Given the relaxed pace of a bystander Congress, it strikes me there might be an easier retirement gig than simply enjoying the sunshine in Florida: serving in the U.S. House.
After months of doing next to nothing this year—it has been in session for just 87 days since Jan. 1—the House hasn’t done anything since Sept. 19. Which brings me back to Maine’s midterm elections. Is it any wonder former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, 77, is angling to snatch Maine’s 2nd District seat from the Democrats?
Typical retirees in the Sunshine State have to answer their own phones, drive their own cars, line up for early-bird suppers, and keep track of their own medical appointments. But serving in Congress? That’s another story.
House members are apparently content to stay home during the government shutdown and watch President Donald Trump do whatever he wants: firing federal employees, blowing up boats on the high seas, even eating gold-sprinkled brownies with the president of South Korea. In short, this Congress is making the famous “Do-Nothing Congress” of Harry Truman’s day seem like a hive of activity.
Given that members of the House earn $174,000 annually and have an average of 15 staffers to help them carry out their public duties, it seems to me they should be doing… something. No doubt LePage would agree.
While I didn’t like a lot of what LePage said and did as governor—joking about blowing up the Press Herald building, for example, seemed a tad over the top—I did admire his straight talk. LePage recently said he’s “never been a politician who hides. You might not always like how I say things, but you will know exactly where I stand. I don’t hide. I take the heat.”
He surely wouldn’t steer clear of controversy, as many House members prefer to do. Unfortunately, the chance he would say or do something that would put the nation on a better course, while going out and “taking the heat,” is minimal.
LePage has a way of generating his own heat with a nearly nonstop parade of ridiculous comments that mesh with his simplistic and mistaken agenda that caters to the wealthy while making life harder for everyone else.
Our country faces serious issues that have people confused and angry. It’s a time that demands thoughtful, courageous leadership to help us reach a consensus that preserves our freedom and prosperity. Both of the Democrats vying in a primary in the district—four-term U.S. Rep. Jared Golden and State Auditor Matt Dunlap—understand that. LePage’s brash, crude style wouldn’t help anyone right now.
During one budget fight back in 2013, LePage insisted Senate Majority Leader Troy Jackson should “go back into the woods and cut trees and let someone with a brain come down here and do some good work.” He didn’t stop there. LePage added that Jackson “claims to be for the people but he’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline.” Yikes.
LePage also reserves a healthy share of contempt for the Fourth Estate. He once called journalists “terrorists with pencils” and observed, “Reading newspapers in the state of Maine is like paying somebody to tell you lies.”
Should he succeed in becoming the second oldest person to win a House seat for the first time, LePage will have no trouble sliding into the role of a cranky old retiree. Is that really what his supporters want?
https://www.centralmaine.com/2025/11/04/the-last-thing-congress-needs-is-paul-lepage-steve-collins/
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