NEW INFO ON DILLON BATES

For the first time, a reason for Gideon doing nothing about Dillon Bates has come to light.

Because of the partisan balance of the Legislature at the time, Speaker Gideon held a tenuous grasp on the majority and on her Speakership.

In short, Gideon couldn't investigate Bates' actions because she desperately needed Bates' vote to hang on to power.

A new story outlines Gideon's power play:

Now, amid Gideon’s bid to unseat longtime incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, the speaker has come under renewed scrutiny for how she handled the sexual misconduct allegations, and several individuals familiar with the matter have indicated that the tense legislative makeup of the House may have influenced Gideon’s decision to personally address Bates rather than go through a formal process.

The legislature in 2018 comprised 74 Democrats, 70 Republicans, and six independents, a narrow divide when 76 votes are needed for a majority.

"Dillon Bates was a necessary vote," Deb Plowman, a former Republican state senator and policy director for the state’s Department of Education (DOE), told Breitbart News. "I’ve been in the legislature 16 total years. I’ve seen the 72–72 kind of thing. You actually can get things done when you’re that close. … That did not happen. This was raw power, and it had to be held together, and Dillon needed to be in his seat."

DOE by spring 2018 had investigated Bates and concluded that he was ineligible to have a teaching certification by "gross moral misconduct" and a "lack of moral character," according to a separate individual who was affiliated with DOE at the time. Bates’s teaching certificate was officially denied that September. The individual described the Maine House building as "a sieve" and affirmed that "certainly by March everyone in the building knew" about the allegations against Bates. Bates however continued to work as a lawmaker and also a girls’ track coach at another high school until August 2018.

Read more in a new article from Breitbart.