Re:Maine

There are many places Paul LePage may have expected to be now, three months after his inauguration as governor, and midway through his crucial first legislative session. Doubtless he didn’t expect to be vacationing in Jamaica amid a major rift in his own party.

It’s rare for a governor to vacation at such a time, but even rarer to face an open revolt among the Senate Republicans he’d been counting on to enact an ambitious agenda.

Last Thursday, LePage met with the Senate caucus behind closed doors, emerging to say that his remarks about recent “distractions” had been “well-received.”

But not well enough. Eight members of the 20-strong GOP caucus quickly submitted an unprecedented op-ed, published Monday in most of the state’s daily newspapers, criticizing the governor for “the tone and spirit” of recent remarks, which they said had produced “discomfort and dismay.”

That was just the warmup. Referring to the still-expanding controversy over LePage’s unilateral decision to remove the labor history mural from its commissioned place at the Department of Labor, the GOP eight termed it “another example of our chief executive picking a personal fight not worth fighting,” part of a pattern of “government by disrespect.” What seems to have driven the senators over the edge was LePage’s quip, concerning protests of the mural removal, that he would “laugh at the idiots.”

What communications director Dan Demeritt called “a little thing” a few weeks ago has become a very big thing, one that threatens to short-circuit LePage’s effectiveness as a leader.

True, not all Republican senators signed the op-ed, but GOP Chairman Charles Webster – the architect of last November’s electoral triumph – also sided with them, saying the list “could have been longer,” and that they were responding to numerous complaints from constituents.

LePage’s order to his acting labor commissioner, Laura Boyett – the one Cabinet position he hasn’t filled yet – to remove the mural when he’d found a “more suitable” place for it was compounded by his decision to move it to a closet elsewhere in the building.

Things have snowballed since then. The U.S. Department of Labor is asking for the return of its two-thirds share of the $60,000 cost of the artwork, and a federal lawsuit has been filed arguing that LePage breached the state’s contract with the artist and the Maine Arts Commission.

As U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a state senator before being elected to Congress, aptly put it, “It wasn’t a decision for one person.”

There are many ways to view politicians, but one is a division between those who want to get things done, and those who would rather prove a point.

Legislators, state and national, are often of the latter kind, and serve an important role in rallying members to a cause. The Democrats sorely missed Paul Wellstone, a liberal senator from Minnesota, during the recent debate over national health care. Wellstone’s death in a plane crash just before the 2002 elections deprived his party of its leading exponent of a truly comprehensive system – something never seriously considered during the epic 15-month battle to pass the bill President Obama signed into law.

Sen. Jesse Helms, Republican from North Carolina, began as a staunch segregationist and ended up thwarting the aims and nominees of several presidents from his post as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, proudly bearing the title, “Sen. No.”

But by the nature of their jobs, presidents and governors have to be pragmatists. They are expected to get things done, and judged by their ability to do so.

What the Senate Republicans are telling Gov. LePage is that it isn’t his job to commit provocative acts, belittle his critics, or battle the president, the NAACP, conservation groups, labor historians — or the press. Not while they are trying to move forward a difficult agenda, where major tax cuts are funded by even larger cuts to state employee pensions.

As LePage departed for the islands and a presumed cooling-off period, his press office issued a statement saying he is now “a more understanding governor who realizes his words do affect others who are on his side.”

Up to this point, LePage has shown no inclination to mute his words, or curb his actions. One sign he’s changed is whether he gives the order to restore the mural to its original place when he returns. It’s going to happen, sooner or later, but the longer it stays in the closet, the harder it will be for Paul LePage to govern.