Statement on Governor LePage's erratic behavior

These past few days I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the Governor’s latest tirade. Trying to find the right words to describe what I’m feeling. I wish I could say it’s just LePage being LePage. He is just telling it like it is right? Much like what we’ve seen on a national level, this isn’t a joking matter anymore. It’s easy to let our complacency get the best of us because the repetition of controversy has made so many people numb to these headlines. I would know having recently been in a dust up myself with the York County Republican Chair over my personal life and inciting hate to find a new candidate against me.
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For our state’s top elected official to call a lawmaker (or anyone for that matter) and leave a horrendously profane and threatening message is unfathomable. I can’t repeat what he said since it’s so nasty, but you’ve probably heard the audio clip by now. I’m pretty sure if you or I made the kind of comments the Governor has, we would be out of a job without question in the private sector.

No matter what side of the aisle you hail from. Whether you have voted for the Governor before or not. Whether you agree with him on policy or not. The recent actions of the Governor demonstrate his lack of temperament to lead our state. He clearly doesn’t respect the office he holds. Both the institution of government and the position of Governor should be a positive representation of our state. Instead, we’ve been thrown into one manufactured crisis after another followed by a slew of negative press casting our state and Mainers in an unnecessary bad light. How many times do we have to be at this place of overlooking the Governor’s actions and words before the Legislature take official action?

Frankly I don’t think the Governor should resign. He won’t anyway. We should have started the investigation into impeachment when we had the chance. I was proud to join a handful of my colleagues to vote to start the impeachment proceedings. Sadly, there wasn’t enough of us to make it count. Another example why elections matter. Hopefully now there will be enough pressure to call a special session of the Legislature and do our due diligence as an equal branch of government to reign in the Executive branch.
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He is a complete distraction from the important work of running our state. He has simply come unhinged and is unfit to hold office. At some point we have to expect more from individuals who hold public office and restore the public’s faith in the system. Aside from urging a new legislative session be called, I will also re-introduce my bill to establish a recall process not just for the Governor, but for all state elected officials. It’s times like these that really make you wish you had more tools of accountability at your disposal.