Lawmakers on Friday failed to override six vetoes issued by Gov. Janet Mills, including a bill to require that farmworkers be paid the state minimum wage and another to ban bump stocks.
With little discussion, the House and Senate voted on the measures and moved on to consideration of bills that need funding.
In her veto letter, Mills said she could not sign the farmworker minimum wage bill because of a Democratic amendment to allow workers to sue an employer for failing to comply.
She also said that farms are unique among businesses and that she is concerned that allowing workers to sue “would result in litigation that would simply sap farmers of financial resources and cause them to fail.”
The House vote of 54-69 fell far short of the two-thirds needed to override the veto.
Other vetoes — including a ban on bump stocks and another to adjust the state tax brackets — will stand as well.
Mills vetoed the bill to ban bump stocks, which are devices that make firearms shoot more bullets more quickly, because she said it is “too vague to be effective.”
Mills said she does agree that devices aimed at converting semi-automatic weapons to the “functional equivalent of a machine gun should be restricted.”
The bump stock ban was one of several bills introduced following the Oct. 25 mass shootings in Lewiston that claimed the lives of 18 and injured 13 others.
Mills allowed a 72-hour waiting period between purchase and pickup of a firearm to become law without her signature and signed comprehensive legislation to amend the state’s yellow flag law, expand background checks and invest in mental health services.
Lawmakers also considered whether to override Mills’ veto of a bill that would have required a “harmony agreement” to be in place at clean energy facilities. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Mike Tipping (D-Orono), called for the agreements to be in place for labor organizations seeking to represent workers at the site.
Mills said the bill contained “ambiguous language” that would have resulted in a reach “far more expansive than the apparent intent of the bill.”
Other vetoes sustained by the Legislature included a Republican-sponsored bill to adjust tax brackets; a bill to allow farmworkers to more easily unionize and a bill that sought to require the state to amend an agreement with the Juniper Ridge Landfill.