Nowhere in Maine law does it say that the governor and the attorney general have to like each other. It doesn’t say they have to agree on policy. They don’t even have to work together.

But they both have jobs to do, and personal or political differences should not get in the way. Gov. LePage should quit stalling and sign the financial orders needed to fill open positions in the Attorney General’s Office that have been left vacant as an apparent sign of LePage’s dissatisfaction with Attorney General Janet Mills.

In times of divided government, Maine’s unique system of having the Legislature elect constitutional officers creates the possibility that a governor and attorney general can belong to different parties.

That is bound to create some friction, as it did when the LePage administration wanted to appeal a federal ruling that prevented Maine from dropping about 6,000 19- and 20-year-olds from MaineCare. Mills did not think the state had a case and refused to represent it at the U.S. Court of Appeals. The Maine Department of Health and Human Services hired outside counsel and lost the appeal.

Since then, the governor has made his dissatisfaction with the Attorney General’s Office plain. He says he plans to submit legislation that would allow governors to appoint attorneys general, subject to Senate confirmation. And he chose to swear in Mills for her new term at a private ceremony in his office, rather than a traditional public ceremony.

Mills has admirably played down these slights, pointing out that they are not representative of the interactions between her office and the executive branch. But these unfilled personnel orders are interfering with her office’s ability to do its job.

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One of the vacant positions is for a murder prosecutor; right now, there are only four for the whole state. Murder cases typically require thorough investigations with hundreds of witness interviews and long, involved trials.

Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson, a Republican, has written to the governor on behalf of the Maine Prosecutors Association asking him not to keep the office shorthanded.

Other open slots are for a full-time and a part-time lawyer to handle child protective cases. And the X-ray machine in the Medical Examiner’s Office is broken, requiring the state to spend money unnecessarily by moving bodies to MaineGeneral Medical Center during some autopsies.

These are not political issues – they simply affect the ability of the office to do its job. There is no need to delay.

Just as he did when he refused to issue voter-approved bonds, the governor is inventing ways to apply political pressure where it does not belong.

He has made his point, and now everyone should just move on.


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