AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - Republican Gov. Paul LePage, in his final State of the State address on Tuesday, vowed to keep fighting for Maine’s residents until his last moment in office and urged them to pick a new governor and Legislature who will keep politicians from reversing his legacy.
LePage said he never imagined he’d go from living on the streets of Lewiston to living in the governor’s mansion, where, he said, he’s fought to bring Ronald Reagan-style conservative principles to a state with a long independent streak.
The governor said that after “bringing fiscal sanity to Augusta,” it’s time for the nation’s oldest state to “reinvent” itself to attract young adults with innovative student debt relief programs and invest in research and commercialization.
“Put on your work boots. Our job is not done. Now is not the time to slow down,” said LePage, who recently met with President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., to talk about infrastructure and economic development initiatives.
In recent months, the outspoken governor has shied away from personal attacks while touting his financial accomplishments and focusing on his policy goals, like lowering energy costs.
He stuck to similar themes in his Tuesday address and said that before he took office in 2011 the Legislature used the state’s rainy-day dollars as a slush fund that hurt the state’s credit rating. He said he “right-sized” the state government workforce, eliminated red tape, created charter schools, cut taxes and improved the infrastructure.
LePage, who’s known for railing against his opponents, used his address to thank Republicans and Democrats who’ve worked with him, including Democratic Sen. Troy Jackson, whom LePage once accused of having a “black heart.”
LePage also spoke forcefully against out-of-state groups that have pushed citizen initiatives such as voter-approved Medicaid expansion.
Democrats criticized LePage for not mentioning the state’s opioid epidemic, which is killing about one Maine resident a day. Democratic House Speaker Sara Gideon said the address included too much finger-pointing and the governor’s legacy will be of an executive branch unwilling to work with lawmakers together on such issues.
“I don’t think he’s understood that still being able to work with people you disagree with is better than getting nothing,” Jackson said. “You can’t bully yourself forward in a government.”
The governor entered the House chamber to chants of “Health care now!” from protesters who called on him to stop dragging his heels on Medicaid expansion. Lawmakers said this week they haven’t received required monthly reports from his administration on the roll-out of expanding Medicaid to roughly 80,000 low-income residents.
LePage repeated his vow to block Medicaid expansion unless lawmakers this year figure out how to pay for it without relying on budgetary gimmicks, tax hikes or the state’s rainy day fund.
“If you believe in it, fund it,” said the governor, who added that it’s up to lawmakers to now provide funding for costs such as 105 additional staff members to run the program.
Maine is set to expand Medicaid in July under the voter-approved law, and Gideon said the ball is in the LePage administration’s court to file the necessary paperwork to do so. She said lawmakers may not have to spend extra money on expansion until next year.
LePage also touched upon a laundry list of policy goals for his last year, from protecting elderly citizens from foreclosure, to taxing conservation land owned by trusts, to making Maine a “right-to-work” state. He’s gotten pushback from Democratic Attorney General Janet Mills and a county official on his moves to empty a state minimum-security prison that costs about $5 million a year to run and that lawmakers had funded through June.
The governor can’t seek re-election because of term limits. His successor could be one of two dozen gubernatorial hopefuls, who include legislative leaders and his former Department of Health and Human Services commissioner Mary Mayhew.
LePage issued a word of caution to voters: “We will be voting whether to continue the path we were on or revert back to where we were.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.