AUGUSTA — It’s been a week since the Legislature blew past its scheduled adjournment date, and it’s going to be at least three more before lawmakers close the door on the session for good.

There’s still several bills waiting for final votes, including several high-profile pieces of legislation, such as one to reverse jail consolidation, and another to create a new Cabinet-level position for a state energy czar. Another bill would set up a state-level health insurance exchange, which could become crucial if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes federal funding for subsidies in Maine this week.

Then there’s the more than $900 million in potential state borrowing, contained in a few dozen bond bills.

But on Wednesday, the State House was empty. The bells that call lawmakers to their seats in the House and Senate never rang. The Legislature had recessed about 1 a.m. until June 30, after voting to extend the session for a second time in as many weeks.

The state Constitution allows the Legislature to extend its session twice, in increments of five working days, although the working days don’t have to be consecutive. Members of party leadership in both chambers said Wednesday that the reason lawmakers are taking a break is to ensure that when they do come back, there’s enough work to be done for it to be worth the thousands of dollars that every extra session day costs the state.

“The reality is that because it’s an additional cost to taxpayers to come back here, we don’t want to come back if the workload isn’t there,” said House Minority Leader Ken Fredette, R-Newport. “What we don’t want to do is come back five additional days and not have a lot of work to do.”

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While the Legislature could consider the handful of bills and bond proposals outstanding, they still await dozen more vetoes from Gov. Paul LePage, who has pledged to nix every piece of legislation in protest of lawmakers’ opposition to his proposed constitutional amendment to eliminate the income tax.

Because LePage has 10 days — excluding Sundays — to veto any bill, lawmakers want to give him as much time as possible before coming in to vote on veto overrides. June 29 is the deadline for LePage to veto the two-year state budget, so lawmakers will return the next day to override the veto, and thus avert the government shutdown that would come if no budget is in place by July 1.

House Speaker Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, said Wednesday that lawmakers will consider other outstanding business that day. Then they’ll come back on July 16, by which time LePage won’t have any bills left to veto.

Eves blamed LePage’s vetoes — including 64 line-item budget vetoes that took the better part of two days for the Legislature to dispense with — for the lengthy session extension. The governor is on pace to break his own record for number of bills vetoed.

“The reason we are here longer is because the governor is vetoing, in a historic way,” Eves said Wednesday afternoon. “That is why we’re here longer. That is the biggest variable.”

While the vetoes may be time consuming, the Legislature is increasingly united in its effort to dispense with them quickly. The larger battle that remains to be fought is likely to be about bonds.

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Eves, Fredette and the Senate leaders — President Michael Thibodeau, R-Winterport, and Minority Leader Justin Alfond, D-Portland — were scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon to begin discussing a bond package.

The Department of Transportation’s three-year maintenance plan requires about $40 million in bonding to stay on schedule for repairs to the state’s roads, highways and bridges.

Eves said earlier Wednesday that Democrats would seek a package that included the transportation bonds, as well as borrowing for education, environmental protection and senior housing.

That will likely be a hard pill for Republicans.

While Thibodeau said the Legislature could likely afford “about $100 million” in new borrowing this year, Fredette said the House GOP — disappointed that the bipartisan budget plan does not include spending cuts — would probably not accept any nontransportation bonds.

LePage also is hesitant to support much bonding, according to his communications director, Peter Steele.

“The governor is always supportive of transportation bonds that include no funding for politicians’ pet projects, but are used strategically to improve the infrastructure that helps move commerce at the speed of business and creates safe and modern roads and bridges for both Mainers and visitors to our great state,” Steele said in an email. “It is unlikely he will support any other bonds.”

If House Republicans stick to their stance opposing any bonds other than transportation infrastructure borrowing, it will be difficult for Democrats to pass a bond package opposed by LePage, given the two-thirds support required to override a veto.


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