Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) split with Democrats and endorsed Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in one of the closest midterm elections in the House.

In an op-ed for a local New York paper, Golden praised Lawler for working with him on bipartisan legislation.

Golden cited a bill to protect Maine’s lobster industry.

“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,” Golden wrote in The Journal News of Rockland County.

“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,” he continued.

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Golden wrote in The Journal News:

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.

“It’s an honor and a privilege to accept the endorsement of my friend, Democratic Congressman Jared Golden. While we are from different parties and different states, Jared and I have worked during our time together in the House to find common ground on issues that matter both to us and our constituents,” Lawler wrote on X.

“We share a firm belief that what’s best for the people should come before one’s party, and that if more members on both sides of the aisle took that approach more often, the country would be better off for it,” he added.

Lawler is facing Democratic nominee Cait Conley for another term in the suburban Hudson Valley district.

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Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg rallied with Conley last week ahead of the closely watched race.

The Hill shared further:

Democratic leaders have a decidedly different opinion of Lawler and his legislative record. They’re pointing out that he’s sided with Trump the vast majority of the time, including in supporting the Iran war and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which slashed Medicaid and a host of other low-income programs.

Lawler was also among the rare battleground Republicans to appear at the Trump-heavy GOP convention in Dallas earlier in the month.

“Lawler has turned public service into his own personal payday and repeatedly put Donald Trump’s extreme agenda over New Yorkers, even when it means gutting his own constituents’ health care and driving up their costs,” Rep. Suzan DelBene (Wash.), the head of House Democrats’ campaign arm, charged earlier in the year.

 

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