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Not so summer vacation for Maine legislators

Maine legislators might be coming back from summer vacation a tad early.

AUGUSTA — The Legislature may return to Augusta next week to finish up most of its remaining work.

House and Senate leaders have notified lawmakers to be ready for a potential session on Wednesday, August 22. Issues likely to be decided include conforming Maine’s income tax code to match federal changes passed late last year, and a proposal from Governor LePage to limit property tax foreclosures on the homes of the elderly.

The primary issue that had held up lawmakers for months has been fixing a mistake in the budget covering the Clean Elections program. On Thursday, the state Ethics Commission voted to basically ignore the Legislative delay and issue payments to clean election candidates. There are still some portions of the program that have to wait for lawmakers to correct the budget error, but there was no indication Friday if those would be included in the upcoming session. A court ruling two weeks ago about clean elections cleared the way for the Ethics Commission action.

The Governor is preparing to submit a new package of bills to make changes in the state’s child protective system, but those will not be ready for a vote by Wednesday.

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