October 11, 2016

Portland – The ACLU of Maine today condemned Gov. LePage’s call for the United States to put in place an authoritarian leader. In an interview on WVOM Radio this morning, the governor made the statement while simultaneously condemning President Obama for being too authoritarian: 

"Sometimes, I wonder that our Constitution is not only broken, but we need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country and bring back the rule of law because we've had eight years of a president, he's an autocrat, he just does it on his own, he ignores Congress and every single day, we're slipping into anarchy." 

Authoritarian regimes are often marked by unlimited government power and limited freedom of the citizenry.

The following can be attributed to Alison Beyea, executive director of the ACLU of Maine:

“The Constitution was written to protect Americans from against the very thing Gov. LePage is calling for - an all-powerful, overreaching government. The governor says he wants to bring back the rule of law, but it actually sounds like he wants to replace the rule of law with the rule of tyranny.”