
Legislative leadership has said that they’re hoping to make changes to encourage more fully written bills and fewer vague placeholders submitted by the cloture date. A placeholder bill or concept draft contains a summary of what the sponsor intends to accomplish — sometimes as vague as “An Act Regarding Health Care in the State” — but may not include any proposal language.
For the first time since 2018, the rules committee met this summer to discuss procedural changes, including banning concept drafts, changes to the legislative calendar, refraining from late night votes and making more information available online. However, the rules committee can only make recommendations that the full Legislature has to then adopt, which the newly appointed Senate president, Mattie Daughtry, told the Maine Morning Star will be done before the third Friday in January.
So far, these reforms appear to have bipartisan support within the Maine Legislature, with the use of concept drafts in particular garnering sharp criticism on both sides of the aisle.
Several big policy issues that were discussed in previous sessions and likely to come up again include tribal sovereignty, tax reform, data privacy, child welfare, contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (known as PFAS), and farmworker rights, among others.
The path of legislation
Ideas for bills can come from legislators, committees, lobbyists, public interest groups, municipal officials, the governor, state agencies or citizens, according to the Maine Legislature website.
During the first regular session, there are no limitations on the bills that legislators can submit by cloture, unlike the second session. But most bills that are introduced eventually die, either through the voting process or due to lack of funding from the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee, which crafts the state budget.
After a legislator decides to sponsor a bill, they can ask others in either chamber to cosponsor. Having many cosponsors will typically help the bill’s chances of passing. Before a bill is introduced, the revisor of statutes reviews each proposal, and either drafts as is or edits initial drafts. At this point the legislation is assigned a “legislative draft,” or LD number.
The sponsor and all cosponsors must then sign the bill and submit it to the clerk of the Maine House or secretary of the Senate, depending on which chamber the sponsor of the bill serves in.
A committee recommendation is then made based on the subject matter of the bill, and committees conduct public hearings to hear testimony for or against the proposal.
After hearing from sponsors and the public, the committee may workshop a bill before voting whether to recommend its passage to the full Legislature. These recommendations can be unanimous or divided, in which case the committee will submit two separate reports. Committees can suggest that the bill ought to pass as drafted or amended, ought not to pass, or refer it to another committee.
The bill then goes through multiple votes, beginning in the chamber where the sponsor serves. Each bill goes through a first and second reading, during which legislators can vote on the bill or suggest amendments.
Any legislator who opposes a bill can make a motion for “indefinite postponement.” If the motion is approved by majority vote in both chambers, the bill is defeated.
But if legislation succeeds in one chamber, it is sent to the other one for consideration. If the second chamber amends the bill language, it has to be sent back to the original one for approval. To receive overall legislative approval, identical versions of the bill have to pass both chambers.
If passed legislation requires any amount of funding beyond what is explicitly included in the state budget, they can land on what is called the “appropriations table,” because they need to be paid for using unappropriated money.
During the last session, the appropriations committee, which oversees the table, funded only 10% of the at least 250 bills that landed on the table before the Legislature’s deadline to conclude work.
However, even if a bill is passed by the Legislature and funded by the appropriations committee, the governor can veto it. A vetoed bill can still become law if the Legislature overrides the veto by a two-thirds vote in both chambers, but this hasn’t happened during Gov. Janet Mills’ tenure.
Budget
Each legislative session, which in Maine is a two-year cycle, lawmakers are tasked with passing a biennial budget in the first year and a supplemental budget in the second year to adjust for changes in revenue or priorities.
Maine is expected to see an overall revenue shortfall in the coming years, and Mills has already vowed a lean budget as a result.
Less than 10% of bills on the Legislature’s 2024 ‘appropriations table’ became law
The governor is the first to craft each budget plan, which she submits to lawmakers, specifically the appropriations committee. This plan outlines all proposed expenditures for the state government as well as anticipated revenues.
The appropriations committee holds public hearings, in which it hears from the public and advocates as well as the Legislature’s other committees, before it puts forth a budget bill to be considered by the full Legislature.
Under the Maine Constitution, the budget must be balanced. The governor is required to propose a balanced budget and then the Legislature bears the responsibility of enacting a budget bill that — in conjunction with all other spending bills — produces a balanced budget each fiscal year.
Like other bills, the budget bill can either pass as an emergency measure, which requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers and would result in the bill taking effect immediately upon being approved by the governor, or as a non-emergency measure, which only requires a majority vote in both chambers and would result in the bill taking effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns.
Last session, the Legislature’s Democratic majority passed both biennial and supplemental budgets as non-emergency measures with majority votes, meaning without Republican support.
While the appropriations committee oversees the general fund budget, the transportation committee oversees the highway fund budget. The governor proposes her own separate highway fund budget, which the transportation committee gets public input on before putting forth its own bill to be considered by the full Legislature.
The unsustainability of the highway fund has been a persistent challenge for decades, leading to a routine earmarking of transfers from the general fund. During the second year of the last session, the Democratic majority on the appropriations committee tried to combine the general and highway funds.
The Democratic majority also attempted to reverse ongoing highway revenue that Republicans championed during the first year of the session. When the Legislature’s Democratic leadership opted to pass a baseline biennial budget in the first year without Republican support to avoid a government-wide shutdown, agencies that rely on the highway fund were still at risk of shutdown since it is separate from the continuing services budget.
After outcry from the governor, Republicans and some Democrats, the committee walked both of those attempts back.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.