FREEPORT, Maine — Gov. Janet Mills said Thursday she supports keeping the U.S. Senate’s 60-vote filibuster in place, weighing in on the check on majority rule that has been a focus of debate within and between the two major political parties.
The Democratic governor’s stance is shared by Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican whom Mills entered the race to defeat earlier this week. Both parties have been divided in recent years over the filibuster as the Senate has whipsawed between Republicans and Democratic control.
Despite pressure at times from President Donald Trump, Republican leaders have expressed opposition to scrapping the supermajority threshold needed to pass certain legislation. That has included a short-term funding bill that Senate Democrats have blocked, which has left the federal government shut down since Oct. 1.
“I would certainly want to retain the filibuster,” Mills said Thursday morning while at Maine Beer Company in Freeport to appear with its cofounder, Dan Kleban, who suspended his Senate campaign and endorsed Mills when she entered the race Tuesday.
“When it comes to Trump appointing 200 judges with very questionable qualifications, I would want to have a say in those judgeships, for instance,” Mills said.
However, Democratic leaders scrapped the requirement for most presidential nominees, including many judges, in 2013. Four years later, Republicans got rid of it for Supreme Court nominees in a move that whittled down the filibuster.
Collins voted with them at that time, saying negotiations with Democrats on the issue broke down. She has defended the filibuster, although she joined Senate Republicans last month in changing the chamber’s rules to confirm 48 of Trump’s nominees at once. That tweaked process does not apply to judicial or higher-level Cabinet posts.
In a statement, Collins campaign spokesperson Shawn Roderick said Mills appeared to be “unaware” of the Democratic change affecting judges in 2013, calling the Republican senator “a strong supporter and defender of the legislative filibuster.” Collins spokesperson Shawn Roderick said.
“This important protection for the minority remains in place despite [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer’s efforts to abolish it when Democrats were in the majority during the Biden Administration,” he said.
One of the governor’s primary opponents, Jordan Wood of Bristol, also said Mills “appears to think we’re still playing by the old rules.”
“Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are ignoring the Constitution and breaking all political norms, so the idea that Mills thinks the filibuster is anything but an impediment to progress is extremely worrisome,” Wood, who previously worked on Capitol Hill, said.
Progressives have long wanted top Democrats to scrap the threshold. When Democrats tried to end the filibuster to pass voting-rights legislation in 2022, two centrist members broke with the party to doom the measure. U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and had long backed the filibuster, voted with leaders then to try to scrap it.
Mills, who is termed out of the Blaine House next year after serving as governor since 2018, also said Thursday she would “probably not” have voted the way King has in backing the Republican-backed stopgap funding measure to end the shutdown.
King has been one of a few Democratic-leaning members to vote in favor of the continuing resolution that most Democrats have opposed over it not including an extension of expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits. Mills instead put the onus on Republicans to end the shutdown by noting they control Congress and the White House.
“This shutdown is a failure of governance,” Mills said.