Davis requests investigation of ‘partisan activity’ by OPLA

Staff Report

Contributed photo
Rep. Paul T. Davis
(R-Sangerville)

    AUGUSTA — State Rep. Paul Davis (R-Sangerville), ranking House Republican on the Maine Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee (GOC), submitted a request to the Democratic chairpersons of the committee last week that an investigation be conducted into the activity of nonpartisan staff.

    Recent news reports have uncovered emails from an Office of Policy and Legal Analysis (OPLA) analyst for the Health & Human Services Committee that reveal “highly partisan and legally questionable activities,” according to a press release from the Maine House Republicans.
    In one incident, an analyst wrote up “talking points” for Democratic lawmakers. In another, the analyst asked a lobbyist to erase an email. The correspondence was uncovered via a public records request by The Maine Wire, a conservative online news source.
    The emails surfaced one week after top state staffers held a closed-door meeting with Republican lawmakers in an attempt to convince them that the HHS committee analyst, Jane Orbeton, is not inappropriately advocating for the Democratic Party’s policy agenda.
    “I was thinking of 70,000 people and trying to put faces on them,” Orbeton said in a May 20 email to Sen. Margaret Craven (D-Androscoggin) and Rep. Richard Farnsworth (D-Portland), co-chairs of the HHS Committee. “They’re the ones who will or will not be covered by MaineCare expansion,” said Orbeton. “They’re the people we can tell that we chose to provide them access to health care or we chose not to even though the costs of care are 100 percent paid.”
    The Maine Wire’s request for public records also revealed extensive correspondence between Orbeton and employees of Maine Equal Justice Partners (MEJP), a nonprofit legal aid provider that also favors MaineCare expansion.
     “It is necessary for the integrity of our Legislature and the trust between parties and between elected members and staff to investigate the extent to which nonpartisan staff has engaged in partisan activity,” Davis wrote.
    But Rep. Jeff McCabe (D-Skowhegan), the assistant House majority leader, said that Davis’ inquiry “sounds like a nasty wild goose chase. Desperate times calls for desperate measures. Plus, I’m not sure I would call The Maine Wire anything but a blog.”
    If Davis’ request is granted, an investigation would be conducted by OPEGA and would look into written communications between nonpartisan legislative staff, lawmakers, outside organizations and others.