I am writing to express my deep disappointment with the way this lame-duck Congress is conducting the people’s business and the role our senators, Susan Collins and Angus King, have played in this sorry soap opera. Now more than ever, Maine needs legislators in Washington who will not be a party to trashing the Constitution and slapping voters across the face so soon after such a decisive midterm election.
How dare our senators vote for a 1,600-page, trillion-dollar-plus spending bill — the “Cromnibus” — without allowing their constituents any opportunity to read and understand it before the vote. No public hearings? You’ve got to be kidding! The federal government is broke, and now Congress is borrowing more money from our grandchildren to fund yet another round of reckless deficit spending, all the while locking constituents out of the legislative process.
Adding insult to injury, Congress agreed to suspend the regular rules of order so the bill could be written behind closed doors by faceless, unelected bureaucrats and lobbyists. I heard not so much as a meow of protest from either of our senators.
And why would any sane, rational person permit those senators who were fired by their constituents last month to vote on spending money our grandchildren haven’t earned yet?
The president himself admitted before the midterm elections that Nov. 4 would be a referendum on his policies. And the voters’ verdict was as clear and crisp as Maine air the day after a January nor’easter blows across the state: The American people are fed up with this lawless president and his campaign to fundamentally transform this country into a banana republic. Liberal Democrat allies of the president could run but they couldn’t hide from the wrath of voters from sea to shining sea, from the top of the ballot on down.
But the career politicians in Washington act as if the American people are unruly children who had a hissy fit on Election Day. It’s business as usual for the Beltway elites in both party establishments. How else can one explain passage, so soon after the midterms, of this hideous pile of steaming compost called the Cromnibus?
Given the outcome on Nov. 4, how could our senators agree to a spending bill that fully funds the Obamacare train wreck into September of next year? We know the original legislation was built on a foundation of lies — “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” — and would never have passed if the truth had been told. The 2,500-page bill was jammed through Congress much like livestock at auction, with votes being bought and sold on the floor of the United States Senate, low bids starting in the tens of billions of dollars.
Remember the Louisiana Purchase and the Cornhusker Kickback? The voters remember.
Voters understand open borders and amnesty for illegals are an existential threat to the country, even if properly enacted by the legislative branch. When the president takes it upon himself to decree amnesty with the stroke of his pen, we are in uncharted territory. Senators who voted to affirm this anti-constitutional assault on the separation of powers should be ashamed of themselves. Ditto for chaining the country to the caboose of the Obamacare train wreck for another nine months.
Every two years the American people get to hire and fire their legislators. Despite the wholesale shellacking of left-wing progressives at the ballot box last month, many who survived the electoral bloodbath still don’t get it.
Don’t be surprised if the voters come back with a vengeance in two years, to continue thinning the herd on Capitol Hill. In the meantime, I would encourage our senators to make New Year’s resolutions to never again lock their constituents out of the legislative process when our future as a free, self-governing people hangs in the balance.
Lawrence E. Lockman, R-Amherst, is serving his second term in the Maine House of Representatives, representing District 137. He may be reached at larrylockman@rivah.net.