Upset by Veto Override, LePage Wants to Hike Voting Age

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) said that “he would propose increasing the age to vote or join the military to 21 to be consistent with a new law hiking the legal age to buy tobacco,” the Portland Press Herald reports.

“Unfortunately for LePage, two things would stand in his way: the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. military.”

“Six days after the Legislature overrode his veto, LePage was still venting on the radio and in a letter to lawmakers about what he views as their hypocrisy in raising the legal age to buy tobacco from 18 to 21 as a way to reduce Maine’s high youth smoking rates. While health groups cheered the new law, LePage called lawmakers ‘hypocrites’ and repeated his suggestion that perhaps 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds are also too young to cast ballots or choose to fight for the country.”