Maine’s congressional delegation agrees the federal government shutdown is damaging, but they split down the middle over whether it was necessary.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and Rep. Bruce Poliquin, both Republicans, voted in favor of the short-term funding bill that would have kept the federal government open, while U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent, and Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, voted against the bill. King argued that the U.S. can’t continue to “kick difficult decisions a little bit further down the road” on the big political issues that have stalled budget talks, like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era immigration policy.
Collins spoke out against the shutdown, saying it “represents the ultimate failure to govern” and would damage the economy and disrupt health coverage for low-income children. To avoid it, she reconvened the Common Sense Coalition, a group of congressional moderates that successfully led the effort to end the 2013 shutdown. It met for hours in Collins’ Washington, D.C., office on Friday and again for 2½ hours Saturday, said Collins spokeswoman Annie Clark.
The Saturday session drew 19 senators from both parties, she said, and they met with their respective leaders after the session, Clark said.
Poliquin, who represents the 2nd District, is refusing to take a salary during the shutdown and will be donating the money to the Good Shepherd Food Bank, a statewide charity.
“It is outrageous that anyone in Congress continues to collect a paycheck while critical services and the federal government remain unfunded,” he said.
Poliquin is a co-sponsor of the Pay Our Protectors Not Our Politicians Act, which would withhold pay from members of Congress during a lapse in government funding.
Pingree, who represents the 1st District, took to Twitter to chastise President Trump for his role in the budget impasse, reminding the public that only last May he said, “Our country needs a good shutdown.” She urged him to be more like Harry Truman, the Democratic president known for having a “The buck stops here” sign on his Oval Office desk.
“Stop making excuses and be a leader,” Pingree urged Trump in a tweet on Friday.
As a member of the appropriations committee, Pingree worked on the long-term budget bills that Republicans refused to take to the floor last summer, she said. She said the short-term funding bill that would have averted a shutdown is not real leadership: Trump and the Republicans need to negotiate the tough issues instead of “changing his mind every time somebody leaves the room.”
“These are just short-term fixes,” Pingree said in a videotaped message. “This isn’t making the tough decisions. This isn’t negotiating.”
On Saturday night, King posted a photograph on his Instagram account of the Washington Monument taken through the window of his D.C. office at twilight. He spent his Saturday in nonstop meetings, which he called “shuttle diplomacy,” in which members of both political parties met in search of compromise and then report to party leaders on their progress. He said the effort showed “some glimmers of progress,” but getting to a resolution will be a serious challenge.
“I think we can get there,” King wrote. “But it will take give on both sides, good faith, and maybe the rarest commodity these days, a little trust.”
On the Senate floor Saturday afternoon, King called on his colleagues to heed the words of one of his favorite philosophers, Mick Jagger. “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need,” King said, quoting the Rolling Stones frontman. He said it may have been the first time that a U.S. senator has quoted Jagger in a floor speech. “But in this case, I think he’s right on.”
Penelope Overton can be contacted at 791-6463 or at:
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