I’ve been enjoying the clusterfuck that is Maine’s governing system from a time zone away, but I just had a sneaky bastard idea to promote good public policy. First via Wonkette some background on the situation:
Wacky ol’ rubber bag of infected pus and Maine Gov. Paul LePage is one comical fella. Last week, we told you how he thought he had “pocket vetoed” 19 bills by doing nothing about them, but had actually screwed the procedural pooch because the Maine Legislature had not actually adjourned, and so the bills became law. The fun continues, because as of Sunday, Democratic lawmakers say that an additional 51 bills have become law because LePage refused to do anything about them on time. Among the bills was an expansion of Medicaid funding for reproductive health that will benefit some 13,000 women in the Pine Tree State. But not so fast, says LePage — he’s gonna take the whole thing to the state supreme court, and he’ll win, because Democrats are dumm and he is smrt….
the way Maine’s “pocket veto” works is that if the Legislature has adjourned its session, the governor can sit on a passed bill for 10 days, and then it just dies, with no chance for the Legislature to override the veto since they’ve all gone home… But if the Legislature is still in session, the governor’s inaction causes the bill to become law. And so, last week, 19 bills became law after LePage did nothing with them; then this weekend another 10-day period passed with no action, so even more bills became law, YAY
The Maine legislature is at ease right now but not adjourned. They are due back to Augusta soon. The Legislature has repeatedly passed Medicaid expansion bills with bipartisan majorities. Governor LePage has repeatedly vetoed those bills because he is a sadistic fuck.
What if the Maine legislature passes another Medicaid expansion bill and then immediately goes back to “at ease” status before the bill is delivered to the governor’s office. LePage has two choices.
Choice one is to continue to do sit on bills as he is doing now. Most likely the outcome of that choice is Medicaid expansion is declared law by the state Supreme Court and 80,000 more people get health insurance.
Choice number two is to actively veto the bill within ten days of receiving the bill. That produces one hell of a point of evidence that the other 70 bills are valid laws for LePage’s argument is that an at ease Legislature is an adjourned Legislature but he is belt and suspendering his veto on Medicaid expansion which is an “at ease” bill just like the other 70 bills he received from what he considers an adjourned Legislature. Why is that Governor?
What do the Balloon Juice lawyers think about this?