Maine legislative barrel of fun, part II

My wife suggests that I occasionally blow the dry dust off my column and lighten up. So I searched through the 2,000-plus proposed laws (LDs) that came before the Maine Legislature in its current session and found proof that, amidst the political rancor, fun can be found or poked in state lawmaking. Here are a few of the ideas for laws that helped lighten up our legislators this session:

. LD 181, An Act to Clarify the Definition of Livestock. I would have thought if it moos, it’s livestock, but LD 181 proposes to expand the official definition of livestock in Maine to include “alpacas, bison, llamas, ostriches, and exotic wildlife raised on farms.” That’s a good start, but the definition still does not include some people I know who also qualify. Probably a call to your legislator could also get your ex-spouse added to the list.

. LD 157 would allow electronic wildlife calling devices (think moose call) to be used in the hunting of any wildlife except migratory game birds (think ducks). I’m glad hunters would still have to blow into that old-fashioned duck caller; I like the idea of a 200-pound guy with a thousand bucks worth of hunting gear and an IQ of 120 quacking for all he’s worth.

. LD 178 would legalize Sunday motorcycle sales, presumably to everyone interested in a motorcycle purchase on the Lord’s day except a Hell’s Angel.

. LD 679 would have allowed hunting on Sunday, but it was shot down (I am guessing by the Sunday motorcycle sales lobby).

. LD 136 would allow hunters to wear only a blaze-orange hat, instead of the two articles of blaze-orange clothing required by current law. The lobby for hunted animals would probably like the hat to be the size of a gumdrop, but as a doctor interested in the prevention of accidental shootings of hunters I think the proposed law is fine if the blaze-orange hat must be the size of a Dumpster.

. LD 106 would legalize the use of “mechanical fish pumps” for alewife fishing. On the down side this would mean it really can suck to be an alewife, but on the upside, using grenades to fish for alewife is still banned.

. LD 626 would allow “all parts of a deer carcass to be sold or bartered,” in addition to the head, antlers, feet, hide and meat currently legal. Phew – now I can complete my Christmas shopping for this year. There’s nothing my marketing executive sister in Boston likes more than a couple of deer gallbladders from Maine. I am guessing the folks at the L.L. Bean catalog will be happy too; “See a complete listing of Our Own Deer Parts on Page 32.”

. LD 210 would reduce salaries and mileage expenses paid to state legislators by 10 percent. Seems like a dumb idea to me; good legislators are worth paying for, and trying to govern without them is like trying to fish with a spoon.

. LD 640 is a constitutional resolution to allow 17-year-olds to vote. It seems reasonable to me that juveniles vote, since we elect lots of them to political office.

. LD 656 would allow golf courses to sell liquor to golfers from little mobile bars on the fairways. This is great!

It gives a whole new meaning to the concept of drinking and driving, allows for putting under the influence, and with a golf game like mine a guy needs to be drinking.

. LD 689 would require parole officers to actually meet with a parolee at least every three months. What were parolees doing before that for supervision – checking in with their moms?

. LD 928 would ban the importation of underage ferrets into Maine, probably ending that underage ferret menace once and for all.

. LD 988 would increase penalties for passing a stopped school bus, and it’s about time. If you pass a loading school bus an airstrike should be called in on your car, and you should be sentenced to repeat first grade, where the other children can get you at recess.

. LD 1049, which is now law, allows women who have recently had a baby to qualify temporarily for handicapped parking. Bet that law went through like poop through a goose, because no one in their right mind would argue with the new mom lobby.

. LD 1221 would prohibit skateboards on state highways, presumably because the kids on them go so fast they keep passing the cars and distracting drivers from their car phone calls. On the up side, you can still hunt moose from your skateboard, but only while wearing your orange hat and not on Sundays.

. LD 84 would require people who sell guinea pigs to be licensed, presumably to stop the rampant sale of black-market guinea pigs.

. LD 85 would define a strain of Maine Standardbred horses, presumably to clamp down on the indiscriminate horse sex going on around the state.

. LD 29 would end the tiny fee on our phone bills that supports low-cost computers, Internet access and telecommunication services for qualified schools and libraries. Yeah, why the heck would we want those in our schools and libraries anyway? On the upside, the fee to support the purchase of tin cans with strings between them will be maintained, keeping Maine on the cutting edge of communications technology for children in adjacent rooms.

. LD 34 would ensure that state child labor laws apply to state and local governments. That will kill the idea of saving state budget dollars by having kindergarten classes take field trips to staff state government.

. LD 526 would force telemarketers to pay a $1 tax to the state for every call they make to a resident of Maine. The heck with that; if the state government wants that $1 it can darn well answer those calls to my house at dinnertime. Otherwise, if I answer the phone, I want that buck.

. LD 1057 proposed that a worker at a beano game could play your beano cards while you go to the potty. Squeezed by the powerful bladder lobby, the Legislature passed the “Oh, What a Relief It Is” law because everyone knows when you gotta go, you gotta go.

Well, that’s enough lightening up for today. I’ll do it again some time, as long as there continues to be no law against it.

Erik Steele, D.O. is a physician in Bangor, an administrator at Eastern Maine Medical Center, and is on the staff of several hospital emergency rooms in the region.