Recent headlines trumpeted Republican Paul LePage’s entry into the 2022 governor’s race against incumbent Democrat Janet Mills. If both candidates stay in – and Mills surely isn’t going anywhere – the outline of the results aren’t difficult to discern. 

LePage, who benefited from multi-candidate fields in plurality contests in 2010 and 2014, never won a majority of the vote. 

Mills won a seven-way Democratic primary in 2018 using ranked-choice voting, and in November defeated her Republican opponent and two also-rans with an outright majority. She was the first governor to win one since Joe Brennan was re-elected in 1982 – and the first to win a first-term majority since Ken Curtis in 1966. 

Ranked-choice voting doesn’t apply to November elections for governor, so this could be one-on-one. Democrats learned their lesson, and an Eliot Cutler-like candidate won’t be on the ballot. 

As governor, LePage spent the last six years of his tenure preventing Maine from accepting federal funds to expand Medicaid, even defying a 2017 voter-enacted law requiring it. 

Mills immediately set to work implementing the expansion; when the pandemic arrived, Maine was ready, and tens of thousands of Mainers were insured as a result, at modest cost to the state. Voters would have a clear choice. 

The more interesting, and potentially significant, story involves the vetoes issued by Mills of numerous bills passed by fellow Democrats in the Legislature. 

LePage made a farce of his veto pen, rejecting 642 bills – far more than the previous 22 governors combined, going back to 1917. 

But as of June 30, Mills had already vetoed 26 bills, including 16 in the current session – a sharp contrast with her pre-LePage predecessors. And since lawmakers sent dozens more bills her way during the two days before adjournment, more vetoes are certain.  

Brennan, who served four years with a Republican Senate, vetoed two dozen bills over eight years. Angus King vetoed 50, but he was a governor-without-a-party, and conflict was to be expected. 

John Baldacci, the most recent Democratic governor who served entirely with a Democratic Legislature, vetoed just eight bills. 

The difference between Mills and Baldacci results from the current upheaval within the Democratic Party. When Baldacci served, legislative leaders were of the same moderate stripe. 

With Mills, the party is much more progressive. Nationally, President Biden has moved well to the left on issues going back to his Senate days; so far, Mills hasn’t budged. 

She faces a rank-and-file that’s younger, and far more liberal, than their own predecessors. Second-termers such as Sen. Chloe Maxmin (D-Nobleboro), Rep. Nicole Grohoski (D-Ellsworth), and Rep. Genevieve McDonald (D-Stonington) – all elected from previously Republican districts – are already influential. 

Much of the conflict between Mills and the Legislature involves criminal justice reform measures, a movement still gaining steam all over the country. Mills, a former prosecutor and Attorney General, resists change. 

Her most high-profile veto, of a bid to close the Long Creek youth prison in South Portland, was mitigated by an agreement within the supplemental budget that should lead to the same result, eventually. 

But even gradualist measures often earned vetoes; some of Mills’s carefully-crafted veto messages suggest that, had the administration been willing to work with committees, a better outcome was possible.  

To be sure, some bills were sent knowing a veto would result. Democrats’ attempts to pile onto the anti-Central Maine Power bandwagon have, and will, prompt vetoes over both the Hydro Quebec power line and the proposed Pine Tree Power Co. 

Partly in that category is Mills’s veto, already sustained, of a measure to allow Maine tribes to open casinos – something tribes in the 49 other states can already do. One of Baldacci’s eight vetoes came over a similar measure.

The tribal legislation, however, is a curtain-raiser for what’s sure to be one of the Legislature’s fiercest debates next year. A carryover bill aims to implement sweeping recommendations from a 2019 legislative task force, covering not just gambling, but a host of legal, environmental and sovereignty issues. 

This year’s casino bill was a shot across the bow, a suggestion that the governor reconsider previous opposition. 

A little-noticed, but striking campaign event during the 2018 primary was the gathering of all the Democratic candidates – except Mills – on Indian Island, the Penobscot tribe’s reservation. The show of solidarity was impressive, and recognition of tribal rights has since become an important part of the Democratic legislative agenda. 

Mills needs enthusiastic, not tepid support from her party to win re-election. Past governors have often negotiated their differences with lawmakers behind the scenes, and reached agreement long before vetoes entered the picture. 

It may be time to stop battling, and start talking. 

Douglas Rooks has been a Maine editor, commentator, reporter and author since 1984. His new book is “First Franco: Albert Beliveau in Law, Politics and Love.” He welcomes comment at drooks@tds.net 

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