In a final burst of activity, state lawmakers closed out the 2025 legislative session this week by passing dozens of additional bills, dealing with everything from guns and reproductive health to affordable housing.
They also ended an unusually partisan session on a somewhat conciliatory note, as the majority of Democrats voted to lift speaking restrictions on a Republican lawmaker who had been censured months ago.
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, meanwhile, continued her perfect veto record, with none overridden. But lawmakers also left her with a large stack of passed bills to either sign or sit on until lawmakers reconvene – potentially many months from now.
Here’s a roundup of the latest from Augusta.
Mills gets five vetoes ...
The governor vetoed just five bills before lawmakers decided to come back to Augusta for a “veto session.” And lawmakers sustained — or failed to override — all five.
The most debated was a measure, LD 958, that would have prohibited the state from seizing tribal lands through eminent domain. It was just the latest bill supported by the federally recognized tribes in Maine that Mills has blocked, either through a veto or the threat of one.
Mills called the bill a solution in search of a problem, saying there is no history of contentious land fights between the state and tribes resulting in the use of eminent domain.
“The Legislature should understand that this bill would permanently deny the state the ability to take even small portions of Tribal Lands abutting public rights of way for uses like road and bridge projects no matter what circumstances may arise many years into the future,” Mills wrote in her veto message.
The other vetoed bills dealt with Maine’s public defender system, substance use recovery houses, the Maine State Ferry Advisory Board and protections for farm workers who engage in “concerted activity,” which was viewed as a step toward unionization.
During her six years in office so far, Mills has vetoed more than 50 bills. Her predecessor, by comparison, shattered all previous records by vetoing more than 600 bills during his eight years. Unlike LePage, however, Mills has yet to have a veto overturned by a two-thirds vote in the Legislature.
... and lawmakers send her nearly 100 more bills
But lawmakers also sent dozens more bills to Mills’ desk for consideration. These were bills that had previously received approval in both chambers but needed to be funded — or, in some cases, to have their funding stripped out.
Two of the most contentious of these new bills dealt with reproductive health and guns.
Democrats tapped much of the unspent funds headed into Wednesday’s session to provide $3 million to family planning clinics around the state. This is in addition to $3 million included in larger budget bills passed along partisan lines earlier this year.
The money can be used by the network of more than 60 health centers, clinics and other facilities to provide reproductive health care — such as access to birth control, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases — but not abortion care. But the latter issue came up repeatedly during the debate because a few of those health centers also provide abortions.
Another contentious bill that passed in the final hours of 2025 session, LD 1126, will prohibit so-called untraceable “ghost guns” — typically handmade or 3D printed firearms — as well as other guns without serial numbers, unless they are antiques or considered a “curio or relic” under federal law.
The bill passed by a single vote in the Senate and by six votes — with 11 lawmakers absent — in the more closely divided House. It was the only significant gun measure to pass this session, unlike last year when Democrats passed several gun control measures in response to the October 2023 Lewiston mass shootings.
What happens next
The vast majority of the bills passed by lawmakers on Wednesday were noncontroversial and, therefore, probably wouldn’t face a veto threat.
But the timing of the Legislature’s final adjournment — “sine die” or “without day,” in legislative parlance — changes what Mills can do with the dozens of new bills, plus the many more that were sitting on her desk before Wednesday.
Normally, governors have three options for dealing with a bill passed by the Legislature: sign it, veto it, or wait 10 days and allow it to become law without his or her signature. (The latter is often a governor’s way of signaling, “While I don’t like it, I don’t dislike it enough to block the new law.”)
But because lawmakers adjourned for the year, Mills only has two options for those bills and any others that were still on her desk: either sign them within 10 days of receiving them or hold onto them until the Legislature returns for at least three more days. Once the Legislature returns for three session days — whether during a special session this year or for the 2026 session — Mills then has three days to either veto them or allow them to become law without her signature.
No ‘red flag’ competing measure
Voters will decide this November whether to add Maine to the roughly 20 states with “red flag” laws that allow family members to petition a judge to order a suicidal or potentially dangerous individual to temporarily relinquish their guns. If approved by voters, the referendum would supplement but not replace Maine’s “yellow flag” law that only allows police to initiate that court process. The yellow flag law also requires a medical professional to agree that the person poses a danger to themselves or others before they can be forced to surrender their firearms.
Gun control advocates gathered enough signatures to place their red flag referendum on the fall ballot amid criticism that police failed to use the yellow flag law against the Lewiston shooter in the months before he killed 18 people. But defenders of Maine’s unique yellow flag law, such as the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and Gun Owners of Maine, have been pushing to also offer voters an alternative question, which is allowed under the state’s citizens initiative process.
Their “competing measure” would have increased police training in use of the yellow flag law and provided more funding for special centers that help people in the midst of a mental health crisis. It also would have created additional behavioral health clinics.
That momentum got a political boost earlier this week when Mills – a principal architect of the yellow flag law and an opponent of the red flag initiative – backed offering voters a competing measure.
But Democratic leaders prevented it from coming to the House floor.
The competing measure’s lead sponsor, Republican Rep. Jennifer Poirier of Skowhegan, directed her frustration at House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, pointedly asking the Biddeford Democrat “What are you so afraid of?”
“I am disappointed that the people of Maine will be robbed of a choice,” Poirier said during the final floor speech of the 2025 session. “I am disappointed that the concerns of law enforcement have seemingly fallen on so many deaf ears. And I’m disappointed to feel that politics sometimes take priority over integrity.”
Still censured ... but not hushed
Partisan tensions and distrust were high throughout the 2025 session. And no one embodied that fissure between the parties more than Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn. And she claimed victory this week in her monthslong feud with her Democratic counterparts.
Libby thrust Maine into the national spotlight on the issue of transgender athletes back in February with her viral Facebook post about a trans high school student who had won a girls’ track championship. Days later, President Donald Trump told Mills (as other governors and the media watched) that his administration would cut off federal funding unless Maine banned transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports. The governor’s response, “See you in court,” then went viral in left-leaning circles.
Democrats in the Maine House censured Libby over the post, which they said exposed the minor to threats and unwanted national attention. The official reprimand prohibited Libby from voting or speaking on the House floor until she formally apologized — which she refused to do.
Months later, the U.S. Supreme Court handed Libby at least a temporary win by declaring that the Legislature couldn’t stop her from voting. But she was prohibited from speaking on the House floor until Wednesday afternoon when, in a vote of 106-34, lawmakers agreed to allow her to speak “on the record” for the first time since February.
Libby used the opportunity to recite how she would have voted on all of the bills that had roll calls during that four-month period. It took 22 minutes. And many Democrats walked out of the chamber as she began to speak.
A few hours later, the House voted 115-16 to formally rescind the restrictions on Libby’s ability to vote and speak on the House floor. Rep. Lori Gramlich, D-Old Orchard Beach, stressed before the vote, however, that the resolution “does not revoke the censure resolution ... nor is it intended to absolve the representative’s actions.”
But Libby, who has been a frequent guest on national conservative news shows and podcasts since February, declared victory afterward. She also added that she “never will apologize for speaking up in defense of Maine girls and their right to a fair, safe and level playing field.”
“The Democrats caved because they knew they were losing in court,” Libby said in a statement. “They’ve now been forced to admit what the Constitution has said all along: elected representatives cannot be silenced for speaking the truth.”
Libby’s lawsuit against Fecteau is still pending in federal court.
Maine's Political Pulse was written this week by State House correspondent Kevin Miller and produced by news editor Andrew Catalina. Read past editions or listen to the Political Pulse podcast at mainepublic.org/pulse.
