The last hearing on Gov. Paul LePage’s Good Will-Hinckley scandal, had everything: conflicting accounts of the truth, carefully couched threats, intimidating phone calls, red herrings, you name it. When it was over, it was clear LePage and his team had acted more like bullies than governors.
Since late summer, the Government Oversight Committee has been investigating whether the reason the LePage administration temporarily withheld state funding from Good Will-Hinckley was for its hiring House Speaker Mark Eves — a LePage political opponent — as its new president.
It’s a serious abuse of power for any public official to interfere with the employment decisions of a private organization.
Here’s how we got to this point: After months of interviews, Good Will-Hinckley’s board unanimously selected Eves. When LePage found out, he personally contacted three separate people connected to the school and its funding sources and told them they had “lost his support.”
School officials realized that “support” meant “money” and that state funds disappearing could start a financial chain reaction that would close the school.
A regularly scheduled payment of state aid was then pulled back. The board met again and rescinded its offer to Eves. The payments from the state resumed.
Shortly after that, the governor boasted to a TV reporter that he had indeed withheld state funding until Eves was removed.
The Government Oversight Committee unanimously launched a nonpartisan investigation, which uncovered a paper trail that confirmed what LePage had told the reporter.
Then it subpoenaed two LePage staffers, an advisor named Aaron Chadbourne, and the governor’s chief legal counsel, Cynthia Montgomery. It also heard from former acting-Education Commissioner Tom Desjardins, along with the chair of the Good Will-Hinckley board and Good Will-Hinckley’s lobbyist.
Everyone testified under oath, and it was clear that the administration had shaken down the institution until it got rid of Eves, despite denials from LePage staffers.
The Chadbourne testimony in particular came across like something out of a bad mob movie. After he learned of Eves’ hiring, Chadbourne called Good Will-Hinckley’s lobbyist — hired to focus on funding — into his office.
The lobbyist testified she left that meeting knowing that Good Will-Hinckley’s funding was now in jeopardy. When the committee asked Chadbourne about this, he denied making threats and said he wasn’t responsible for any impressions the lobbyist had gleaned from their conversation.
That lobbyist — a former Republican staffer — testified she had been at her job for many more years than Chadbourne and had come to trust her impressions. The governor and his staff only ever used the vague-but-not-too-vague phrase “loss of support,” but the implication was clear.
Later, when Desjardins testified, he claimed the stopped payment to Good Will-Hinckley was just a routine decision. The problem? There were two other schools in the same category whose payments — if Desjardins was telling the truth — would also have been stopped at the same time.
But those payments had gone through just fine. The bullies had followed through on their threat.
The investigating committee itself also was dragged into the governor’s line of fire. He explicitly threatened the Republican co-chair of the committee, Sen. Roger Katz, with retribution just for investigating, i.e. doing his job.
That plus his kneecapping of the speaker have cast a shadow over the investigation and the entire legislative process. The public now has little choice but to question whether committee members or other lawmakers can cast votes on any issue without worrying about threats from the governor that could harm them personally, their families or the communities they represent.
On Thursday, the committee will decide what to do with its report. It could reject the report and file it away forever. It could accept the report and move on, giving other lawmakers the chance to use its contents to try to discipline the governor. It also could send the report to the office of the attorney general, the district attorney, and the U.S. attorney for a possible criminal investigation.
Whatever the committee does, it must defend both the letter and the spirit of the Maine Constitution and state law. It also must restore the Legislature as an independent branch of government.
There are numerous occasions where the LePage administration has used these intimidation tactics to force his narrow view of the world, including the World Acadian Congress so important to Aroostook County.
My advice: Send the report. It is time that people stop worrying that if they do something that displeases the governor that their careers might be in jeopardy.
Troy Jackson of Allagash is the former Maine Senate majority leader. He is Maine’s delegate to the Democratic National Committee.