On Monday, Sept. 12, Rep. Jeffrey Evangelos (I-Friendship) appealed to Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap to reconsider the legislator’s request that Dunlap ask the Maine Judicial Supreme Court to consider removing Gov. Paul LePage from office.

On Thursday, Sept. 8, Dunlap had written a lengthy letter to Evangelos and the request’s other signers, stating he would not refer the matter to the Supreme Court because he did not feel he had enough evidence.

“As you note, the Governor’s public deliverance of obscenity is just the latest in a six-year string of what I and many others condemn as defamations to the hallowed office of Governor,” Dunlap writes in the Sept. 8 reply letter.

“While his latest series of statements plows yet new ground, nothing he has done is really surprising or out of character when contemplated against his prior trespasses on the public discourse. That his comments cause discontent and even outrage is not new, and while many feel the coarseness of his rhetoric does nothing to elevate the office, those statements in and of themselves do not indicate an inability to perform the functions of the office of Governor.”

Dunlap said the Constitution’s provision that deals with the Secretary of State asking the state’s high court for removal of a sitting governor presumes the condition is temporary.

“There is no provision in the Constitution to remove the Governor, per se; although the Constitution is a thorough document, accounting for almost any eventuality. Included in those preparations are the provisions you describe in Article V, Part First, Section 15. I must emphasize here that the provisions of Section 15 are, by design, temporary. It must be assumed that any condition that would render the Governor unable to perform his duties would be surmountable,” Dunlap writes.

Dunlap writes that he spoke to a great number of people, including legislators, attorneys with the Attorney General’s office, and members of the public. On Sept. 7, Dunlap held a conference call with the House Democratic caucus regarding the matter. Dunlap’s office confirmed the meeting took place. According to members who were present for the caucus, Dunlap said he was unlikely to take the matter to the Supreme Court, well before he communicated that to the original petitioner, Evangelos, who, as an Independent, was not present at the Democratic caucus.

Dunlap said in his letter that should any additional information come to light that could prove LePage incapable of performing his duties, Dunlap would act. “It is my belief that the actions of the Governor, while reprehensible, do not indicate that he is unable to perform the duties of the office. If any evidence of such inability comes to my attention in the future, you may be assured I will not require correspondence in order to act on behalf of the people of Maine.”

”We are appealing your decision to take no action on our request ... on the grounds that your opinion did not address the concerns outlined in our letter, you addressed obscenities, profanities, and defamations,” the letter read. “We asked about threats of violence, to shoot people, to kill people, support for extra-judicial killings and vigilante killings and believed this continuing pattern by the Governor gives rise to concerns about his mental stability and fitness to serve, and provided the Secretary of State reasonable grounds to investigate and possibly act with the Supreme Court.”

Evangelos’ letter also said that Dunlap’s concerns about setting a precedent that might make it more difficult in the future to remove a governor who is mentally ill or suffering from substance abuse are without merit. “Without precedent, we wouldn’t have got Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka; we’d still have segregation,” Evangelos wrote.

He introduced another signer to the original letter to Dunlap, Janice Cooper (D-Yarmouth), who had worked as a lawyer in Washington D.C., and was involved in the impeachment hearings of Judge Alcee Hastings in 1989.

Cooper said her legal impressions were that the provision under discussion provided two ways for the issue of the governor’s temporary inability to exercise his duties to come before the Supreme Court. The governor could ask himself, or the Secretary of State could refer the governor to the Court. Cooper said there are no precedents for this issue, as well as impeachment, because they have never been used in Maine, but pointed out that there were other issues, related to this administration, which were taken up by the Attorney General. “The Secretary’s conclusion is wholly speculative.”

She also pointed out that Dunlap said, in his letter, that he had exhausted himself investigating the matter. “The timeline of his actions belie this claim. He stated his position to the Democratic caucus hours before he responded to Rep. Evangelos’ letter the following day. How much investigation could have been done in those hours? So far as I know, he has interviewed no potential witnesses, nor interviewed the governor. Furthermore, he appears to have relied on (Attorney General Janet Mills’) legal analysis, which is narrow at best.”

She said that Mills did not appear to have considered the possibility that the threats of violence against a sitting legislator, the chair of the important DHHS committee, is evidence of an inability to discharge the governor’s responsibilities. Instead, Dunlap focused on the mundane business of the executive branch, according to Cooper. 

Finally,  she wrote that the Court, not the Secretary, should be doing the investigation. Cooper said she would be happy to discuss the analysis further with Dunlap.

An email to Dunlap’s office regarding the letter was not immediately returned.