The governor told the group he was going to talk to friends and family about what he would do next and respond to them on Tuesday, said Jim Cyr, a spokesman for Thibodeau.
Advertisement
LePage’s second and final term as governor officially ends in 2019. “I’m not saying I am going to finish it”.
Fredette says LePage is addressing his behavior himself, and that lawmakers must discuss more pressing issues ahead of the November election.
LePage has recently come under fire for saying blacks and Hispanics are largely responsible for Maine’s heroin trade and then for leaving a voicemail that said, “I am after you”.
Today, though, the tide seemed to be shifting as the governor acknowledged that his party was beginning to bulk and suggest he step down.
Although he raised the specter of stepping down while on air at WVOM, LePage appeared to reverse course, taking to Twitter and tweeting: “Regarding rumors of resignation, to paraphrase Mark Twain: ‘The reports of my political demise are greatly exaggerated'”.
Important political safety tip: sending angry and threatening voice-mail messages turns out to be a disastrous career move.
Some Democratic lawmakers have called for a special session of the legislature to censure LePage, who earlier this year fought off an impeachment effort.
ME state Rep. Drew Gattine, a Democrat, characterized the comments as racially-charged, according to the New York Times, but insists that he didn’t call the governor a racist. He also called Gattine a vulgar name related to oral sex. And, you know, whether it’s right or wrong, I’ll leave you to make that judgment. Drew Gattine (gah-TEEN’) because he thought Gattine called him a racist.
The governor has been accused of making racially divisive comments before, most recently on August 24 at a town hall in North Berwick.
The episode began Wednesday when LePage said that he kept a three-ring binder of pictures of arrested drug dealers in the state and 90 percent of them were black or Hispanic.
The rally was a response to the governor’s recent profanity-laced email to a Democratic legislator and his repeated comments about Maine’s heroin epidemic. Now ever since I said that comment, I’ve been collecting [the photos of] every single drug dealer who has been arrested in our state.
Material from the Associated Press and the State House News Service was used in this report. Of those, 170 – or 14 percent – were black.
LePage was attending a conference of governors in Boston on Monday when he said that black and Hispanic drug dealers from Lowell, Lawrence, and several other communities supply the majority of opiates to ME residents. But any possible ramifications against LePage – who has repeatedly avoided punishment and retained his base of political support – are unclear.
The governor met with Republican leaders of the House and Senate Monday evening.
Advertisement
House Majority Leader Jeff McCabe, a Democrat, said that LePage has crossed a line but that he and other lawmakers may reconsider their calls for resignation if the governor agrees to seek professional help and outlines a treatment plan.
