golden, Jared Rep
4 24 am promise conf spkr
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anst news?
On Thursday, March 18, 2021, the U.S. House passed two small immigration bills that now seem as dead-on arrival in the U.S. Senate as The U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021. Passed on largely party line votes were the Dream Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. Buried in the news reporting was the fact that one Democrat chose to vote against one of the measures.
On March 18, Rep. Jared Golden, a former veteran, who has represented the 2nd District of Maine in the United States Congress since 2019, was the lone Democrat to vote against H.R.1603, aka, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021. He had also voted against the measure on Dec. 11, 2019.
Eight days earlier, on March 10, 2021, Golden had also voted against H.R. 1319, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. His reason in his own words: “Borrowing and spending hundreds of billions more in excess of meeting the most urgent needs poses a risk to both our economic recovery and the priorities I would like to work with the Biden administration to achieve.”
And he broke with his own party and voted against a second article of impeachment of Donald Trump, becoming the only member of the House to charge Trump with abuse of power but not with obstruction of Congress.
Golden, however, has not said why he has voted against the farm work bill––not in 2019 nor last week. The bill would create a process to earn temporary status as Certified Agricultural Workers for people who have worked at least 180 days in agriculture over the past two years; create a pathway for workers to get a green card by paying a $1,000 fine; and engaging in additional agricultural work depending on how long they have worked in agriculture in the U.S. and also streamline the process to get an H-2A visa, which allows foreign citizens into the country for temporary agricultural work.
Instead, Golden again chose to ignore issuing a reason all together, choosing instead to highlight his vote for H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act.
But buried in his statement promoting his DREAM Act vote is a clear indication of where Golden sits on immigration, and which undoubtedly explains his stance.
“There has long been bipartisan consensus that improvements to our immigration policy like H.R. 6 should be accompanied by increased investments in border security and I agree,” he is quoted as saying in a statement from his office. “That’s why in the last Congress I supported bipartisan legislation that included billions in increased border security enhancements, including additional border fencing.”
Golden has also so far chosen not to co-sponsor H.R.1177: the U.S. Citizenship Act; H.R.759: the Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act of 2021 and the H.R.536: the New Way Forward Act.
So why is Golden taking such a conservative stance? Well as the saying goes, “all politics is local,” and he is obviously playing this with his ear close to the ground.
When Golden defeated two-term Republican incumbent Bruce Poliquin in 2018, it was the first time an incumbent had lost reelection in the district since 1916.
The district is also the largest district east of the Mississippi River and the 24th-largest overall. It is also the second-most rural district in the United States, with 72.11% of its population in rural areas and is 94% white.
Further, it is the only district in New England that voted for Donald Trump in 2020, while being held by a Democrat.
Golden has also shown he is big on union and local jobs in his district,noting in his vote against the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that Maine jobs come from the forest products industry, from small farmers and fishermen and from Maine’s shipyards.
And he formerly worked for Republican Sen. Susan Collins’s office, where he was a staff member of the Homeland Security Committee, learning the political trade, before being elected to the state Legislature in 2014.
Little wonder that Golden voted against the Farm Act and his conservative voting strategy is making him look more Republican than Democrat.
The writer is publisher of NewsAmericasNow
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the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan passed the House with a 220-211 vote. GOP lawmakers were unanimous in their opposition to the bill. However, one Democrat sided with Republicans to vote against the Bill, Jared Golden of Maine. Why did he defy his party and vote “nay” on the popular covid-19 relief package?
Representative Jared Golden represents Maine’s 2nd congressional district, the largest east of the Mississippi. The district encompasses nearly 80% of the total land area of Maine outside the urban centers of Augusta and Portland. The district usually votes for the incumbent but Golden defied history and became the first challenger to defeat a sitting representative for the district since 1916 when he was elected in 2018.
Who is Representative Jared Golden?
Rep. Jared Golden is a former Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior to becoming a US Representative, he served his state in the Maine House of Representatives from 2014 to 2018.
Golden was one of a group of politically moderate military and national security veterans elected to Congress in the 2018 midterms from districts Donald Trump carried in 2016. He flipped the seat in his district in the first general election that ranked-choice voting was used, coming from behind in the second round.
Despite President Trump’s popularity in his district, he won re-election in 2020 even though Trump won Maine’s 2nd by seven points. He won his seat for a second term with 53% of the vote in the first round.
Why did Jared Golden vote against the American Rescue Plan?
