U.S. Sen. Angus King said in an interview Wednesday that he continues to support the Republicans’ stopgap funding bill to reopen the federal government because he’s worried about giving Trump more power and accelerating the country’s “slide to authoritarianism.”
Maine’s independent senator had told Washington, D.C. reporters on Monday that he was considering changing his vote — a move that likely would have emboldened Senate Democrats to keep fighting.
But he plans to stay the course.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that the greatest risk we face is this slide towards authoritarianism and that the shutdown accelerates it,” he told the Press Herald on Wednesday. “I hope I’m wrong, but the stakes are too high to take the risk in my view.”
King agreed that extending the enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act before they expire at the end of the year and cause premiums to increase for many working class families is an important issue to address. But he’s more concerned about President Donald Trump’s power grab and his recent moves to send the military into Democratic controlled cities, defy court orders, use the Justice Department to prosecute political enemies and intimidate the press.
“It strikes me as not very good policy to try to stand up to a bully by handing him a new weapon and that’s what this shutdown is,” he said.
King’s comments came ahead of the Senate’s sixth vote on dueling proposals to reopen the federal government.
The federal government shut down last week after Senate Democrats voted against the Republican proposal to fund government into late November, a timeline they said would allow them to finalize annual spending bills.
Democrats offered a counterproposal to extend enhanced ACA subsidies that will expire at the end of the year, driving up health care costs for working families. They also want to reverse nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts under Trump’s mega-bill.
Neither proposal garnered the 60 votes needed to send it to President Trump.
Members of Congress continue to get paid during the shutdown. Nonessential workers have been furloughed and essential employees are working without pay and will only see only partial paychecks on Friday — their last ones until government reopens.
The administration has discussed not providing back pay to furloughed employees and laying off nonessential workers, but has yet to act.
Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, the top Senate appropriator, said she’s been shopping a six-point plan to end the shutdown, which she blames on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
“If my plan is adopted, and if Schumer finally backs off from the pressure he’s under from the far left to disrupt government, then there’s no reason why government couldn’t open today,” Collins told Maine reporters at an event Monday.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers were scheduled to meet over Thai food Tuesday, but Collins did not attend, her office said.
Details of her plan were not immediately available.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has not brought the lower chamber back in session since the shutdown, which will make it difficult to pass anything other stopgap spending bill previously approved by the House. U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, who represents Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, was the only Democrat to support that bill.
King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, initially opposed the Republican plan, then changed his mind in subsequent votes.
The only way to extend the ACA credits and prevent premium increases. King said, Trump intervenes — something that could happen whether the federal government is open or closed.
“The only solution is if Donald Trump was to get rid of this problem,” King said, adding that ending subsidies may impact Republican states harder than Democrats. “I think there is a reasonable chance that could happen with or without the shutdown.”
This story will be updated