AUGUSTA, Maine - Tensions are mounting at the State House, where the LePage administration is doubling down on its demand for Democratic leaders to respect his interpretation of the veto process under the Maine Constitution.
The governor's chief legal counsel is asking a legislative office to stop entering nearly 20 contested bills into law until the administration can obtain a legal solution to the dispute between the two branches of government.
A six-page memo to the governor from his chief legal counsel, Cynthia Montgomery, is a post-mortem on 35 years of varying opinions on what the Legislature means when and how it uses the word "adjourn."
That single word and the implications that go with it are at the crux of a standoff between Gov. Paul LePage and the Legislature. Montgomery made it clear that LePage intends to seek an opinion of the Maine Supreme Court in a process known as a solemn occasion.
But House Republican Leader Ken Fredette says the Legislature should not wait for LePage to act. "There is a significant legal constitutional question here," he says. "We can present that question to the court and they can come back to us."
Legislative leaders maintain that when they adjourned on June 30, they essentially recessed and extended the session until July 16. The Constitution says that the governor has 10 days to sign or veto the bills; otherwise they become law without his signature.
When lawmakers left the State House on June 30, the adjournment order said they were out until "the call of the speaker and the president." LePage and his attorney say that the Constitution clearly states that under those adjournment provisions, the governor has the right to hold any submitted bills until three days after the lawmakers' next meeting. With that understanding, LePage held 19 bills and did not act on them.
But Democrats say those bills have now all become law. And the Legislature's revisor of statute's office is in the process of chaptering those bills into Maine law. Now, through his chief legal counsel, LePage is demanding that the chaptering process be halted.
An attorney himself, Fredette says things are out of hand and an emergency meeting of the Legislative Counsel is in order. "We don't have another legislative counsel meeting scheduled until the 23rd of July. You know, the revisor's office is chaptering laws right now that the governor has expressed that he intends to veto and he believes he has more time to do that. We need clarity on these - this is not necessarily a political issue, we just need clarity," Fredette says.
But clarity may be difficult to achieve. Democratic leaders say the governor has misread the Constitution - that the three days he's referring to wouldn't be triggered until the Legislature adjourned through a process known as "sine die," which includes an official notification to the governor's office that the session is over.
That didn't happen on June 30, but Cynthia Montgomery says that doesn't matter. She's laid out four similar cases - including one that is accompanied by an opinion of the Supreme Court justices - over the last 35 years to justify her argument.
Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Dawn Hill, also an attorney, says legislative intent is one area that Montgomery seems to be avoiding, and she says the court is not likely to find any confusion there.
"We handled this in the usual course of business," Hill says, "and although the language indicated at the call of the president and the speaker they did go on to indicate a specific day that we would be coming back, as we always do when we adjourn, so I think we're on terra firma," Hill says.
In addition to the 19 bills that Democrats claim became law without LePage's signature, there are 51 more sitting on the governor's desk that could also be sent to the revisor's office unless the governor acts on them by midnight, Saturday.
House Speaker Mark Eves says the governor is being inconsistent. He points out that four years ago, the Legislature adjourned under similar conditions under Republican leadership, and LePage proceeded to veto several bills.
While LePage and the Legislature duel over the definition of the word "adjournment" and the triggering of the veto clock, Republican and Democratic lawmakers are asking Maine Attorney General Janet Mills to weigh in with a legal opinion in the dispute.