AUGUSTA, Maine — Attorneys for Gov. Paul LePage have urged a federal appeals judge to uphold a lower court’s rejection of a lawsuit against the governor by Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves.
Friday’s filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals is the latest development in a legal battle that has gone on for months. LePage attorney Patrick Strawbridge argued in a lengthy legal brief that U.S. District Court Judge George Singal correctly dismissed Eves’ suit in May on the grounds that LePage, as an elected official, is immune from the claim.
At issue is a controversy that stretches back to June 2015, when Eves landed a job as president of Good Will-Hinckley, a Fairfield organization that among other things runs a public charter school for at-risk teens. LePage objected to the hiring and threatened to withhold public funds from the school unless it rescinded its employment contract with Eves. The school fired Eves, who sued LePage in July 2015.
After the dismissal of that suit, Eves appealed the decision and amended his lawsuit such that he is no longer seeking monetary damages. Instead, Eves has requested a declaration from the court that LePage broke the law and a requirement that LePage complete civil rights training about the constitutional provisions Eves claims he violated.
“This is a dispute property resolved in the political arena, not the federal courts,” wrote Strawbridge in a brief filed last week. “The speaker and the governor are political opponents who have clashed on numerous policy issues. It is hardly surprising, then, that they disagreed over whether the speaker was an appropriate steward of millions of dollars of future state funding for Maine’s first charter school.”
Eves’ attorney, David Webbert, said in a statement to reporters that the governor’s immunity claims are “extreme” and that LePage believes “he has the absolute right to insist on loyalty to his political party as a condition of state funding for all private organizations.”
“LePage’s theory of sweeping executive powers poses a direct threat to the Maine Constitution and its system of checks and balances on the power of a governor,” wrote Webbert. “It also threatens to destroy the independence of Maine’s nonpartisan, private organizations.”
The appeals court hearing is expected to take place in October.
