ME AG Opinion 2015-07-10 2015-07-10

If the Maine Legislature adjourned 'to the call of the presiding officers' rather than sine die, and the Governor sat on bills for more than 10 days without signing or vetoing them, did those bills become law?

Short answer: Yes. AG Mills concluded that a day-to-day adjournment subject to recall is not the 'adjournment' that prevents return of a bill under Article IV, Part 3, Section 2 of the Maine Constitution. Only sine die adjournment qualifies. The June 30, 2015 joint order adjourned to the call of the presiding officers expressly to consider possible vetoes, so the Legislature was still able to receive returns. Therefore the bills the Governor neither signed nor vetoed within 10 days (Sundays excepted) became law by operation of the constitutional default provision.

Disclaimer: This is an official Maine Attorney General opinion. AG opinions are persuasive authority but not binding precedent. This summary is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice. Consult a licensed Maine attorney for advice on your specific situation.

Plain-English summary

Senators Hill and Saviello asked the AG about the status of bills the Governor had not signed or vetoed within 10 days of presentment. Article IV, Part 3, Section 2 of the Maine Constitution provides:

If the bill or resolution shall not be returned by the Governor within 10 days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to the Governor, it shall have the same force and effect as if the Governor had signed it unless the Legislature by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall have such force and effect, unless returned within 3 days after the next meeting of the same Legislature which enacted the bill or resolution; if there is no such next meeting of the Legislature which enacted the bill or resolution, the bill or resolution shall not be a law.

So the bills become law unless the Legislature's adjournment prevented their return. The question turned on what "adjournment" means in Section 2.

The Legislature's most recent action on June 30, 2015 was a joint order (S.P. 556) adjourning to the call of the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, "when there is a need to conduct business, or consider possible objections of the Governor." That kind of day-to-day adjournment is not a sine die adjournment. The presiding officers can recall the Legislature at any time, so the Legislature is not absent in the constitutional sense. Mills cited Opinion of the Justices, 116 Me. 557 (1917), for the proposition that "recess" in Section 16 means adjournment sine die, and reasoned that "adjournment" in Section 2 must be read consistently. The Legislature also had statutory authority under 3 M.R.S. § 2 to extend the session for additional legislative days, and had done so twice; that authority would be meaningless if the day-to-day adjournment counted as final.

Mills explained the formal characteristics of sine die adjournment: each house sends a committee to the other notifying it; a committee from each house notifies the Governor that the Legislature is ready for final adjournment; the 90-day clock for nonemergency bills begins; the people's veto window opens; and unfinished business on the calendar expires. None of those things happened on June 30, 2015. The Legislature even left intact the day-to-day mechanism so that bills returned by the Governor could be reviewed promptly.

Therefore the bills the Governor had neither signed nor vetoed within 10 days became law per the Section 2 default. The opinion also flagged separation-of-powers concerns under Article III, Section 2 if a different branch tried to relabel the Legislature's adjournment status. State v. Hunter, 447 A.2d 797 (Me. 1982) provided supporting principle.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2015. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court ultimately weighed in on the underlying dispute about Governor LePage's late-returned vetoes in Opinion of the Justices, 2015 ME 107, 123 A.3d 494, generally agreeing with the AG's analysis that day-to-day adjournment does not invoke the Section 2 exception. Anyone evaluating a current Maine bill-status question should consult that decision plus the present text of Article IV, Part 3.

Historical summary

For state legislators (at the time): The opinion provided cover for the Legislature's view that the disputed bills had become law. The procedural distinctions between sine die and day-to-day adjournment were the binding analytical pivot.

For the Secretary of State (at the time): The opinion supported treating the bills as enacted laws and assigning them act numbers. The Secretary of State's role under 3 M.R.S. § 104, 29 M.R.S. § 1115, and 2 M.R.S. § 18 was administrative once the bills had become law.

For constitutional law researchers: The opinion is a worked example of harmonizing two constitutional provisions enacted in different eras (Section 2 as amended 1973; Section 16 as enacted 1909). Reading "adjournment" in Section 2 consistently with "recess" in Section 16 yielded the answer.

Citations and references

Constitutional provisions:
- Maine Constitution, Article IV, Part 3, Section 1 (legislative power; statutory session limits)
- Maine Constitution, Article IV, Part 3, Section 2 (Governor's 10-day return)
- Maine Constitution, Article IV, Part 3, Section 2-A (line-item vetoes)
- Maine Constitution, Article IV, Part 3, Section 16 (90-day delayed effective date)
- Maine Constitution, Article IV, Part 3, Section 17 (people's veto)
- Maine Constitution, Article IV, Part 3, Section 20 ("recess of the Legislature")
- Maine Constitution, Article III, Section 2 (separation of powers)

Statutes:
- 3 M.R.S. § 2 (legislative session extensions)

Cases:
- Opinion of the Justices, 116 Me. 557, 103 A. 761 (1917) ("recess" means adjournment sine die)
- State v. Hunter, 447 A.2d 797 (Me. 1982) (separation-of-powers principle)

Source

Landing page: https://www.maine.gov/legis/lawlib/lldl/agops/agops.htm
Original PDF: https://lldc.mainelegislature.org/Open/AG/Opinions/2015/ag_20150710.pdf

Original opinion text

Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain, the linked PDF is authoritative.

STATE OF MAINE
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
6 STATE HOUSE STATION
AUGUSTA, MAINE 04333-0006
JANET T. MILLS, ATTORNEY GENERAL

July 10, 2015

The Honorable Dawn Hill
The Honorable Thomas Saviello
Maine State Senate
3 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0003

Dear Senator Hill and Senator Saviello:

You have inquired about the status of bills that were presented to the Governor but which he has neither signed nor vetoed. The Legislature has not adjourned sine die, and more than ten days have elapsed since certain bills were presented to the Governor.

