Maine Gov. Paul LePage
Maine Gov. Paul LePage just wants to put more people in prison, and he's unhappy that the state's legislature isn't cooperating quickly enough. Maine saw a substantial drop in its crime rate last year, but this year, drug offenses are up. LePage's answer is to demand $3.2 million to hire drug enforcement agents, assistant district attorneys, and judges. You'll notice that drug treatment is not on LePage's list, and
there's a reason for that:
“We have good news, but quite frankly, it’s not good enough,” LePage said. “We need those judges, we need those DAs and we need those agents on the street. I’m not so concerned right now with those that are addicted.”
Yeah, forget the addicts. What do they have to do with the prevalence of drug use?
LePage has a sad, though, because the state House approved a version that cut the law enforcement funding and added money for treatment programs, and that bill didn't make it through the state Senate before its session ended. Not that LePage would have accepted the House version had the Senate passed it—he said he'd veto anything that wasn't exactly what he wanted.
Meanwhile, LePage's concern about drugs is so deep that he skipped a "drug summit" with the governors of all five other New England states. Maybe he expected they'd spend too much time talking about the addicts he's "not so concerned right now with."
Help defeat Paul LePage by chipping in a few dollars to Democrat Mike Michaud.