AUGUSTA – When lawmakers return to the State House on Tuesday, they will face at least eight vetoes and a bevy of bills, with more votes on charter schools, fireworks and gambling.

Officially, they have four days to complete all business. House Speaker Robert Nutting, R-Oakland, hopes to finish in “a couple of days at most,” according to his spokesman, Jim Cyr.

First, the vetoes.

After sustaining Gov. Paul LePage’s first four vetoes, legislators will return to find at least eight more bills back on their desks. LePage, whose veto total stood at 12 as of Friday, could issue more today and Tuesday, so the number could grow.

For those keeping score, LePage has already vetoed more bills during the first regular session than the previous three governors. Gov. John Baldacci, a Democrat, issued two over the same period; independent Angus King had one; and Republican John McKernan had nine, according to records in the legislative law library.

Recent vetoes have included six resolves for reviews, studies or reports, and two bills, L.D. 398, “An Act to Require Criminal History Record Information for the Licensure of Nurses,” and L.D. 566, “An Act to Encourage Transparency in the Department of Education.”

LePage spiked the background checks for nurses, saying it singles out nurses “from all other health care professions for this treatment,” according to his veto letter.

The transparency bill, which called for more detailed reporting of education funding, steps “over the line of legislating and oversight and into the management functions of the executive,” he wrote.

Lawmakers need to take final votes on several measures, including L.D. 1553, which would allow charter schools in Maine for the first time; L.D. 83, which would authorize municipalities to decide whether to allow sales and use of fireworks; and L.D. 1418, which would allow table games at Hollywood Slots in Bangor.

LEPAGE AND LOGGERS

The St. John Valley Times ran a story last month quoting state Sen. Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, who was critical of opponents of a bill to prohibit foreign loggers from working on state-owned land.

“The question is, whose side are we on?” Jackson asked. “We cannot abandon Maine workers for fire-sale Canadian wages.”

The Legislature passed L.D. 340, but LePage vetoed it. In a reply to Jackson’s statement, LePage wrote a letter to the editor of Jackson’s hometown newspaper and lectured the Democrat on constitutional law.

In the letter published June 15 in the St. John Valley Times, LePage said he took an oath to uphold the constitutions of the United States and Maine. He said contracts awarded by the state already require the use of Maine workers but L.D. 340 was unconstitutional because it put that policy into law.

“We cannot avoid our oaths because they seem unpopular,” LePage wrote. “I have recently signed a bill requiring civics education in our schools. Hopefully, younger generations will learn the importance of our constitution and the oaths they take. Maybe my generation can help the younger generation learn a thing or two.”

HIGH MARKS FOR WEB CONNECTION

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce study on business-friendly economic development opportunities ranks Maine first in the nation for infrastructure. The study cites the Three Ring Binder broadband expansion project being built by Maine Fiber Co. Inc. and managed by Tilson Fiber Technology LLC.

Three Ring Binder is a 1,100-mile highway of high-speed Internet lines being strung around southern, northern and Down East sections of Maine. When the project is finished, 600 anchor institutions, 38 government facilities and 110,000 households will have new access to advanced Internet connections.

Gov. John Baldacci and Maine’s congressional delegation promoted the project, which received a $25.4 million federal grant and $7.5 million in private investment.

A partner in Maine Fiber Co. is Robert C.S. Monks, who is a minority owner of MaineToday Media, which publishes The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel.

EQME SURVEY

EqualityMaine continues to consider a citizens initiative to bring gay marriage to Maine and is asking members to complete a survey on whether they think 2012 is the right time to move forward.

In an email last week, the group laid out its case for why next year might be the next best chance to win at the polls. It said that voters in presidential election years are “younger and more progressive,” that two recent polls showed 53 percent support for same-sex marriage, and that ongoing conversations with the public are changing minds.

In 2009, the gay-rights lobby lost at the polls, 53 percent to 47 percent, when a bill that had been passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. John Baldacci was overturned through a people’s veto.

To get a gay-marriage question on the ballot in 2012, organizers will need to gather at least 57,277 signatures by January.

The issue of gay marriage is once again getting national attention. Late Friday, New York became the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage since Massachusetts led the way, under court order, in 2004.

President Obama addressed gay leaders last week, saying gay couples should have the “same legal rights” as other couples, but he stopped short of endorsing gay marriage.

MAINE ETHICS COMMISSION

Republican Joe Palmieri thinks the $1,350 he was fined recently by the state ethics commission is a bit excessive, given that one of the authors of the infamous Cutler Files website got fined only $200.

He made his case during last week’s monthly meeting of the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices.

Palmieri, a Clean Elections candidate who lost his race against Larry Bliss in Senate District 7 last fall, was fined for filing late and inaccurate campaign finance reports and failing to return unspent campaign funds promptly.

“I find it difficult to imagine how a clerical error calls for a bigger (fine) than a character assassination,” he wrote in a letter to the commission.

Andre Duchette, one of the five commissioners, told Palmieri that he wished the fine for the website could have been higher, but the commission was constricted by the facts of the case. Often, ethics penalties are prescribed by statute and the commission has limited leeway.

“It’s difficult to compare apples to oranges even though they seem similar,” said Walt McKee, chairman of the panel.

Palmieri asked the commission to reduce the amount of his fines, but it declined to do so.

The commission did reduce a penalty proposed for the political action committee that campaigned to pass the Oxford County casino initiative last fall. The Maine Taxpayers Taking Charge PAC filed its April 2011 campaign finance report two weeks late and faced a preliminary penalty of $10,000.

Dan Walker, an attorney representing the PAC, argued that the penalty was “disproportionate to the level of harm suffered by the public” because the election was long over.

Commissioners agreed and reduced the fine to $200.

TEXTING AND SPEEDING

Maine lawmakers passed a law this session that bans texting while driving. The ban will take effect Sept. 3.

Everyone knows you can’t legislate common sense, so it remains to be seen how many people the law will stop from texting and driving.

But it’s likely that people will stop making statements like this to police:

Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, said a driver who was stopped recently for driving 30 mph over the speed limit in Winslow told the trooper that he wasn’t paying attention to the speed because he was texting his friends.

MaineToday Media State House Writers Susan Cover, Tom Bell and Rebekah Metzler contributed to this report.