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Maine State Legislature- An Openly Lawless Body

In an article in todays PPH,  Republicans charge House Speaker with conflict of interest.  , there is a discussion of legislative conflicts of interests.

 The article is centered around House Speaker, Mark Eves allegated conflict of interest in the expansion of Medicaid (Maine Care)

Last week, 26 House Republicans signed a letter requesting that House Speaker Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, recuse himself from voting on a bill that would expand Medicaid, the publicly funded health insurance program for the poor.

The freedom to legislate in areas in which conflicts of interests exists is openly defended by Rep. Lance Harvell, R-Farmington, who said he refused to sign the letter.

 "If we start down that road, there isn’t going to be anybody in this damn place who can vote,”

The article then cites various instance of conflict of interest covering a range of situations.

But if the legislature itself abides by the laws written by that body - it should be standard protocol that each would recuse themselves in instances where there is a conflict of interest- or even an appearance of a conflict of interest with their own occupations within the private sector:


Title 17: CRIMES
Chapter 101: PUBLIC OFFICES AND OFFICERS


3104. Conflicts of interest; purchases by the State
No trustee, superintendent, treasurer or other person holding a place of trust in any state office or public institution of the State shall be pecuniarily interested directly or indirectly in any contracts made in behalf of the State or of the institution in which he holds such place of trust, and any contract made in violation hereof is void. This section shall not apply to purchases of the State by the Governor under authority of Title 1, section 814. [1975, c. 771, §164 (AMD).]

The fact that such a line of reasoning would even be voiced as a legitimate argument serves as a measure of the respect held Maine's legislative for the rule of law.

In the statute chartering the Small Enterprise Growth Fund, the legislature excluded this tax payer subsidized high growth investors corporation form this same general law- violation Article IV Part Third Section 14 of the Maine State Constitution, which says - all corporations however formed are subject to general laws.

Article IV.

Part Third.

Legislative Power.

Section 14.  Corporations, formed under general laws.  Corporations shall be formed under general laws, and shall not be created by special Acts of the Legislature, except for municipal purposes, and in cases where the objects of the corporation cannot otherwise be attained; and, however formed, they shall forever be subject to the general laws of the State.

Title 17 was enacted in 1967 before the legislature fundamentally transformed Maine into a corporate state using statutory laws to bypass the constitution and the constitutional process for amending the constitution.

Article IV.

Part Third.

Legislative Power.

Section 15. Constitutional conventions. The Legislature shall, by a 2/3 concurrent vote of both branches, have the power to call constitutional conventions, for the purpose of amending this Constitution.

A corporate state breeds corruption and there is no better example of this than China, whom the corporate state of Maine is enthusiastically embracing.

"Over the ensuing decades, particularly in the 1990s when massive investment poured into China, the families of CCP bureaucrats utilised political power and links with foreign capital to transform themselves into a new property-owning capitalist elite. CCP-connected entrepreneurs, executives, outsourcing contractors, import and export traders and professionals have emerged as the junior partners of major transnational corporations in ruthlessly exploiting the working class."

World Socialst Website -Chinese regime amends constitution to protect private ownership- 2004

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