Federal probe faults LePage administration on unemployment hearings
Source: Portland Press-Herald
AUGUSTA – A federal probe into allegations that Gov. Paul LePage interfered with impartial unemployment claims hearings has found that there are legitimate concerns with the process and that the governor’s intervention could have intimidated quasi-judicial hearing officers.
The report by the U.S. Department of Labor was released Thursday, nearly 11 months after LePage summoned eight hearing officers to the Blaine House for what one employee later described as a “group scolding.” Federal investigators later visited the Maine Department of Labor to review a claims adjudication process that settles disputes between employers and people who have filed unemployment claims.
LePage had been accused of attempting to influence the hearing process to produce more decisions favoring employers, a claim repeated by at least one hearing officer involved in the Blaine House meeting.
According to the federal audit, “political interference” by LePage and his political appointees “can potentially destabilize the appeals process” and “undermine the credibility” of the unemployment claims hearings. Holly O’Brien, the regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Labor and Office of the Solicitor General, said that while the investigation found no statistical evidence that LePage’s meeting with the officers influenced decisions in the cases monitored by federal auditors, she said the effects could surface later.
Read more: http://www.pressherald.com/politics/Federal_probe_says_LePage__Maine_labor_chief_interfered_with_unemployment_appeals_process_.html?pagenum=full
Petition calling on Lepage to resign
So when will the national media pick THIS story up...or is this story too difficult to cover compared to the Chris Christie story?
