Maine’s two Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives said they want to avoid a government shutdown as members take another crack this week at a short-term funding bill.
The stopgap measure to fund the federal government through mid-December may come to the House floor as soon as Wednesday, or six days before a shutdown would start on Oct. 1 if Congress does not reach a deal.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, initially proposed a six-month funding bill that included legislation to ban noncitizen voting — which is already illegal in federal elections — but a small group of Republicans joined most Democrats to defeat that plan last week. Golden was one of three Democrats to support the initial spending plan with the voting legislation.
Former President Donald Trump had urged Republicans to shut down the government if the noncitizen voting language was not included in a short-term funding bill, but the new plan does not feature that legislation while including an additional $231 million for the Secret Service ahead of the November election after another attempted assassination of Trump.
Golden, a third-term Democrat from Maine’s 2nd District who faces a November reelection battle against state Rep. Austin Theriault, R-Fort Kent, said Monday he was reviewing the new plan ahead of this week’s vote “and will withhold comment until I’ve had time to dig in further.”
“We need to avoid a government shutdown,” Golden added.
Theriault’s campaign did not immediately respond Monday to a request for comment on the spending bill. Earlier this month, he issued a statement saying Congress can fund the government and pass the voting legislation while declining to say whether a shutdown should occur if the noncitizen bill does not pass.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, Golden’s more liberal colleague from Maine’s 1st District, said Monday she will vote in favor of the plan but that “full-year solutions” are needed.
“I will vote to pass this funding bill to avoid the devastating consequences of a shutdown, and while I’m relieved that the worst of the extreme MAGA agenda was kept out of this bill, we must ensure this chaos doesn’t continue in December,” Pingree said.
Pingree, in office since 2009, faces Republican Ron Russell in November. Russell, an Army veteran from Kennebunkport, said the three-month resolution “kicks the proverbial can down the road once again.”
“We don’t run our households this way in Maine, and we certainly shouldn’t run the federal government this way,” Russell said.
In a Sunday letter to colleagues, Johnson described the three-month package as “very narrow.” Democrats wanted extra money for the Department of Veterans Affairs and disaster aid, but the plan omits those requests.
“As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice,” Johnson wrote.
President Joe Biden’s administration urged “swift passage” of the three-month measure, while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said he was “pleased” with the deal but also felt Johnson “wasted precious time” by including “poison pills” in the initial measure.
