Maine’s erstwhile governor, Paul LePage, often tried to keep his travels secret, even taxpayer-funded trips, like his stays at the Trump International Hotel in Washington or his trade mission to Montenegro last summer, which wasn’t disclosed to Maine’s media until after it was underway.
So as soon as he left office, I requested his entire calendar for 2018 via a public records request. It took four months to get it — and two more months to secure supporting materials on some of the trips — so it’s only now, a half year into a new administration that the public can learn what previous governors would have told them ahead of time.
For more on how shortcomings with Maine’s public records laws allow public officials to thwart transparency, consider this piece from January.
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and award-winning journalist. He is the author of seven books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at Maine's Portland Press Herald, he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.