About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

2011 Maine Attorney General Reports and Opinions 1 (2011)

handle is hein.sag/sagme0060 and id is 1 raw text is: 201 1-01 REGIONAL OFFICES 41 2011-01 4 HARLOW'ST., 2ND FLOOR - tBANGOR, MAINE04401 TEL- (207) 941-3070 FAX- (207) 941-3075 William J. Schneider AT ORNEY G ENERIAL 0 0 41 CONGRESS ST, STE. 301 PORTLAND,.MAINEC4101 TEL (207) S22-0260 FAX. (207) 822-0259 STATE OF MAINE 14 ACCEss HIGHWAY. STE.I TEL: (207) 626-8800 OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL CARIBOU, MAINE,04736 ITFY: 1-800-577-6690 6 STATE HOUSE STATION TEL (207) 496-3792 AUGUSTA, MAINE 04333-0006 June 16. 2011 Senator Barry J. Hobbins Senator Justin Alfond 3 State House Station Augusta, Maine 04333-0003 Dear Senator Hobbins and Senator Alfond: I am writing in response to your letter of June 10, 2011, in which you inquired whether the provisional balloting system set forth in LD 1376, entitled An Act to Preserve the Integrity of the Voter Registration and Election Process, would impose a mandate on municipalities pursuant to Article IX, section 21 of the Maine Constitution and thus require state funding of 90?/ of those costs or enactnent by a two thirds vote of all members in each chamber. For the reasons explained below, it is the opinion of this Office that this legislation does not constitute a mandate within the meaning of the constitutional provision. Ari~ce IX, section 21 provides in its entirety as follows: For the purpose of more fairly apportioning the cost of govermnent and providing local property tax relief, the State may not require a local unit of goverrmient to expand or modify that unit's activities so as to necessitate additional expenditures from local revenues unless the State provides annually 90% of the funding for these expenditures from State funds not previously appropriated to that local unit of government. Legislation implementing this section or requiring a specific expenditure as an exception to this requirement may be enacted upon the votes of 2/3 of all members elected to each House. This section must be liberally construed. In order to qualify as a mandate' under this provision. an action of the Legislature must not onlY require units of local government to expand or modi,y their activities, but that cxpansion or modification must necessitatc additional expenditurcs of local revenue. Even if legislative action fits this definition of a mandate, the state is not required to fund costs incurred by local units of government to comply with a federal law or regulation ... except to the extent that the State imposes requirements or conditions that exceed the federal requirements. 30-A M.lR.S. 6 5685(3)(D). This provision of the implementing statute is often referred to as the federal mandate exception. lI M ElMEP N LCLEh 'AiElt

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most