Governor Paul LePage is a blunt-spoken Tea Party kind of guy, who has won two elections by a plurality, not a majority.
Early on, he aligned himself with Jeb Bush to promote for-profit digital learning.
But now he is in trouble because he threatened to cut the state funding of a charter school that wanted to hire the Democratic House Speaker as its president.
Some legislators are talking impeachment, and the movement seems to be picking up momentum.
The cynic in me wonders why a charter school wanted to hire the speaker of the Democratic House as its president. Charter schools are notorious for finding ways to send money to key political figures, usually as direct campaign contributions. Was this on the up-and-up or just another clever ploy by the charter industry to shore up political support from both sides of the aisle?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The politics of the charter industry can’t be denied, Ohio’s frauds are among many that show the backscratching and payoffs.
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The only reason Maine didn’t end up like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan is one local reporter did an expose on how deeply Jeb Bush’s ed reform foundation had sunk their lobbyists into state government:
“A couple of weeks before Christmas 2012, two mid-level staffers from the Foundation for Excellence in Education – a Florida-based education reform organization founded and chaired by Jeb Bush – were preparing to fly up to Maine for meetings with state education officials here.
It was awkward timing, as Gov. Paul LePage’s administration was under fire after revelations that it had allowed foundation officials to ghost-write many of the state’s virtual charter school policies – including draft legislation, strategic policy goals, and the text of one of LePage’s executive orders – even though their organization was deeply entwined with many of the companies that stood to cash in on the proposed changes.”
One person. Without that reporter Maine would have a huge for-profit k-12 industry like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania do.
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/08/16/education-agenda-in-maine-shifts-abruptly-and-ties-to-bush-model-go-cold/
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You are an amazing repository of knowledge and references. Thank you for being part of these discussions.
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Governor LePage got more votes for his second term than any other Governor has ever gotten in Maine, ever. As for how clever the Charter industry is, perhaps this was a devised ploy. However, the bad blood between the two had never been any secret and the optics of Eaves getting the job were just too ugly to ignore.
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Haha!
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