Gov. LePage says Chellie Pingree should resign if she won’t attend Trump’s inauguration

AUGUSTA (BDN) -- Republican Gov. Paul LePage had tough words Tuesday morning for Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree regarding her decision to skip President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday.

“If she won’t attend on Friday, I would advise her to resign,” said LePage today during a regular radio appearance on WVOM. “To me that’s political rhetoric. Donald Trump is blunt, he comes out and says it the way it is and that’s why he got elected. Chellie Pingree, Angus King we’re sick of these silver-tongued people.”

LePage’s argument against Pingree is that the U.S. Constitution calls on Congress to accept the results of the presidential election and by refusing to attend, Pingree and others are shirking their constitutional duties.

Pingree, who is serving her fifth term representing Maine’s 1st District, announced Monday that she is among dozens of congressional Democrats who will not attend this week’s festivities. Part of her reasoning is Trump’s public spat with Democratic U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who has criticized Trump for not being a “legitimate president” in the face of allegations that Russian hackers swayed last year’s election.

LePage also took aim at Lewis — who is a celebrated civil rights crusader — on Tuesday.

“John Lewis ought to look at history,” LePage said. “It was Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves. It was Rutherford B. Hayes and Ulysses S. Grant who fought the Jim Crow laws. A simple thank you would suffice.”

But Hayes’ election actually kicked off Jim Crow laws. The governor’s interpretation ignores that and leaves out almost 100 years of history.

Jim Crow laws, which enforced racial segregation in the South, were in place from the late 1870s to the 1960s. Grant’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was largely ignored in the former Confederacy.

Then, Hayes won office under the Compromise of 1877, an informal deal after a contested election that gave him the White House in exchange for promising to pull Northern troops out of the South. It allowed Jim Crow laws to take root. That’s why Lewis and others marched in Alabama in 1965, where he was beaten by state troopers.

LePage, who will attend inauguration ceremonies, also attacked a handful of celebrities, including Rosie O’Donnell and Cher, for criticizing Trump.

“We’ve had to endure your president for eight years,” he said. “We’ve slipped drastically over the past eight years.”