In a statement from Representative Golden said “While the Senate made modest changes to the legislation, some of those changes undermined parts of the bill I do support, and others were insufficient to address my concerns with the overall size and scope of the bill.”
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“Although I support the Senate’s effort to reduce the number of wealthier households that will receive stimulus checks, they did not go far enough,” the statement continued.
Also see:
House passes Protect the Right to Organize Act
Third stimulus check on the way as revised relief bill passes House
Stimulus bill provides tax deductions for millions
Third stimulus check: is President Biden's signature necessary?
The $15 minimum wage hike wasn’t included]
Golden also took issue with the lack of a minimum wage hike which has been $7.25 per hour since 2009. Raising the minimum wage is a stated priority for Biden and the Democrats. The measure was dropped from the House version of the bill when it went to the Senate due to a ruling by the Senate parliamentarian. She decided that it didn’t meet the rules governing budget reconciliation which the Democrats used to pass the bill with a simple majority.
Senator Bernie Sanders introduced an amendment to add the bill back into the American Rescue Plan but it failed. Golden in his statement said “I voted for a $15 minimum wage in the last Congress, and given the opportunity, I intend to do so again.”
Representative Jared Golden’s full statement can be read here.
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The desperate need in this country coupled with skyrocketing levels of wealth concentration requires bold action. Refusing to address this inequality is counter to everything the Democratic Party claims to stand for and is, frankly, at this moment in history, un-American.
The President of the United States, who is also the head of the Democratic Party, has called for $3.5 trillion worth of investments and new revenues to match those expenditures. We hope and expect members of the President’s party to support his agenda in its entirety.
The following Democrats have refused to support the President’s agenda and are actively working to maintain preferential treatment for millionaires, billionaires and corporations:
U.S. SENATE DEMOCRATS
SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV)
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Manchin wants to begin with rolling back the TCJA and moving from there.
SEN. KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-AZ)
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Sinema refuses to state what problems she has with the bill and what size package she would vote for. She has met with President Biden several times with no immediate action steps.
U.S. HOUSE DEMOCRATS
REP. RICHARD NEAL (D-MA), Chair of House Ways and Means
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Neal has neglected to put a strong revenue-raising package together through taxes exclusively on millionaires, billionaires, and corporations, despite the majority of the Ways and Means committee being in favor of such a plan.
REP. CAROLYN BOURDEAUX (D-GA)
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Bourdeaux has concerns about the elimination of the stepped-up basis. She is more supportive than she lets on publicly though.
REP. ED CASE (D-HI)
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Case is worried about eliminating the stepped-up basis loophole and does not want to tax unrealized capital gains.
REP. LOU CORREA (D-CA)
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Congressman Correa says we need to “pause” efforts to ensure multinational corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
REP. JIM COSTA (D-CA)
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Costa won’t support regressive tax increases and is concerned about inflation. He is fearful of voting for a bill that will die in the Senate.
REP. HENRY CUELLAR (D-TX)
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Cuellar has said he does not want to vote for bill that will fail in the Senate. He is also unhappy with the targeting of oil and natural gas industries in the bill.
REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ)
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Gottheimer mostly wants to make sure BIF gets passed, and passes before the larger reconciliation package. He insists on only passing a bill that will also pass cleanly in the Senate. He also wants to see SALT amended in reconciliation.
REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FL)
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Murphy has issues with raising taxes. She wants to tackle climate change but doesn’t think we need to change taxes to do it. She toes a complicated line between being ‘fiscally responsible’ and focused on ‘tax fairness,’ yet she somehow doesn’t support amending our tax structure. She will not vote for a bill that is not agreed upon with the Senate.
REP. TOM O’HALLERAN (D-AZ)
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Congressman O’Halleran says we need to “pause” efforts to ensure multinational corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
REP. SCOTT PETERS (D-CA)
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Scott Peters voted against allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, which would immediately lower drug prices for seniors. He has intimated that he may be a “no” on the entire package.
REP. KATHLEEN RICE (D-NY)
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Rice voted against allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, which would immediately lower drug prices for seniors. 90% of her constituents and 80% of all Americans support allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Approximately 100% of Pharmaceutical companies do not support allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, on the other hand, and they give campaign contributions to politicians who support their position.
REP. KURT SCHRADER (D-OR)
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Schrader says the reconciliation number is too high, and he won’t support it unless it’s under $1 trillion. He is one of the votes we are most likely to lose in the House.