Democrats Try to Silence Maine’s Caustic Governor Once More

A group of Democrats try to silence Maine’s caustic governor once more, but this time they are set to remove him from office. On Thursday, regulators called for Gov. Paul LePage’s impeachment, but not over his biting comments on immigrants and blacks, as one may suspect.

Maine House Democrats said that the governor’s latest move to bar the state’s House Speaker Mark Eves (D-North Berwick) from getting a job at a major charter school operator was the final straw.

Gov. LePage has been playing with Democrats’ nerves for five years now on various issues, from budget cuts to immigration issues. Maine Gov. is best known for his uncensored, un-politically correct remarks for years. His strategy of doing politics was often compared with Trump’s ‘tactics.’

For instance, last week he stirred his political adversaries’ outrage when he said that drug dealers of certain ethnicity come to Maine to ‘impregnate’ white women. But that did not inflame Democrats enough to call for his impeachment. The move against Mark Eves did.

House democrats said that the governor needed to pay for abuse of power. Rep. Ben Chipman (D-Portland) believes that LePage needs to be punished as a ‘matter of principle.’

“It’s about holding the governor accountable and standing up to his behavior,”

Chipman added.

If impeachment efforts succeed, it would be the first time it happens to a Maine governor. But an abrasive governor is also a rare sight in a state best known for its centrist leaders such as William Cohen and George Mitchell.

Nevertheless, LePage’s abrasive strategy of running the state has apparently been on the voters’ taste since they re-elected him for a second term in 2015. Plus, LePage doesn’t seem bothered by criticism. He admitted recently that he doesn’t even bother to read newspapers.

But newspapers do not return the favor. He made headlines when he told reporters in a news conference that he would tell even the U.S. President to ‘go to hell.’ Additionally, in 2011 he told a chapter leader from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to kiss his butt. In 2013, he said about a Democratic state senator that he had a ‘black heart’ after he had told the press that the senator would give it to Maine voters “without providing Vaseline.”

This is why many have compared him with Donald Trump although LePage grew up as homeless for a couple of years before he managed to earn a college degree and get in business and politics.
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