The 12 lawmakers on the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee have a chance Wednesday afternoon to do the right thing and order an investigation into Gov. Paul LePage’s threat to withhold state funds from a nonprofit organization if it didn’t scrap its plans to hire Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves.
The committee members shouldn’t be deterred by a Tuesday letter from the governor’s chief counsel that claims the committee’s investigating entity, the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability, has no authority to look into “[t]he Governor and the exercise of his discretionary executive power.”
In the letter to OPEGA, Cynthia Montgomery, the governor’s counsel, argued the office’s charge is to investigate state government agencies and programs authorized by the Legislature. The governor’s office is beyond its reach, the letter argues, because the state Constitution authorizes it as “a governing authority separate but equal to the Legislature itself.”
But OPEGA, which has subpoena powers, has a long history of investigating the executive branch, the agencies and programs it runs and executive branch officials. Indeed, that’s the office’s charge. The statute that authorizes OPEGA clearly gives it authority to investigate any public official, including the governor.
“When authorized by the [government oversight] committee, the office also may examine or direct an examination of … any public official or public employee during the course of public duty,” the statute reads.
It also says OPEGA “is established to ensure that public funds provided to … any … nonprofit corporation are expended for the purposes for which they were allocated, appropriated or contracted,” granting lawmakers further grounds on which they could base an investigation.
A week after LePage’s threat to Fairfield-based Good Will-Hinckley was revealed and the organization withdrew its employment offer to Eves, it’s time to have independent investigators drill down, confirm what happened and, most importantly, determine whether and to what extent LePage overstepped the bounds of his authority and the bounds of the law.
Government Oversight Committee members should recognize this is a situation that calls out for investigation because it’s a matter larger than the two political rivals at odds with each other.
Still, to LePage and his defenders, this is a political battle worth having. LePage has maintained he intervened in an attempt to stop cronyism in action. “Mark Eves is a crony. Mark Eves is a hack,” LePage told CBS 13 in an interview Monday. “Mark Eves was gonna take a soft landing at Good Will-Hinckley, like many do at the university.”
The Maine Republican Party has tried to cast the episode up as a legitimate use of discretionary, state government funds to fight the hire of an unqualified individual.
“Systems of accountability are compromised seriously when friendships put niceties over results,” Maine GOP Chairman Rick Bennett said in a statement last Friday, citing no evidence that “friendships” got Eves the offer to lead Good Will-Hinckley — the two board members within the organization with an Eves connection recused themselves from the hiring process and decision. “There seems to be an expectation among Democrats that this is business as usual and it should not even be questioned.”
But LePage and his defenders are missing the point.
In defending LePage’s actions, the governor’s allies are condoning LePage’s expansive view of the powers of his office. LePage had no role to play in the hiring decision of a nonprofit organization independent of state government, yet he asserted one. His behavior constituted an example of blatant overreach, bullying and an inappropriate use of the influence of his office.
Do LePage’s defenders want to endorse such a far-reaching view of gubernatorial powers for Maine’s next governor — essentially, the ability for the governor to insert himself even in private matters with which he should have no involvement?
At worst, LePage’s behavior constituted an abuse of power — the inappropriate use of public funds to settle a personal score — and criminal behavior.
Do LePage’s defenders endorse the use of public funds and potentially criminal means by any governor in any circumstance to assert a political point?
The investigation by OPEGA would need to determine whether LePage abused his authority and to what extent. The attorney general’s office could use the findings as reasonable grounds to start a criminal investigation.
Most importantly, this entire episode needs to send the message that overreach by a governor won’t be tolerated.
