Maine Governor Paul LePage's Latest Stunt: Naming Himself Education Commissioner - The Atlantic

Maine Governor Paul LePage's Latest Stunt: Naming Himself Education Commissioner - The Atlantic:
Maine Governor Paul LePage Names Himself Commissioner of Education
The move caps a week in which he insulted lawmakers and then tried to play off his racist comments and support for the guillotine as ploys for attention.

Paul LePage wears many hats: governor, anti-press crusader, fount of racist innuendo, advocate for vigilante justice. Now he plans to add Maine education commissioner, too.

On Thursday, he said he would withdraw the nomination of acting Education Commissioner William Beardsley for a permanent role, citing insurmountable Democratic opposition in the state legislature to Beardsley’s elevation.

“I will be the commissioner,” LePage said. Or as the governor might say in his native French, “l’etat, c’est moi.”

Senator Rebecca Millett, the top Democrat on the education committee, accused LePage of “making a mockery of the role of commissioner and the important responsibilities that fall beneath the commissioner and seriousness of educating our children.” Asked what might have motivated LePage, she told the Portland Press Herald, “I can’t explain why the governor does anything.”

Beardsley is currently serving as acting commissioner, and when that appointments runs out, he will return to being deputy commissioner, while LePage will lead the office. His answer was prompted by a question from the superintendent of Lewiston schools, who asked when the education department might get permanent leadership, the Sun Journal reported. It’s perhaps not quite what the superintendent had in mind.

Education has been a hotly contested issue during LePage’s term. The Republican is a major proponent of charter schools, and signed legislation authorizing them in Maine. He also, by his own admission, used state funds to pressure a charitable organization into rescinding a job offer to the Democratic state house speaker, a vocal opponent of charter schools.

It’s already been a banner week for LePage, who’s prone to outrageous and offensive comments. He followed through on a threat not to deliver a state of the state address, instead sending a letter to the legislature, which the Bangor Daily News characterized as “terse” and “insulting.” For example, LePage wrote, “For the past year, socialist politicians in Augusta have been dragging my Administration's employees before a kangaroo court and plotting meaningless Maine Governor Paul LePage's Latest Stunt: Naming Himself Education Commissioner - The Atlantic: