To date this is the only response that I have received from my letter addressed to Governor LePage with a copy sent to Attorney General Schneider.The only instances in which the response shows evidence that my letter was actually read is in the mention of the name of the Brunswick Landing Maine's Center for Innovation. in the first paragraph - and- in acknowledging that I am addressing a constitutional matter.
However the grammatical structure of the first sentence gives credence to the speculation that the letter is a form letter used as a response to multiple letters.
The letter says "Thank You for your letter requesting the "constitutionality of the Brunswick Landing Maine's center for Innovation '" as though "constitutionality of the Brunswick Landing Maine's center for Innovation" is imported content in a mail merge process. More correctly I wrote a letter requesting that the Attorney General challenge the constitutionality of The Brunswick Landing Maine's Center for Innovation. It seems telling that the action requested of the Attorney General is left out of the structural syntax of the sentence. This is the first evidence of evasion, which is carried through in the remainder of the response.
The next sentence suggests that I wrote to the Attorney General requesting private legal advice, when in fact it was Governor LePage to whom my letter is addressed and only a copy sent to the Attorney General. Nor did I ask for private legal advice. I do not need to consult an attorney to know that as a private citizen I do not have standing to challenge the constitutionality of The Brunswick Landing Maine's Center For Innovation unless I can show direct personal harm. Since I do not own property abutting the Center and since I am not an inhabitant of the municipality, I cannot show direct personal harm and thus I wrote a letter to Governor LePage suggesting that the Attorney General challenge the constitutionality of the Center. I thought the Attorney General has the power to represent the people of the state of Maine. Silly me.
In fact my letter does not ask for legal advice, it requests legal action. In fact I audaciously offered my own legal opinion.
The next sentence says that Maine Statute requires the Attorney General to represent the state and the state agencies. I can see where this becomes a conflict of interest if the Attorney General were to represent the people of Maine, which is one interpretation of "the state" against an action taken by a branch of the state government, which can be interpreted as a "state agency". Statutes are written by the legislature so we can blame them for this "conflation of " as opposed to "separation of" the powers of the branches of government.
The Attorney General himself was once a member of the legislature during years that some of the legislation that I, as a member of the public, have requested that our current administration constitutionally challenge. So is it a surprise that - given the conflict of interest written into the statute by the legislature, the Attorney General decides it is his role to represent the state agency and not the people of the state, who happen to be the ones footing the bills mandated by the legislature.
The letter pretends that I am not writing as a member of the public but as a private citizen with private interests, that makes it easy for the Attorney General to dismiss the role of representing the people of the state, that is , if the Attorney General actually had a hand in writing the letter..
There is a very large question raised by the letter.When the word "state" is used, what is intended? The people and the land of the state- or just the state government ?- which is a faction of the state.
The letter actually says that the Attorney General provides opinions on the matter of law to the Governor, but this letter fails to recognize that this is the function of the Attorney General that my letter intended to engage on the behalf of the people. The Governor has asked the business community to engage and I have engaged, but not in the pre-determined box, it seems- and so the form letter that (speculatively) was assigned to merge with my imported information was not a very good fit. Was it?
