Lawyers for Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves and the Republican governor delivered arguments Wednesday. Now the three-judge panel in Boston will decide whether to overturn a decision by a federal judge in Maine to dismiss the lawsuit.

Eves’ lawsuit accuses LePage of using blackmail to force a charter school operator to rescind a job offer to him, and seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

His lawyer, David Webbert, said the lawsuit aims to protect Mainers from being “blackmailed, threatened, and intimidated by a politician willing to abuse government power for partisan reasons.” LePage’s lawyer, Patrick Strawbridge, had no comment.