Good morning from Augusta, where at least 36 vetoes from Gov. Paul LePage will await lawmakers who return next week in a session that has now stretched into the dog days of summer with no end in sight just yet and plenty of big issues to be decided.
The Maine Legislature will return on July 9 to handle these bills. Eventually, it will try to reach accord on the outstanding issues of the session that are being held up by one party or the other in a battle for leverage, including tax conformity, a fix releasing Clean Election funds for the 2018 campaigns and authorizing a new $105 million transportation bond.
The vetoed bills included several aimed at Maine’s opioid crisis. Many of the vetoes were announced and widely anticipated, including one providing startup Medicaid expansion funding and two supplemental budget bills totaling $66 million to increase reimbursement rates for services for Mainers with disabilities, expand opioid addiction treatments and fund county jails, among other items. But the Republican governor vetoed many other bills big and small, including several bills aimed more squarely at the state’s opioid crisis.
To read the rest of “Dozens of vetoes and old fights await the Maine Legislature’s return next week,” an article by contributing Bangor Daily News staff writer Michael Shepherd, please follow this link to the BDN online.
