Governor Paul LePage veto record

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Maine Governor Paul LePage (R) had vetoed more than 450 bills as of May 2016 since assuming office in 2011 in a long-standing dispute with Democrats in the legislature.[1][2]

HIGHLIGHTS
  • Republican LePage threatened to block all bills from Democrats unless they allowed citizens to vote on ending the state income tax.
  • Page vetoed a record 187 bills during his first year in office.
  • In a misunderstanding of the Maine Constitution, LePage failed to pocket veto 65 bills that became law without his signature.

    • Overview

    The relationship between LePage and the Maine State Legislature was contentious from the beginning.[3] The governor blamed the discord on Democratic legislators for causing gridlock and on the news media for presenting "false information."[4][5] The Bangor Daily News, the Press Herald and others reported that LePage managed to unite both Democrats and Republicans against him.[6][7][8]

    Under Maine law, if the legislature is still in session and the governor does not sign or veto a bill within ten days, it automatically becomes law. If the legislature has adjourned for the year, the unsigned bill does not become law. This is called a pocket veto.[9] LePage tried but failed to use the pocket veto on 65 bills in 2015.

    Veto history

    2011 to 2012

    In the first session of the state's 126th legislature, Republicans controlled both the Maine State House and the State Senate. LePage vetoed a record-breaking 187 bills.[10] He signed a statement with each veto of legislation sponsored by Democrats:

    “ As promised, I am vetoing all bills sponsored by Democrats because they have stifled the voice of Maine citizens by preventing them from voting on the elimination of the income tax.[11][12] ”

    2012 to 2013

    After Maine Democrats became the legislative majority in November 2012, LePage vetoed 83 bills during the session that ran from December 5, 2012, through July 10, 2013. Five were overridden, including a substantial energy bill and the state budget.[13]

    However, the legislature failed to override many other vetoed bills, including laws gradually increasing the minimum wage, requiring police to obtain warrants before using surveillance drone aircraft, making changes to health insurance laws, increasing penalties and ownership restrictions for those who commit animal cruelty, and increasing fees on snowmobiles to pay for the maintenance of trails.[13][14]

    The legislature did successfully override vetoes of two of the dozens of bills they considered during a marathon meeting on July 9. The first required police to obtain a warrant from a judge before accessing information about an individual's location using cellular phone records or other GPS devices from a company and notifying the individual within three days of accessing the information that their records were examined. This new law made Maine the second state, after Montana, to enact a cellular phone privacy bill. The second bill passed by the legislature over LePage's veto gave funding to the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Council (STEM), a group established to help high school and college students pursue math, science and technical careers.[15][16]

    Gov. LePage news conference, May 29, 2015

    2015 pocket veto failure

    In May 2015, LePage again stated he would veto every bill sponsored by Democrats unless they allowed a vote on eliminating the state income tax.[17] On July 16, he attempted to block 65 Democratically sponsored bills using the pocket veto procedure; however, a bipartisan group of legislators argued that the veto was invalid.[18]

    On August 6, 2015, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court decided against LePage.[19] Agreed upon by all six participating justices (the seventh having recused himself), the court ruled that LePage had overlooked a key aspect of the pocket veto procedure when he let the 65 bills pass without realizing it. In order for the bills to expire automatically after ten days absent a governor's veto or signature, the legislature must be adjourned as well as not in session. The inverse is true whenever the legislature is still in session: A bill passes automatically if the governor fails to return a veto within the ten-day period, as LePage did. LePage's lawyers contended that because the legislature was temporarily adjourned, the governor was unable to deliver his vetoes within the allotted timeframe.[20]

    The measures LePage accidentally facilitated into becoming law included a proposal to outlaw the opioid acetyl fentanyl and another to increase access to naloxone—a drug that can be obtained under special circumstances to prevent fatal overdoses, which LePage opposed for enabling existing drug addicts.[21] LePage explained in his veto message to the legislature:

    “ In the last year, I have been informed about drug addicts getting multiple naloxone treatments in the span of a week. ... Clearly, the lack of consequences for serious drug use is having the opposite effect from what is advertised.[21][12] ”

    LePage's consistent push to add more officers to the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency (MDEA) made his opposition to some of the anti-drug laws difficult for some lawmakers, such as Sen. David Burns (R), a former state trooper who sponsored the acetyl fentanyl ban on behalf of the MDEA, to grasp. LePage said in his veto message that he was "concerned we are tinkering with our laws that deal with illegal drugs while more and more of our citizens are being destroyed because we do not have the appropriate resources to enforce the laws on the books."[22]

    Another of the 65 bills that passed despite the governor's attempted pocket veto was legislation allowing state aid for immigrant asylum-seekers to settle in Maine. LePage strongly opposed assisting refugees.[23]

    See also: U.S. governors and their responses to Syrian refugees

    Recent news

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    Governor Paul LePage veto record - Google News

    See also

    External links

    Footnotes

    1. ↑ Maine Legislative Information, "Maine Legislature Bill Tracking & Text Search," accessed December 7, 2015
    2. ↑ Governing, "Paul LePage: The Governor at War With Both Political Parties," accessed December 1, 2015
    3. ↑ Press Herald, "Maine Governor Paul LePage: The (unlikely) uniter," August 13, 2015
    4. ↑ Press Herald, "LePage uses phone campaign to address controversy over Social Security and welfare," July 2, 2014
    5. ↑ Portland Press Herald, "LePage touts accomplishments in Portland, blames Democrats for gridlock," May 13, 2014
    6. ↑ Governing, "Paul LePage: The Governor at War With Both Political Parties," accessed November 3, 2015
    7. ↑ The Boston Globe, "Maine Governor Paul LePage: The (unlikely) uniter," August 13, 2015
    8. ↑ Bangor Daily News, "Top lawmakers from both parties to fight LePage at Law Court," July 21, 2015
    9. ↑ Maine State Legislature, "Maine's Path of Legislation," accessed December 4, 2015
    10. ↑ Bangor Daily News, "LePage vetoes five bills passed last year, lets another 11 go into law," January 10, 2014
    11. ↑ Bangor Daily News, "LePage nears Maine record for overridden vetoes," June 11, 2015
    12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
    13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 The Portland Press Herald, "Override bids leave most LePage vetoes standing," July 10, 2013
    14. ↑ MPBN, "Maine Lawmakers Fail to Override Most of Governor's Vetoes," July 9, 2013
    15. ↑ Bangor Daily News, "LePage wins most ‘veto rampage’ votes, but loses on cellphone privacy, STEM bills," July 10, 2013
    16. ↑ WMTW, "Democrats, governor battle over last-minute vetoes," July 9, 2013
    17. ↑ Bangor Daily News, "LePage: I’ll veto every Democratic bill until Legislature agrees to kill income tax," May 30, 2015
    18. ↑ Portland Press Herald, "Maine’s highest court: LePage’s vetoes came too late, so 65 laws stand," August 7, 2015
    19. ↑ Maine Courts, "2015 ME 107 Opinion of the Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court: Given Under the Provisions of Ariticle VI, Section 3 of the Maine Constitution," accessed August 19, 2015
    20. ↑ MSNBC, "Maine court smacks down GOP governor," August 8, 2015
    21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Portland Press Herald, "Anti-drug bills that Maine governor sought to veto will remain law," August 6, 2015
    22. ↑ Portland Press Herald, "Anti-drug bills that Maine governor sought to veto will remain law," August 6, 2015
    23. ↑ Beacon, "Gov. LePage’s epic Constitutional error means aid for asylum seekers will become law," July 7, 2015


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