AUGUSTA — While lawmakers spent their morning on Tuesday arguing whether to override Gov. Paul LePage’s budget veto, two groups of Maine voters were having their own conversation at the State House — about their views of the governor.
Several dozen self-described conservative activists were first, turning up inside the State House’s central Hall of Flags to cheer their support for LePage and his veto of the state budget. Their presence also signified a deeper endorsement of the governor’s hardball tactics and his devotion to his own policy agenda at any perceived political cost.
Larry Grimard of Jefferson was one of those activists. He said he supported LePage’s efforts to keep asylum seekers and other legally present immigrants from accessing welfare. And while he thought it was an “extreme measure,” he also backed LePage’s effort to waste lawmakers’ time by vetoing nearly every bill they pass.
“I don’t like it, but I think it’s necessary,” Grimard said.
Later, outside the State House, another group rallied in support of the four lawmakers who have asked the Legislature’s watchdog committee to investigate LePage for potential wrongdoing and overreach of his executive authority, stemming from his threat to withhold state funding from Good Will-Hinckley if it did not fire its newly chosen president, Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves.
Like LePage’s allies, though, the message of his roughly 200 critics, largely left-leaning, was about more than just the controversy over LePage’s recent treatment of a political foe.
“Paul LePage up to this point has been an embarrassment, but his recent actions constitute a threat to the integrity of our state,” said Mark Krogman, a Yarmouth resident who handed out bumper stickers emblazoned with “impeach!” in all capital letters. “We all learned on the playground that if you don’t confront a bully, it emboldens their behavior.”
LePage’s combative style has had detractors for as long as he’s been in the public eye. But since winning re-election last year, LePage has seemingly become more strident, and he has governed with wartime posture toward not only political opponents but the entire Legislature.
He forced the Maine Community College System president to resign by flat-funding the system. A political action committee run by his daughter made robocalls against GOP lawmakers, and LePage promised to oppose them at the polls if they defied him. He pledged to veto every bill in protest of the Legislature’s independence. The Good Will-Hinckley scandal is most recent.
This has pushed criticism of LePage to a fever pitch. More than 10,000 people have signed a petition on the liberal MoveOn.org website calling for LePage’s impeachment, and the improptu anti-LePage rally at the State House — organized by two retired lawyers — drew some 200 people Tuesday.
LePage has defended his decisions by saying he was endorsed in substance and style by the 48 percent of Maine voters who returned him to the Blaine House last year. He’s frequently commented that while lawmakers are elected by their districts, he was elected by the whole state.
“I was elected to stand up for the people of Maine,” LePage told the 50 or so supporters who rallied around him on Tuesday. “I’m going to continue to work for you with every ounce of blood and breath I have in my body.”
Ronald Schmidt, an associate professor of political science at the University of Southern Maine, said that while LePage’s recent actions are favored by his supporters, they’ve had an even more profound effect on his opponents.
In pushing for Eves’ firing, Schmidt said LePage has “pretty much given people who are opposed to his agenda a gift, with a big red bow on it.”
“Because of the way he’s treated people in the Legislature, and the way he is gleefully obstructing the process means people who opposed him before see an opportunity to reach out to the public to make their case,” Schmidt said.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
