Tick tock: Statutory adjournment date looms as lawmakers push to get work done

One week and one day left until statutory adjournment in the Legislature, and 208 bills to go.

Senate President Beth Edmonds reminded members of this before the body took a break Tuesday. Be prepared, she told them. Read the calendar. Have your amendments in order. 

“We will not be out of here in one week and a day if we don’t get cracking,” she said. “And that’s on the record.”

But, “Is this the short session, where we only do bills that are an emergency?” chimed in Sen. Joseph Brannigan, D-Portland.

Yes, Edmonds responded.

“Well how ‘bout that,” Brannigan said.

Lawmakers started this session with about 550 bills on their plate.

Will they actually be out on the 16th? Staff Tuesday said the bodies were shooting for it, but it’s likely the session will spill over by a couple of days. As Sen. Lynn Bromley, D-South Portland, pointed out on the floor, bills were still being referred to committee as of this week.

Most of the remaining 208 bills are expected to fly through without a hitch, passing or dying by the bang of a gavel. Some, however, will take up an extensive amount of legislator’s time.

In the next week, lawmakers will discuss raising the cigarette tax to support Dirigo health, debate the issue of a residency requirement for a Maine driver’s license, and take up the controversial jail-prison consolidation bill which has since morphed into a proposal which would establish a corrections board to find cost savings between the two entities.

A bill to get dangerous chemicals out of children’s products has drawn a lot of attention from lobbyists, and Republicans in both chambers are expected to push a bill that will restore funding to the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability which was lost in the latest round of budget cuts.