I spent eight years in Congress, and I won't pretend they were easy ones. When I announced last fall that I would not seek reelection, I wrote about the incivility and plain nastiness that are now common in our politics,
and about a Congress that too often rewards ego and division over patience and determination. I stand by all of it. But there is another side to the story, and before I leave office I want to tell it.This is how I've worked well with Rep. Mike Lawler
It starts with lobster. For decades, federal regulators have piled rules onto Maine's lobstermen in the name of protecting the North Atlantic right whale. Our fishermen did their part and then some. They replaced 27,000 miles of floating groundline with sinking line. They cut the number of ropes in the water and rigged their gear
with breakaway links built to give way rather than entangle a whale. Nobody has a bigger stake in a healthy fishery than the families whose livelihoods depend on it.
Then in 2021, the government issued a new round of restrictions built on worst-case assumptions instead of real data. A federal appeals court unanimously vacated those restrictions. Congress stepped in the next year with a six-year pause on new regulations and funding for better science. But the pause expires at the end of 2028, and the research it paid for still has not been fully worked into the government's models. This year, I introduced the Northeast Lobstermen Protection Act to extend the pause through 2035 and to keep backing new gear technology, so that any new rules rest on the best available science rather than bureaucratic guesswork.
It is worth knowing who is leading that bill with me: Rep. Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York's Hudson Valley. There is not a single lobster boat in his district. He got no votes in this and no headlines back home. He signed on because a historic American industry, thousands of fishing families, and the principle that federal rules should be built on facts were all on the line. And he understands that in every community, not just in Maine, mom-and-pop shops have been around for generations, and their livelihoods make up the very foundation of our communities.
In July, our bill passed the House Natural Resources Committee with votes from both parties. And it just passed on the House floor with bipartisan support. That is how Congress is supposed to work: members of different parties set aside their disagreements, find a problem that matters to the country and fix it.
And it was not a one-off. Twice more in the past two years, when something needed doing and party lines stood in the way, I found Lawler across the aisle. When the Trump Administration took away collective bargaining for federal employees, I introduced a bill restoring their rights. Lawler didn’t even take convincing. He signed on and said hewanted to help push it. When the enhanced ACA premium tax credits were about to expire, he helped lead the bipartisan fight to extend them and even signed a Democratic discharge petition to get something to the House floor. Lobster traps, union rights and health insurance do not have much in common, except that on all three, Lawler chose to solve the problem rather than campaign on it.
I do not put too much stock in Washington scorecards, but they confirm what I saw up close. The nonpartisan Lugar Center rated Lawler the fourth most bipartisan member of the entire House in the last Congress. The Center for Effective Lawmaking named him the most effective freshman lawmaker in the country. This summer, Bridge Gradesscored him 99.2 out of 100, the best mark in New York's delegation. Behind those numbers is a simple habit: he would rather pass a bill with the other party than score a point against it.
I know how bipartisan Mike Lawler really is
I know something about what that takes. I held the most challenging district of any Democrat in the country by earning the trust of Democrats, independents, and Republicans alike. Lawler holds one of just three Republican seats in the country that Kamala Harris carried in 2024. Representing districts like ours forces you to work for people who disagree with you, and it teaches you that those people are not your enemies. They are your neighbors.
I made an oath of allegiance to the United States and the Constitution when I began my service in the Marine Corps, and I carried it through deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Veterans understand something too many politicians have forgotten: the greatest threats to America do not come from within our own borders. They come from beyond them. But Mike has that conviction, and it’s why he and I have worked together to stand up for our democracy and our constituents. We have real adversaries in this world, and they are not our fellow citizens. When candidates for office tell voters that the gravest danger to this country is other Americans and the leaders they elect, that isradical talk, and it is the same politics of fear I have refused to practice for my entire career.
I am leaving Congress in January by my own choice, but I have not given up on the institution, and voters should not either. The Congress we get is the one we elect, and the country needs fewer members who treat the job as a stage and more who treat it as work. In New York's Hudson Valley this fall, that is the choice on the ballot. Mike Lawler has been a true partner to me and a friend to fishing families he will never represent. I strongly back him, and I hope voters send him back to work. Wherever you live, find the members who pass laws with the other party, and keep them. Maine's lobstermen can tell you how much it matters.
Jared Golden represents Maine's 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is a Marine Corps veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: I'm a Democrat in Congress. NY should re-elect Mike Lawler | Opinion
