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“I’ll be a resident of Florida if Janet Mills wins,” said LePage, who was prohibited from running for a third term.
Speaking in a statement at the announcement of the approval, the FDA commissioner said that drug overdose deaths are the leading cause of injury death in the United States, largely due to prescription drug overdoses. LePage has said that the permitting process to start a business in Maine is too cumbersome and expensive and he will look for ways to make it cheaper and easier. He opposed raising any taxes during his term as governor and supported the creation of a 5% flat tax on all households earning more than $30,000. During the gubernatorial campaign, he also wanted to reduce the auto registration tax by 20% and use the actual sale price rather than MSRP as the tax basis. LePage has called for additional Maine DEA agents, judges, and prosecutors to fight drugs.
Biden and House GOP to Start 2023 With Scant Ties
But this is not the first time the LePages have faced scrutiny over such a tax matter — in 2010, Florida officials fined Mrs. LePage $1,400 before rescinding the penalty — and Mr. LePage’s focus on taxes in the current campaign for governor could open him up to attacks from Democrats. As he runs for governor of Maine, Paul LePage has pushed to phase out the state’s income tax, saying the move is necessary to stop wealthy residents from moving to Florida. Arden Manning, campaign manager for the Maine Democratic Party, said Monday night that the letter from Florida does not entirely absolve the candidate. The issue became a lightning rod last month as LePage”s opponents accused the candidate of shady tax dealings, all the while campaigning on the need to lower taxes. Volusia County property appraiser Morgan Gilreath pointed out in his letter that Florida has an exception wherein anyone who receives a homestead exemption in another state also qualifies in Florida if the property is the permanent residence of a legal dependent. LePage, who filed for a new gubernatorial run Thursday as a resident of Edgecomb, is violating Florida law by neglecting to remove his name from the voter rolls in Flagler County.
Also a Republican, she registered to vote in Florida in 2018, after the gubernatorial election in Maine. The two-term Republican governor registered to vote in Ormond Beach, where he bought a house in 2018 while in office. Both Maine and Florida offer tax breaks to homeowners who are also residents of the respective states. But in 2009, Ann LePage received homestead exemptions on homes she owns in both Waterville and Ormond Beach, Fla., where her ailing mother lives. The order did not seem to extend to all state agencies, as the Department of Public Safety's spokesman said he had been given no such instructions.
Former Gov. Paul LePage really did move to Florida
The couple has shuttled between Maine and Florida since before LePage’s 2010 election. Ann LePage was listed as the buyer of an Ormond Beach home in 2008, when her husband was the Waterville mayor. LePage did not concede the race when he addressed supporters on Tuesday night, but with the numbers against him at that point, he told those in attendance that Mainers had made the wrong choice. LePage picked up 42 percent of the votes compared to Governor Mill’s 56 percent .
He was also critical of King for switching his 2014 gubernatorial election endorsement from independent candidate Eliot Cutler to Democratic nominee Mike Michaud. He ultimately announced on May 10, 2017, that he would not run, preferring to focus on being governor. With 94% of precincts reporting on the day after the election, the Bangor Daily News declared LePage the winner, carrying 38.1% of the votes. Independent Cutler was in second place with 36.7% of the votes , while Democrat Mitchell was a distant third with 19%. LePage was the first popularly elected, Franco-American governor of Maine and the first Republican since John R. McKernan Jr.'s re-election in 1990. In his victory speech, LePage promised he would shrink government, lower taxes, decrease business regulation, and put "Maine people ahead of politics".
Government reform
He does support the state recognizing only civil unions of all couples, believing it would give everyone the same legal standing. During his gubernatorial campaign, he iterated his opposition to same-sex marriage and expressed support for unspecified legal measures to protect committed same-sex couples. In October 2010 he stated that gay marriage should be left to the voters and that he had no personal views on the matter, though he would have vetoed a same-sex marriage bill if it reached his desk. After voters approved a 2017 referendum for expanding Medicaid coverage, LePage refused to implement the program, citing a lack of funding, and expansion advocates sued LePage in response. LePage has said he would rather go to jail than implement the expansion without a funding mechanism that meets his criteria. Recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration , naloxone was formulated to be used both for opioid drug overdoses and for people who have life-threatening drug interactions.
