Governor names Easton native
to Blue Ribbon Commission
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul R. LePage announced last week the nomination of the Hon. Daniel Wathen to the Blue Ribbon Commission, a panel that will investigate Maine’s unemployment compensation system.
To maintain balance and impartiality, the Blue Ribbon Commission will include representatives of both employers and employees. The goal of the Commission is to ensure Maine’s unemployment insurance system provides benefits for workers who are rightly entitled to them, while preventing businesses from being charged when they appropriately let employees go. Additionally, the Commission will review the rules and laws governing the system to assure Mainers they are consistently applied.
Wathen, a native of Easton, and the Hon. George M. Jabar, who currently serves as a Commissioner for Kennebec County and is a practicing attorney in Waterville, will co-chair the panel.
“Both of these men bring integrity and impeccable credentials to a commission that will be tasked with taking an in-depth look at the state’s entire unemployment compensation system to make sure that it is fair and consistent for all Mainers,” LePage said in a press release. “It is my responsibility to ensure Mainers we have a system that is doing what it is designed to do: administer unemployment compensation in a judicious way that benefits both employers and employees.”
Having served for 20 years on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court — including a decade as the chief justice — Wathen has also served as a justice of the Maine Superior Court. In private practice, Judge Wathen practiced both trial and transactional law and, more recently, as arbitrator, mediator and court assigned special master. He is a graduate of Ricker College and the University of Maine School of Law where he served as editor-in-chief of the “Maine Law Review.”
Wathen said he’s happy to serve on the Commission.
“It’s my understanding that we will be assembling perhaps four more to add onto the Commission and make sure it’s evenly balanced between the employee and the employer side so that we can take a look at it and see if the fairness of it is as it should be,” said Wathen. “I have no preconceived notions about it one way or another.
“My only connection with unemployment compensation is that when I was on the Supreme Court we used to handle appeals occasionally from the Unemployment Compensation Commission,” he said, “so I have some familiarity with the process and the process of looking at and assessing the fairness and adherence to the law.”
Wathen, who presently works at Pierce Atwood in Augusta, said he has “no information as to what the nature of the complaints are from either side.”
“I think the first thing will be to hear those complaints, see what questions people have, and then that will permit us to think about how best to go about testing and reviewing the procedures and find out whether they’re worthy of consideration and possibly make suggestions,” he said.
“It’s a complete blank page in my book at this point in time,” said Wathen, “but it’s obviously an important part of Maine’s economy, and important to both employees and employers. I’m willing to participate and take a look at it and give the basis of my conclusions.”
Wathen said he visits The County three or four times a year.
“I still consider it my home even though I haven’t lived there since I was 17,” he said.
