AUGUSTA, Maine - If you live in Waldo County, it's possible that you've picked up your home phone recently and heard this: "Some Republican state senators, including your state senator, Mike Thibodeau, are now supporting no cuts in income taxes, and instead, welfare funding for illegal aliens. That's not right."
That's Lauren LePage, Gov. Paul LePage's daughter, on a recorded phone call posted on the website of the Portland Press Herald. Earlier this week, so-called robocalls like this one went out to Republican and Democratic leaders in the Maine Senate, as well as three senators on the Legislature's Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee.
The calls are the work of Maine People Before Politics, a nonprofit run by Lauren LePage that works to build political support for the governor's agenda.
In 2010, shortly before Paul LePage took office, the governor's political team was eager to build support for the incoming governor's agenda. LePage had newly-elected GOP majorities in the Maine House and Senate. But he planned to push sweeping changes to policies backed by what he often refers to as the "status quo" - liberal and moderate state lawmakers and the unions and other interest groups that support them.
The governor's supporters needed to find a way to harness the conservative, grassroots energy that swept LePage into office and use it to push for change. And so a group was created called Maine People Before Politics, the nonprofit his daughter now runs.
Audio from robocall: "Please call Sen. Mike Thibodeau now and urge him to support the governor and to stop caving in to liberal Democrats on income taxes and illegal alien welfare."
This is another excerpt of a robocall from Maine People Before Politics and Lauren LePage, on behalf of her father. In recent weeks, LePage has seethed as Republican leaders in the Senate have moved away from him to support a tentative budget deal with Democrats. The robocalls started going out this week, just days after an angry press conference, where LePage blasted lawmakers of both parties for blocking key items on his agenda, like cutting the income tax, boosting the sales tax and reforming welfare.
But Lauren LePage explained the rationale for the calls in a morning interview with the WGAN Morning News. "These robocalls were made on a bipartisan nature. But the point is to allow voters to know what's going on in this budget compromise and the deals that have been made that aren't public."
Maine People Before Politics was founded by Brent Littlefield, the governor's longtime political consultant. As a nonprofit, the group is allowed to keep its donor list confidential.
But a look at its 990 IRS tax forms provide some information on how much money the group raises. In 2011, Maine People Before Politics received more than $500,000 in grants and contributions. That total dropped to just over $41,000 in 2012, an election year, then ramped back up to nearly $250,000 in 2013. The returns covered 2012-2014, and did not include a salary for Lauren LePage, who just took over at the organization this year.
Though the governor has made similar criticisms of Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate, LePage says he did not coordinate with his daughter on the robocalls. "I have nothing to do with my daughter. She's a young adult. She can do what she wants. I had nothing to do with it. Am I proud of her? You bet I'm proud of my daughter! And I'm proud of my son."