By Michael Shepherd - June 30, 2023
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After marathon sessions over the next few weeks, the Maine Legislature will return to Augusta after the July 4 holiday to finish at least a large portion of its work for the year.

A surprisingly bipartisan budget deal came this week on the heels of divisive votes to advance a Democratic abortion-rights bill. The spending plan is was a large step forward for lawmakers. Key business still looms, however.

Here are the three main items that lawmakers need to solve.

Settle the thorny tribal-rights issue. On Friday, Gov. Janet Mills issued a long-expected veto of the main tribal-rights bill left standing in the Legislature, which attempts to allow Maine tribes to benefit from more federal laws by changing the terms of a 1980 settlement.

The governor's office has argued Congress must make these changes, but House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, won enough Republican support to pass the bill by a two-thirds margin in an early vote last week.

She will have to do it again after a veto, hoping that Republicans angered by other Democratic moves don't flip on her. One of the 21 members of the minority party said he planned to stand by his vote, in part because of his Penobscot Nation constituents.

"I hope that both sides look at it and judge it on its own merits," Rep. Gary Drinkwater, R-Milford, said earlier this week.

Come to an agreement on two rival energy bills. There are high stakes for two emerging energy industries: the solar farms that have boomed due to generous state incentive and the nascent offshore wind sector.

The House flipped last week to vote down a bill led by their party that would have provided a small cut to the subsidies that have led to recent increases in electric rates. The measure advancing now comes from Republicans, manufacturers and Public Advocate Bill Harwood, who want to allow the utilities regulator to submit subsidy reductions for legislative approval.

A bill aiming to effective kickstart offshore wind is held up because of another Mills veto that came due to labor protections around port construction. National media has picked this up in part because it goes against President Joe Biden's labor pledge. Legislators are trying to negotiate a measure that assuages both the governor and unions pushing the vetoed bill. 

Figure out what else is going in the budget. Now that the Legislature's budget committee has come to a deal due to Democrats including a Republican pension tax cut, it will be hard for lawmakers to sneak any outstanding bills into the budget.

This could claim some relatively big priorities, including a flavored tobacco ban that has been support by Mills and Democratic leaders. Sen. Jill Duson, D-Portland, who is sponsoring that, has said she is looking for ways to get it funded and into law.

Republicans are also anxiously awaiting to find out exactly how much is in the budget to fund outstanding measures left over. There may be $10 million or so for lawmakers to split amongst themselves, and major laws have been enacted in this way before.