Article IV, Part 3, Section 2, of the Maine Constitution states:

If the bill or resolution shall not be returned by the Governor within 10 days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to the Governor, it shall have the same force and effect as if the Governor had signed it unless the Legislature by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall have such force and effect, unless returned within 3 days after the next meeting of the same Legislature which enacted the bill or resolution; if there is no such next meeting of the Legislature which enacted the bill or resolution, the bill or resolution shall not be a law. (Emphasis added).

The most recent act of the Legislature was to pass a joint order reciting "that when the House and Senate adjourn they do so until the call of the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, respectively, when there is a need to conduct business, or consider possible objections of the Governor." Joint Order S.P. 556, June 30, 2015 (copy attached). This joint order was a day to day adjournment, and not a final adjournment sine die of the first regular session of the Legislature, which would start the 90-day period for non-emergency bills to become effective under Article IV, Part Third, Section 16, allowing time for a people's veto effort under Article IV, Part Third, Section 17 ("recess of the Legislature" in these sections means "the adjournment without day of a session of the Legislature," Opinion of the Justices, 116 Me. 557, 587, 103 A. 761, 774 (1917); Article IV, Part Third, Section 20).

The adjournment order of June 30, 2015, has not prevented the Governor from returning the bills with his objections. 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 timely fashion, and possibly even line item vetoes requiring more immediate attention, allotting the full ten days authorized in the Constitution.

The Maine Constitution delegates to the Legislature the authority to "enact appropriate statutory limits on the length" of the first and second regular sessions, Article IV, Part Third, Section 1. The Legislature has done so by enacting Title 3 M.R.S. sec. 2. The determination of the length of the session is uniquely a legislative one, and for another branch of government to reinterpret the decision of the Legislature might well violate the provisions of Article III, Section 2 of the Maine Constitution. ("No person or persons, belonging to one of these departments, shall exercise any of the powers properly belonging to either of the others, except in the cases herein expressly directed or permitted." Cf. State v. Hunter, 447 A.2d 797 (1982)).

It is exclusively the Legislature that decides when it adjourns, not another branch of government, and there is no requirement that the Legislature set a specific date for the next meeting when it finishes its business of the day. Conversely, the failure to set a specific date for reconvening does not become an adjournment sine die by default.

In this instance, the Legislature invoked its constitutional authority and complied with the procedure in Title 3 M.R.S. sec. 2 by twice voting to extend the date of final adjournment by five legislative days each. See, Senate RC #288; House RC #296; HP 991, Joint Order Extending the First Regular Session of the 127th Legislature for Five Legislative Days; and remarks of Rep. Fredette, June 24, 2015. The second five-day period has not expired, nor has the Legislature used the extra day authorized by the same statute for "considering possible objections of the Governor to any bill or resolution presented to him by the Legislature under the Constitution, Article IV, Part Third, Section 2." The first regular session of the 127th Legislature has not concluded and the Legislature specifically extended the time for final adjournment in order to review any additional line item vetoes, giving the Governor the time allotted to him under Article IV, Part 3, Section 2-A, and to consider any vetoes under Section 2, giving the Governor the full ten days to review enacted legislation.

The term "adjournment" must be read in the context of the constitutional passage in which it appears. The phrase "unless the Legislature by their adjournment prevent its return" means final adjournment or adjournment sine die, because a day to day adjournment does not prevent the return of bills, as the presiding officers may call the Legislature back to work at any time. In recent decades the Legislature has regularly adjourned until the call of the presiding officers for the purpose of acting on veto messages from the governor. See, e.g., Leg.Rec.-H-1361, June 1, 1997, Orders; Leg.Rec.-H-2699, April 28, 2000; Leg.Rec. H-1589, May 17, 2012. Bills that were vetoed and overridden became effective 90 days after adjournment sine die—at the same time as bills that were not vetoed—not 90 days after the day to day adjournments of the Legislature.

There is no 'default' provision whereby the end of a legislative day becomes a final adjournment simply because the Legislature has not said otherwise or has not set a specific date for the next meeting. To the contrary, when the Legislature adjourns its session sine die, it does so deliberately, with a degree of formality befitting the occasion, each house sending a committee notifying the other body and sending a committee to officially notify the governor that they are ready for final adjournment so that he may confirm that there is no further business for them to address. (Historically, this practice goes back at least as far as 1850; see, e.g. House Jour. 1850, pp. 521, 525 (copy attached); Senate Rec., p.453 March 27, 1897). The event is significant, the action intentional and formal because it starts the clock ticking for nonemergency legislation to become law in ninety days and it notifies citizens that they may then commence a people's veto effort under Article IV. Part 3, Section 17. It also signifies that any unfinished business on the calendar automatically expires, that the Legislature does not anticipate any additional meetings and that it may not reconvene except by the special and somewhat cumbersome procedures of Section 1 of Article IV, Part 3. No such formal adjournment sine die occurred in the Maine Legislature on June 30, 2015.

Common sense says that the term "adjournment" in Section 2, as amended in 1973, must be read to be consistent with the term "recess" in Section 16, enacted in 1909; otherwise, different ninety day periods would be invoked for many different bills. In any case, neither a recess per Section 16, nor an adjournment per Section 2 has occurred for the first regular session of the 127th Legislature.

Therefore, the ten-day period in which the Governor is required to act on bills delivered to him before the legislative recess is now expired, which means the bills have become law as a matter of course, by operation of the Constitution.

Sincerely,

Janet T. Mills
Attorney General