A governor only has to be a Maine resident at the time of the election and have resided here for a cumulative total of five years. Ann LePage sold the first Florida home in December 2017 and bought another oneabout 20 minutes away in March 2018 as the governor wound down his second term. He said that November he would move to Floridaand become a resident, citing its lack of an income tax.
Fried expressed skepticism of those results, but she acknowledged that LePage may be struggling with an issue that also plagued the man he once endorsed for president. Like Trump, LePage has a unique ability to motivate his biggest critics to turn out at the polls. Mills rejected LePage’s characterization of her economic policies, noting that one study ranked Maine’s pandemic-era economy to be the 11th strongest in the nation. The sitting governor acknowledged the pain caused by rising prices, but rejected the idea that LePage would better address the global issue of inflation. Mills cited her approval of $850 relief checks to Maine families to help mitigate the effects of inflation, and said she has received letters from constituents thanking her for the checks, which allowed them to fill their gas tanks or pay for prescription drugs. Democrats scoff at the idea of a reformed LePage, and they say his behavior on the campaign trail has provided ample evidence that the former governor is the same as he ever was.
The Maine Legislature approved six additional agents, two prosecutors, and two judges in the 2015–16 state budget, but LePage criticized that as "chump change" and has asked for more. He has criticized legislative Democrats skeptical of his proposals, stating "If I didn't know better, I was a real cynic, I'd think that the Democrats like drug dealers." He has stated he would use the Maine National Guard for drug enforcement if necessary, and has actually done so. He has also said, "Everybody in Maine, we have constitutional carry, load up and get rid of the drug dealers," which he clarified meant that an environment should be created that will keep drug dealers away from Maine, not that people should engage in vigilantism.
In an April 29 interview with radio host Howie Carr, LePage had said he was going to fly to Maine the following Saturday and would be “becoming a resident of Maine again.” He also told Carr that he plans to challenge Gov. Janet Mills in 2022. The couple have shuttled between Maine and Florida since before LePage was elected in 2010. Ann LePage was listed as a home buyer in Ormond Beach in 2008, when her husband was mayor of Waterville. Months after Mrs. LePage was cleared of wrongdoing, Ms. DeRosby joined the family’s move into the Maine governor’s mansion, according to local reports. When Ms. DeRosby died in 2015, her obituary said that she had “spent the last eight years of her life residing” with her daughter and Mr. LePage.
This theme focused on particular aspects of LePage's biography that supposedly set him apart from the other candidates. These were, according to Morris, LePage "was the only candidate who had a compelling life story, ... the only candidate who had a successful experience as a chief executive officer of a government entity, ... the only candidate who was the executive of a prosperous Maine business." LePage ran for governor of Maine in the 2010 election, winning the general election with a plurality, 37.6%, in a five-candidate race. He was re-elected with a stronger plurality, 48.2% of the vote, in a three-candidate election in 2014. During his tenure as the Governor of Maine, he made extensive use of his veto power, vetoing 652 bills as of July 2018, more than the total by all Maine governors over the previous 100 years combined.
He later worked at a rubber company and a meat-packing plant and was a short order cook and bartender. LePage was the only person among his parents and siblings to graduate from the 8th grade. The LePages sold their Waterville home when they moved to the Blaine House, keeping the homestead exemption in Florida through 2015, the year Ann LePage’s mother died. The LePages are set to save $8,500 in total taxes under the arrangement by carrying exemptions from 2009 to 2015 and from 2018 through this year. Ann LePage began winding down the tax break this June, saying she and her husband were no longer living in Florida. The LePages are expected to save $8,500 in total taxes under the arrangement by granting exemptions from 2009 to 2015 and from 2018 to this year.
Ann LePage began cutting the tax break in June, saying she and her husband no longer live in Florida. While he was governor, Mr. LePage tried to eliminate Maine’s homestead exemption, a proposal that would have denied an estimated 213,000 Mainers benefits similar to those he enjoyed in Florida, according to an analysis by the left-leaning Maine Center for Economic Policy. His opponents in the race for the Blaine House are Democrat Libby Mitchell and independents Eliot Cutler, Shawn Moody and Kevin Scott.
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