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Ron Phillips is the retired founder and CEO of Coastal Enterprises, Inc., a community investment company based in Brunswick.
On Nov. 3, whatever our party leanings or voting habits, we must ask not only who is on the ballot in these midterm elections, but also what is on the ballot. In these perilous times, I believe we need to flip the U.S. House and the Senate to restore the word as well as the spirit of the U.S. Constitution. It’s the guardrail of our democracy.
With their experience, values and inclusive approach to governing, I believe we can trust the Democratic ticket to right the ship. At the top of the ballot are four crucial Democratic votes: Chellie Pingree and Matt Dunlap for the U.S. House in the 1st and 2nd Districts, Troy Jackson for the U.S. Senate, and Hannah Pingree for governor. Please vote for them, and other Democrats.
In my view, the very heart of the U.S. Constitution is on the chopping block: Specifically, Articles I, II and III that set forth the powers, and the limits, vested in the executive, Congress and the judiciary. Those are the three big reasons I see to vote Democratic. With the current administration, those branches are tested, challenged, and even thrown under the bus, and the American people wonder, “what’s next?”
There is mounting evidence that the Trump administration is concentrating power in the executive branch. Take the war with Iran. After the blood-soaked tragedy of Vietnam, Congress passed the War Powers Act of 1973 to reassert that Congress, not the commander in chief, holds the power to take the nation to war. I believe the destruction and threats to Iran, an ancient civilization, could have been avoided based on agreements already in force on nuclear weapons.
Congress also holds the power of the purse. Yet one estimate puts the funds the administration has cut, frozen or rescinded or withheld at $177 billion, for agencies and programs such as USAID, the National Institutes of Health, Supplementary Assistance Program for children, Medicaid and the Department of Education. Perhaps we should focus on who has the authority to impose tariffs. Congress does. All this while over $4 trillion in estimated tax cuts over the next 10 years favor the wealthy and other sectors.
Then there is the very serious weakening of voting procedures, which are the purview of the states. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 protects all of us, including Black and Indigenous Americans and other minorities from historic marginalization, intimidation, and access.
The latest flex of executive muscle portends even a greater threat to our Constitution. Banning news outlets from White House briefings is a blatant violation of the First Amendment, a cornerstone of ours or anyone’s democracy. The world is taking note.
There’s much more to talk about, from Ukraine, the Palestine-Israeli War, or immigration and ICE, to America’s unfavorable standing in the world. We could end this opinion on the sheer corruption of the present administration: self-dealing, and family and friends raking in billions, all in broad daylight. Or on the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, or the threatened destruction of the Kennedy Center, a memorial to an assassinated president, because Trump was prohibited from putting his name on it.
If none of this sways a Maine voter, consider character. The president’s speech is replete with expletives, demeaning language and falsehoods.
With some 88 criminal charges, indictments and criminal counts brought against him, and even with the Supreme Court’s questionable 2024 ruling in Trump v. United States granting him a level of immunity while president, we might go back to 1950 for guidance. In that year, in response to Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare tactics, Maine Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, speaking as a senator, a woman, a Republican and an American, stood up in that venerable chamber and delivered her famous Declaration of Conscience speech.
Not to say that there are Republicans or others — even Democrats — who see eye to eye on government policy choices. But this time, we have three big reasons to vote Democratic. Or maybe we need just two: The U.S. Constitution as a whole, with due process and all the rest, and Margaret Chase Smith’s conscience.