Governor

After losing his legal counsel and deputy chief of staff, Gov. John Baldacci has made several staff changes.

Current Communications Director David Farmer will take over as deputy chief of staff, replacing Ryan Low. Low was appointed Commissioner of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services. Farmer will be responsible for moving the governor’s initiatives through the Legislature, and also be the liaison to the Finance Authority of Maine, MaineHousing and the Maine Municipal Bond Bank.

Gov. John Baldacci met today with Mainers who participated in the Olympics and their families. His office provided the following photos:

Pat LaMarche, a former Green Party gubernatorial candidate, said she will not run again in 2010.

LaMarche said several greens are looking at running, and a primary might be likely. She would not give names.

The Green Party must run someone for governor each cycle to maintain their status as an official party in the state.

Recent Green Party candidates:

• 2006: Pat LaMarche of Yarmouth – 9.5 percent in a five-way race
• 2002: Jonathan Carter of Lexington Twp. -- 9.2 percent in a four-way race
• 1998: LaMarche – 6.8 percent (No declared green ran this year, however LaMarche ran as an independent.)
• 1994: Carter – 6.4 percent

Gov. John Baldacci made $69,992 in 2007, and his benefit cost was $36,115.

There are 40 people in the state with a salary higher than $150,000.

The Secretary of State’s office spent $99,602 in advertising notices to Bangor Publishing Company (Bangor Daily News) last year.

The Maine Heritage Policy Center wants you to know this information.

The MHPC has launched www.maineopengov.org, a site dedicated to state spending disclosure.

The side includes the payroll for state, judicial, legislative, community college, university, and K-12 education employees, along with those receiving a pension from the state. It also lists more than $1 billion in vendor payments.

MHPC Executive Director Tarren Bragdon said in a release: "The MaineOpenGov.org site will expand in the near future to include more public payrolls, more government payments to companies and individuals, government contracts and other information. In addition, users of the Web site can export data, add comments on payroll and expenditure items and participate in forums to highlight items of interest culled from the data."

There is a new website - www.maineopengov.org.  

The way the site works, with the click of a button you can search payrolls, pensions, and payments to businesses and individuals.  Once you have identified your area of interest you can search by year, salary, name and several other interesting ways.  There is even a way to leave a comment on any piece of data that you find to be worth commenting on.

Of the 241 people listed in the Legislature, more than 40 make over $70,000 dollars a year. Unfortunately, the Legislature chose not to provide the cost of the benefits-which are public records. I would encourage readers to call their Legislators and demand that those figures be released.  It should be noted that the Executive Branch did provide the benefit information.

Gov. John Baldacci has just commuted his first prison sentence, reducing the sentence of Carol Graves by 18 months, his office announced today.

Graves was convicted of manslaughter in June 1997 for killing her father.

The commutation was recommended by the Governor’s Board on Executive Clemency.

In a release, Baldacci noted abuse growing up and also good behavior in prison. He said:

So much for the legacy of Herbert Lehman, one of the first Wall Street millionaires to run for public office and the son of the man who founded the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers. Lehman served as Finance Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and was elected Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1928 running on a ticket with gubernatorial candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt.

When Roosevelt ran for President in 1932, Lehman ran for Governor and beat U.S. Attorney Wild Bill Donovan, who would later become the top American spymaster during World War II, by a 57%-39% margin. Lehman was re-elected in 1934, defeating New York City master builder Robert Moses (58%-37%), and again in 1936 and 1938. In his last run for Governor, he narrowly won re-election, 50%-49%, over U.S. Attorney Thomas Dewey.

Maine Republican Party chairman Mark Ellis issued the following statement in response to former independent Gov. Angus King’s endorsement of Barack Obama this morning:

“Angus King’s endorsement of Barack Obama is no surprise. We fully expected Gov. King to endorse whomever the Democrats nominated for President.  Indeed, Gov. King presided over a massive expansion of our state budget that has idled the Maine economy for over a decade.  Therefore, it is only fitting that King would endorse Obama who has promised higher income taxes, Social Security taxes, investment taxes, and corporate taxes, as well as ‘massive new domestic spending’.  After all, birds of a feather flock together.”

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Barack Obama gets an endorsement from a former governor, while Tom Allen gets more bad news on the polling front. Check out this week's list of Winners & Losers. | CLICK HERE

The Wall Street Journal points out that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, recently tapped as Republican John McCain’s vice presidential nominee, is one of the most powerful governors in the country.

The Journal relies on a 2007 study by Professor Thad Beyle of the University of North Carolina, which creates an index of the executive power in each state.

Number-wise, Maine is in the middle, tying with eight other states at just 0.1 point above the 50-state average. Looking at the breakdown, however, the only area that Maine differs from Alaska is veto power. Maine Gov. John Baldacci (D-Bangor) does not have line-item veto power, Palin does.

The broken down rankings are as follows, all on a scale from 1 to 5. Five is the most amount of power, 1 is the least.