WASHINGTON — For congressional newcomer Jared Golden, having the House controlled by Democrats, the Senate by Republicans and a mercurial executive doesn’t strike him as a problem.
It is, after all, what he’s dealt with for the past four years as a state representative from Lewiston.
Now, though, the 2nd Congressional District’s freshman lawmaker is working on a higher profile stage with vastly higher stakes.
Maine’s two senators and two members in the U.S. House said they see a chance to work across party lines to tackle some of the serious issues facing the nation, from its decayed infrastructure to its costly health care system.
Republican Susan Collins, who is the 12th most senior member of the U.S. Senate, said a Democratic House and a GOP Senate “could work with this administration on something that is very much needed.”
“The big question mark is the president,” said U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent who was recently elected to a second six-year term. “It’s difficult to predict where he’ll end up on any given issue.”
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, who represents Maine’s 1st Congressional District, said the Democratic takeover of the House, created “a dramatic change.”
But first Congress and the president have to figure out how to get the government fully functioning again after Trump’s refusal to sign spending bills that don’t include billions of dollars for a wall on the southern border of the country.
“We didn’t create this mess,” Golden said, but lawmakers have to find a way to fix it.
King said Trump has a real opportunity to become a historic figure if he handles the issue properly.
“He could be ‘Nixon to China’ on immigration if he chose,” King said, as long as he’s willing to “take flak from his base” to cut a deal that could put to rest decades of debate on how best to handle the many people who want to come to the United States.
King said, though, he’s not optimistic that will happen given Trump’s penchant for flipping his position constantly.
None of the four Maine legislators said they saw a quick solution to the government shutdown. But they each said there are reasons for hope during the session of Congress.
They said the public tends to see only gridlock and partisan sniping in the nation’s capital, but they said the reality is that much does get done quietly and without bickering.
“Behind the scenes, a lot gets done” even in a divided government, Golden said, based on his experience in Augusta.
INFRASTRUCTURE: A COMMON GOAL
Collins said infrastructure may be the best avenue to make big progress.
“There’s widespread agreement we have an enormous backlog” of projects that need attention, she said, from airports to bridges, from rail to seaports and so much else.
They are such necessities, Collins said, that the House and Senate “could work with this administration on something” that could provide more jobs, a more efficient economy and savings for Americans who spend too much time trapped on crumbling roads.
“It seems like a win-win,” the longtime senator said.
Collins said she urged Trump to tackle infrastructure from the start, but he wound up going after health care instead, taking aim at President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act even though “his administration did not have a good solution” to take its place.
Infrastructure, Collins said, offers “an opportunity for common ground” that politicians on both sides of the aisle are eager to find.
“The best legislation comes when we listen to each other,” she said.
King said one of the hardships of trying to work with the president is that “you can never know when you have a real agreement and who speaks for the administration.”
However, King said, a recent prison reform bill pushed by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a presidential aide, showed that it is possible to get people on the same page and keep the White House in line.
What works in favor of getting something done, King said, is that senators “generally like each other” and typically manage to bridge the partisan gap except on some hot topics that tend to receive almost all the attention, such as last year’s battle surrounding the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Pingree said she hopes there’s not another Supreme Court fight anytime soon. She has an action figure of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on her desk and joked about all the people willing to donate organs to the elderly judge if her health requires one.
Collins said another issue that Congress ought to take up that may have a chance to make a difference to people is the cost of prescription drugs.
She said she is working on legislation “to try to get at some of the obvious abuses,” including misuse of the patent process and the way some pharmaceutical companies will go so far as paying competitors not to bring generics to market.
It’s an issue where Trump and the Democrats have been aggressively pressing for action, she said, so it might be possible.
King said he is optimistic that the new energy from so many fresh faces in the House, including Golden, will help change the tenor in Washington.
The 63 newcomers to the House “are not going to sit still and be quiet,” Pingree said.
“The president had a free ride his first two years,” King said, but doesn’t have the luxury of a GOP House any longer that will automatically back him.
“I’m hoping he figures that out and takes a different tact,” King said, relying more on persuasion than raw power that he no longer possesses.
Pingree said one positive of the Democrats taking control of the House is that committees that are supposed to oversee executive departments, which have been dormant for years under the GOP, will begin to do their job again.
There will be “actual public hearings” and tough questions for administration leaders, she said, forcing them to open up about what they’re doing. That will help the American public have more insight into their government, she said.
Pingree said that by shedding more light on issues with real oversight, public pressure on Trump and senators will grow.
HELPING MAINE
King said one issue that would do far more for Maine than the wall would be to pursue more broadband internet access for rural areas, something he said would be “a huge opportunity” for Mainers if access became widespread.
Collins said she’d like to see more initiatives to help people get through post-high school education, from apprenticeship programs to college. She said the federal government could provide more assistance to help students finish their degrees instead of winding up in debt without ever securing a diploma.
She said some Maine colleges have done well in adding help for students who might otherwise drop out because of child care issues or a broken car. Doing more to assist them would pay off big, Collins said.
King said he hopes that the focus on Trump’s call for a border wall will focus attention on the real issues surrounding immigration.
“There is nobody here who is for open borders,” he said. Everybody in both parties wants secure borders, King said.
The problem is that Trump “is fixated on one solution,” a wall along the entire border with Mexico that would cost $20 million a mile.
There are spots where that may make sense, he said, but for most of the length of the border it would be both cheaper and more effective to rely on drones, sensors, more agents and other cost-effective alternatives, King said.
The other reality, King said, is that most of the people who come to America without permission just overstay tourist visas. “That has zero to do with the wall,” he said, and points to a need to overhaul the visa system instead.
In addition, King said, most of the people who arrive at the southern border are coming as refugees who declare their presence and ask for asylum, a legal status that requires government review of each case.
“They’re not trying to sneak in,” King said.
Hiring more immigration judges to speed their cases along would be a better use of taxpayer money than walls across the desert where few try to cross any longer, he said. Unless Trump backs down, he said, he’s not sure how the government shutdown will end.
scollins@sunjournal.com
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat who represents Maine’s 1st Congressional District, poses in the U.S. Capitol beside a bust of former House Speaker Thomas Reed of Maine. (Sun Journal photo by Steve Collins)
U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, talks with U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, the Lewiston Democrat who represents Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, during an open house in Golden’s new office in Washington, D.C. (Sun Journal photo by Steve Collins)
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