Legislature returns to tackle veto of tribal rights bill

The Maine Legislature will reconvene Thursday for what lawmakers hope will be one of the final times this session to consider a bipartisan supplemental state budget of more than $800 million and Gov. Janet Mills’ veto of a tribal rights bill.

The action begins in the House, which will take up Mills’ veto of a bill from House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, that would give the Wabanaki tribes of Maine full access to federal tribal benefits that are not related to gambling, clean water or major crimes.

Tribal leaders who gathered Friday after Mills’ issued her long-expected veto blasted the governor for not giving them access to the same federal tools that every other federally recognized tribe has to achieve economic independence. They are holding out hope for an override.

The bill, L.D. 2004, won veto-proof majorities in both chambers on its way to Mills’ desk, but the 100-47 House vote indicates supporters will have to work hard to hold that uneasy bipartisan coalition together to sustain the two-thirds majority of those members present needed to override Mills’ veto.

The House leadership of both parties spent much of Wednesday on the phone, working their way through the roster of 151 members to urge tribal bill supporters to stand by their votes and to track possible absences. Attendance plays a role 10 days after the session is supposed to end.

“Trying to get through calls,” House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, said by text when asked what bills he expected to come up for a vote in the House on Thursday. “Very demanding work.”

In her veto letter Friday, Mills said the bill would upend a 43-year-old negotiated settlement and launch a new era of legal conflict between state and tribal governments. The tribes already get most federal benefits, she said – and any outstanding benefits should be negotiated one at a time.

Mills’ team has spent the weekend working behind the scenes trying to kill the bill.

They need 10 defections from one of two possible groups: Democrats who don’t want to cross their governor and Republicans irritated by the way Talbot Ross handled the abortion vote. If they get less than that, the vote will come down to who is absent.

The tribal bill isn’t the only legislative straggler of the session. There’s still the bipartisan state budget deal, a solar energy billing proposal, a possible ban on flavored tobacco sales, a bill to remove prostitution from the criminal code, and state procurement of offshore wind power, among other bills.

BUDGET VOTE ALSO IN THE MIX

Of these, the addition to the two-year state budget is by far the most consequential. Lawmakers finalized the predawn spending package of more than $800 million about a week ago in an 11-1 vote, with only Rep. Jack Ducharme, R-Madison, voting in opposition.

The strong bipartisan vote in the Legislature’s budget-writing committee suggests the deal could win the support of two-thirds of the full House and Senate during likely votes Thursday. The two-thirds threshold must be met for the budget to take effect immediately.

Mills already has indicated in an opinion column in the Portland Press Herald that she would support the budget.

The budget includes Democratic proposals like $25 million in start-up funds for mandatory paid family leave and $60 million to increase childcare worker pay and expand a family subsidy program. It also includes a Republican proposal to expand income tax relief for retirees.

Some bills will succumb to a variety of political causes, such as indefinite postponement or death between the houses, which is when the House and Senate can’t agree on what to do with the bills. Dozens of bills passed by both chambers will die because lawmakers refuse to fund them.

But some bills that legislators and lobbyists had long declared dead will be resurrected in last-minute horse-trading over other bills. Lawmakers say there are always a few bills that come out of nowhere at the end to win passage.