Jim Fossel: Legislative session could have been worse

The good news is that the Legislature has adjourned, and for once, it (technically) did so on time.

Absent future surprises, legislators won’t even be coming back for a special session to finish their work as they have in prior years. That’s not thanks to any sudden new display of competence from the Democratic leaders running the show – they were their usual inefficient selves. Instead, it was due to a surprising instance from Gov. Janet Mills that the Legislature actually finish its work on time for a change, a blessed departure from the recent norm. Hopefully, leadership takes the hint and continues to actually do its job on time in the future – or at least, relatively on time.

While it at least adjourned on time, the Legislature did not exactly complete its work in proper fashion. It still took until past dawn of the day after adjournment to finally finish, after hours of sitting around doing nothing the day before while the majority party figured out what it was going to do. As usual, it also wasted weeks, months and days in the session when it could have been considering controversial legislation – including the supplemental budget – earlier. Think, for a moment, if you were the head of a private company and you saw one of your employees behaving that way. You’d probably reprimand them, if not fire them. For the Legislature, though, this is business as usual. It would be nice if we had responsible leadership that reined in this sort of behavior. That’s probably wishful thinking.

The bad news is that adjourning on time was pretty much the only positive accomplishment of the Legislature this session.

Well, that, and that it could have done much, much more damage to the state of Maine than it did. First, let’s take a look at some good news: Two bills that I recently expressed concern about (on digital privacy and affordable housing projects) didn’t make it across the finish line; another that I opposed was turned into a study. The bills to create a statewide affordable housing board and establish sweeping new digital privacy rights were both killed. Another, a backdoor attempt to curtail the expansion of natural gas, was turned into a study. While that’s not quite as transparent as rejecting a measure outright, I’ll still take it as a win. Those are three solid victories, even if the Legislature did eventually approve corporate welfare for the Portland Sea Dogs.

Unfortunately, the Legislature was unable to come to a bipartisan consensus about the response to last fall’s mass shooting in Lewiston. It could have worked together to craft a focused response focused on expanding mental health services and perhaps strengthening Maine’s yellow flag law. That could have included a measure to make sure local police departments were fully aware of how it worked and incentivize them to actually use the statute. Indeed, one of the discoveries of the investigative commission was that both local and federal authorities failed to do their job to enforce current laws. If they had simply done their duty, the tragedy may well have been entirely avoided.

Rather than taking that route, Democrats in Augusta rammed through new laws to restrict Second Amendment rights. They passed an expanded background check system and a 72-hour waiting period, though they bizarrely failed to enact a red flag law that should have been less controversial and more effective than those measures. Somehow, the majority managed to alienate both gun rights supporters and gun control advocates simultaneously. It’s nice to think that Gov. Mills will veto one or both of these bills, but it seems unlikely. Instead, we’re probably heading towards a people’s veto campaign, as I predicted – at least, if gun rights supporters can get the signatures. Given that Mainers have rejected similar efforts in the past, it’s right and proper that these measures at least be presented to the people for a vote.

While the Legislature could have been much more effectively and transparently run, things may actually be trending in a slightly better direction, especially if they curtail concept drafts. That’s not nearly good enough, but it’s heartening to see, and I’m willing to take anything positive out of this session. Overall, while the Legislature passed a lot of unnecessary, bad legislation, they could have done much more damage. That’s hardly worthy of celebration, but it’s at least worthy of recognition. Now let’s hope Gov. Mills vetoes at least a few of the ill-considered bills sitting on her desk.

Jim Fossel, a conservative activist from Gardiner, worked for Sen. Susan Collins. He can be contacted at:
jwfossel@gmail.com
Twitter: @jimfossel