No impeachment . . . for now!

There will be no impeachment of Gov. Paul LePage, at least not now.  The Democrats in the Maine House of Representatives, controlled by the Dems, decided instead to pass a nothing resolution that simply called for civility.  I guess the Republicans thought being civil was the right direction and joined the Democrats in passing the resolution after not joining them in killing the impeachment attempt.

The debate and comments on WCSH6 NewsCenter sounded like the democrats had changed hoping to save some of their seats in the November elections.  Perhaps they have discovered that not all their constituents think that wasting time on this issue, especially after the democrats' own Attorney General has said the governor did nothing illegal nor committed any crime, was not in the best interest of the state.

The impeachment charge arose after some democrats tried to help their leader save his job.  A charter school had offered House Speaker Mark Eves the presidency of the school.  An Eve's staffer was the a member of the board running the school.  He allegedly coached his boss on what to do and say to get the presidency job.  That staffer has subsequently resigned from the school's leadership group and Eves' contract was withdrawn a week after it had been accepted.

Eves now has a suit against the governor in Federal Court.

The governor has allegedly said he could not allow state funds to go to the charter school because he said Eves has opposed such schools since their inception in the Legislature.  During a hearing a few weeks ago the school could not produce a memo it said it got that had the governor making a threat.

That is now behind us, but a small group of democrats say they will be on the lookout for what they perceive has more LePage judgment mistakes and again bring impeachment charges.

I find it interesting that those democrats apparently find nothing wrong with their power leader accepting the position in the first place.  Talk about breaching power!

I also doubt the "civility" resolution will amount to anything.  After all, it's the democrats that have not worked with the governor in the first place, a huge step toward the incivility currently in Augusta.  I'll be watching to see something change.

Dave