How controversial is Gov. Paul LePage of Maine? Here's a partial list

Paul R. LePage, the Republican governor of Maine, faced a torrent of outrage and political pressure Monday even from some members of his own party, after 48 hours last week in which he threatened a Democratic lawmaker in a profane voicemail, made sweeping statements about race and ended the week by doubling down and seeming to endorse racial profiling to address the state's drug crisis.

LePage, 67, has been the center of controversy many times over comments widely perceived as racially insensitive or otherwise offensive. But over the weekend, top Democrats in the state called for him to resign. And state Sen. Amy Volk, a Republican, questioned LePage's mental health Sunday in a Facebook post that also revealed that lawmakers were considering whether to convene a special legislative session to address his latest statements.

"I share your deep concerns regarding the governor's behavior," Volk wrote. "What I do not know is whether it is due to substance abuse, mental illness or just ignorance."

She added, "Some sort of censure would seem appropriate, and I would welcome the ability to go on the record with a vote."

Top Republicans huddled in meetings Monday and over the weekend and said they wanted to meet with LePage, but had not yet settled on a course of action.

"Look, if anybody did this that was an employee of any corporation in our state, there would be ramifications," said Michael Thibodeau, the Republican president of the state Senate, according to The Portland Press Herald.

A spokeswoman for LePage did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Brash and often unapologetic, LePage, a businessman, swept into office in 2010 with Tea Party support, and was re-elected in 2014 by a base drawn to his unfiltered style. He has survived wave after wave of controversies. Here is a selected list:

2016

*August: On Wednesday, LePage told attendees at a town-hall meeting that the vast majority of drug dealers in Maine, which is in the grips of a heroin crisis, were black or Hispanic, and said he was keeping a binder of charged criminals to prove it.

Those comments were condemned by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, which raised concerns about racial profiling, and by Democratic lawmakers like state Rep. Drew Gattine, who said the remarks were racially charged.

LePage, under the impression that Gattine had called him a racist, left a voicemail for Gattine, in which he called him obscenities and said, "I am after you." According to The Press Herald, LePage then told reporters that he would like to have a duel with Gattine and shoot him between the eyes.

On Friday, LePage apologized to the state for his word choice but declined to apologize directly to Gattine. He took his binder of drug arrests, with mug shots, to a news conference, and compared Maine's drug crisis to a war in which combatants must identify and shoot at the enemy.

"The enemy right now, the overwhelming majority of people coming in, are people of color, or people of Hispanic origin," LePage said.

On Monday, he seemed to double down on his remarks, the state House News Service reported. At a meeting of New England governors and Canadian provincial premiers in Boston, he said: "What I said was this: Meth lab arrests are white. They're Mainers. The heroin-fentanyl arrests are not white people. They're Hispanic and they're black, and they're from Lowell and Lawrence, Massachusetts; Waterbury, Connecticut; the Bronx and Brooklyn. I didn't make up the rules. That's how it turns out. But that's a fact. It's a fact. What — do you want me to lie?"

*April: LePage apologized after storming offstage and calling protesting students "idiots" during a public appearance.

*March: LePage displayed "Wanted"-style posters aimed at environmentalist and union groups during a town meeting, saying those groups were holding the state back.

*February: LePage said asylum-seekers brought disease and the "ziki-fly." When asked to apologize at an event in June, LePage did not, and said conditions like hepatitis C and HIV were on the rise in Maine. LePage also drew criticism that month for appearing to mock a Chinese businessman's name.

That month, LePage also delivered his State of the State address in the form of a letter, breaking the tradition of giving a speech to lawmakers. He said it would be "silliness" to address lawmakers who had tried to impeach him.

*January: LePage apologized for a "slip-up" after saying drug-dealers would come from out of state and "impregnate a young white girl" before leaving. The drug dealers, he said, in a comment that was widely perceived as racially charged, "are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty — these types of guys."

2015

*July: LePage apologized to the son of a cartoonist for The Bangor Daily News because he had told the son he would "like to shoot" his father. That comment drew criticism, with some noting its added insensitivity given the attack at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris earlier that year, although the son said he was not offended.

*June: A charter school in Maine said LePage had threatened to take away its funding if it did not rescind a job offer to the House speaker, Mark Eves, a Democrat.

"The full power of the state was used to put a father of three out of a job because he was a lawmaker who disagrees with the governor on policy," the editorial board of The Press Herald wrote.

Some Democrats called for impeachment, but an effort to investigate LePage — which would have been a precursor to impeachment in January 2016 — did not muster enough support for a vote.

*May: LePage vowed to veto all Democratic-sponsored bills until the party accepted his effort to eliminate the state's income tax. The question of whether LePage had vetoed 65 bills within the proper time frame ended up in the state Supreme Court, which found that the bills could stand as law.

2013

*August: Two lawmakers, who remained anonymous, said they had heard LePage say at a fundraiser that President Barack Obama "hates white people."

*June: LePage made a graphically lewd statement about Troy Jackson, a Democrat who was the assistant Senate majority leader at the time. He added that Jackson was a "bad person" with "no brains" and a "black heart."

2012

*July: LePage compared the Internal Revenue Service to the Gestapo in a radio address. Asked about the comment in a follow-up interview several days later, he said: "What I am trying to say is the Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity and, frankly, I would never want to see that repeated. Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad — yet."

2011

*January: LePage said leaders from the NAACP who had questioned his decision not to attend Martin Luther King's Birthday events could "kiss my butt."

2010

*September: During his campaign for governor, LePage told a group of fishermen that he would tell Obama to "go to hell."