AUGUSTA — The state’s top law enforcement officer Friday sided with the Legislature and against Republican Gov. Paul LePage in a opinion that says LePage missed his deadline to veto some 19 bills that are now law.

Attorney General Janet Mills, a Democrat, answering a request for advice from state Sens. Dawn Hill, D-Cape Neddick, and Tom Saviello, R-Wilton, wrote that LePage was misinterpreting the state’s constitution and that his decision to not veto several bills because he believed the Legislature was adjourned would result in the bills becoming law.

LePage has argued that because the Legislature adjourned to the call of the speaker of the House and the Senate president on June 30, it had officially adjourned for the session, which prevented him from returning the bills. 

But legislative leaders have said they adjourned in a manner consistent with a recess and not in the manner typically considered final adjournment – or “sine die” adjournment — a procedure that includes sending delegates from the Legislature to the Governor’s Office in advance to notify him of their intent to adjourn.

On Friday Mills wrote that the Legislature’s adjournment was not final and was made in a way that even anticipated receiving vetoed bills from LePage.

“The adjournment order of June 30, 2015, has not prevented the governor from returning the bills with his objections,” Mills wrote. “To the contrary, the Legislature specifically envisioned receiving veto messages and made it clear in the joint order that they were prepared to deal with them in a timely fashion, and possibly even line-item vetoes requiring more immediate attention, allotting the full 10 days authorized in the constitution.”

Among those bills becoming law is one that permits asylum-seeking immigrants to collect up to 24 months of General Assistance benefits from a local municipality. The measure is among several that LePage and his conservative allies have worked to defeat, but it passed both the House and the Senate on majority votes in June.

There are another 51 bills that could become law without LePage’s signature if he chooses to maintain his stance on the adjournment. Those bills will become law at midnight on Saturday under the provisions of the constitution detailed in Mills’ opinion.

In her letter to Saviello and Hill, Mills also notes that the historical precedent for how the Legislature officially ends its session with a “sine die” motion goes back to at least 1850. That history includes a formal procedure for notifying the governor that the Legislature is about to conclude its business. That notification includes an invitation to the governor to come and speak to the Legislature before it adjourns.

LePage has only once, during the 125th session of the Legislature, accepted that invitation.

LePage has vowed to bring the veto issue to the state’s courts, and his top attorney, Cynthia Montgomery, laid out LePage’s case in a memo Friday that the Legislature had officially adjourned for the session.

“But the argument that we finally adjourned is just not a serious argument,” said state Sen. Roger Katz, R-Augusta, who is also an attorney.

Katz said that if LePage follows through on his threat to take his case to the courts, the judge or judges who consider the challenge will look at four elements of the case, including the language of the state’s constitution, and are unlikely to rule solely on a semantic definition of the word “adjourn” or “adjournment.”

“They will look at the language of the Constitution, the language of any statutes (which pertain), past precedent and tradition,” Katz said.

sthistle@sunjournal.com

Maine Attorney General Opinion on adjournment and LePage vetoes