The Legislature tried to cope with a $160 million hole in the state budget.
AUGUSTA – “Morning after” pills will be more easily accessible to women who want to avoid pregnancy. Some 17-year-olds will get to cast ballots. And golfers will be able to buy beer from mobile bars on the links.

Those are among the scores of bills that were enacted during the 2004 session, which is nearly completed as lawmakers take several days off before returning to finish the year’s work.

The session’s main focus was on fiscal matters, as lawmakers struggled to fill a $160 million budget hole while searching for a way to ease property tax burdens. That work is still to be completed after they return April 27.

But the Legislature touched on many other issues that will impact Mainers in their daily lives. Most of the bills will take effect 90 days after the close of the session, which is expected later this month.

While the election-year session featured its share of partisan politics, lawmakers found a way to shape policy by working within rural, coastal and progressive caucuses, said Rep. Glenn Cummings, D-Portland.

“Before term limits, new legislators were expected to sit and keep quiet. With term limits, you don’t have time to be silent,” said Cummings, D-Portland, who wants to be House majority leader next term. “There was a new level of autonomy among the rank-and-file.”

Overshadowed by fiscal matters was a merger of two of the largest departments in the state bureaucracy – Human Services and Behavioral and Developmental Services. Gov. John Baldacci was also poised to sign a bill creating a new regulatory structure for slot machines at Maine’s harness racing tracks.

Minimum-wage earners could see their the current $6.25 hourly rate rise to $6.50 in two phases through October 2005 under a bill sent to Baldacci. The governor is inclined to sign it, but will review an economic impact study first, said spokesman Lee Umphrey.

Maine becomes the sixth state to pass a law allowing pharmacists to dispense emergency contraceptives, or “morning after” pills, without the usual doctor’s prescription.

A new law aimed at putting Maine’s resort industry on an equal footing with those of other states will allow golf courses to sell beer from mobile service bars on the links. Golf course owners say the law will give them better control over drinking by golfers, who now sneak beers in their golf bags.

Lawmakers voted to put Maine among the few states to clamp down on the sale of consumer products containing flame retardants that are suspected causes of learning disabilities and behavioral problems. A new law will ban two kinds of flame retardants by 2006, and leave open the chance a third will be phased out.

The sale of gasoline containing the octane-enhancing additive MTBE, which was supposed to help reduce air pollution but is blamed for contaminating groundwater, will be banned, as will nicotine-laced drinking water products.

Lawmakers made their mark on several environmental issues, including the establishment of new standards for effluent pumped from cruise ships sailing to Maine ports. Baldacci will likely sign the bill.

The governor signed a bill that adds muscle to the law requiring boaters to have stickers for a fund to keep invasive aquatic species from spreading in the state’s lakes.

A bill creating a statewide recycling program for used televisions and computer monitors to get toxic metals out of the environment is awaiting Baldacci’s signature. Maine communities that set up programs to collect household hazardous wastes will get priority in the awarding of grants.

Towns and cities will also get more leeway to enact ordinances that regulate the operation of sexually oriented businesses, such as adult video, novelty and book stores.

Responding to dangerous crowding in the state prison system, lawmakers took action to create more space by easing probation for some offenders while increasing chances of early release for some classes of convicts. The bill, which was undergoing a final financial review, is expected to go Baldacci and be signed.

On an educational issue whipped into prominence by election-year politics, the Democratic-controlled Legislature took a stand against use of state money to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, President Bush’s pet school reform law.

Addressing students who miss school habitually, lawmakers created a process for schools and parents to identify possible causes of a student’s truancy and develop a plan to correct the problem.

In hopes of protecting children who need guardians following domestic violence deaths in their families, a law was passed that will require criminal background checks for those who want to take custody of children involved.

A law intended to encourage young people to take an interest in politics will give 17-year-olds the right to vote in Maine primaries, provided they turn 18 in time for the general election.

To correct a process that results in too many deadlocked worker-injury cases, the Legislature reconfigured the state Workers’ Compensation Board to give a seventh member tie-breaking power. Baldacci was still reviewing a bill to give loggers and wood haulers more say in negotiating rates paid by major landowners.

In business and consumer issues, lawmakers established a residential building code, which towns may adopt voluntarily. Most other states have mandatory codes.

Baldacci signed legislation to help dairy farmers by implementing two forms of price supports so they won’t receive less than their short-term production costs.

New protections will go into place for consumers who think they’re calling local businesses but may really be placing orders with a phone bank halfway across the country. Most of the problems have been with florists passing themselves off as local.

Snowmobile clubs now have the same liability protection landowners already enjoy. A law extending that protection was passed early in the session to avoid an insurance crisis that would have discouraged the clubs from grooming trails.

Another bill passed early in the session, prompted by a deadly fire ignited by a rock band’s pyrotechnics in Rhode Island last year, tightens Maine’s pyrotechnics regulations. Among other things, it doubles to $1 million the minimum liability insurance coverage for fireworks displays.

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