Maine House ready to debate LePage impeachment investigation

Facing an impeachment effort, Gov. Paul LePage is skipping the traditional State of the State address to a joint session of the Maine Legislature. Here’s what you need to know.

A group led by Democratic Rep. Ben Chipman of Portland wants to punish the outspoken Republican governor for pressuring a charter school operator into rescinding a job offer to Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves. On Thursday, regulators called for Gov. Paul LePage’s impeachment, but not over his biting comments on immigrants and blacks, as one may suspect.

The impeachment order would require a simple majority in the Democratically controlled House to launch an independent investigation into the governor’s actions.

LePage’s removal seems unlikely, however, as it would require a two-thirds majority in the Republican-controlled state Senate.

LePage, 67, is proud of his disdain for the usual courtesies of politics, and voters rewarded him by electing him last year to a second and final four-year term. Their complaints center around whether the governor bullied an organization into revoking a job for the Democratic House speaker by threatening to withhold state funds for the group.

Most recently, in 2009, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was removed from office for attempting to sell then President-elect Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat for cash.

Critics also want to look into other matters, including allegations that he forced out the president of the Maine Community College System, got involved in the internal workings of the unemployment compensation board and refused to allow administration officials to testify in front of committees.

A spokeswoman for the governor previously called the claims “frivolous”.

The state attorney general, Democrat Janet Mills, already declined to investigate LePage’s conduct.

Maine’s governor has offended many with his abrasive comments and hard-nosed political tactics. “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 ME voters “without providing Vaseline”.