Pingree seeking 8th term in U.S. House, challenged by Navy veteran

Pingree seeking 8th term in U.S. House, challenged by Navy veteran

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Pingree seeking 8th term in U.S. House, challenged by Navy veteran

In their first debate of the fall election campaign to represent Maine’s 1stCongressional District, incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Chellie Pingree debated her Republican challenger, Ed Thelander, for one hour Wednesday night on Maine Public Television.

Pingree, 67, seeking an eighth term, and Thelander, 53, a retired career Navy officer in his first run for office, disagreed on issues including immigration, abortion rights, climate change, and student loans.

Pingree said asylum seekers who have flocked to Maine during the past few years can help reduce the labor shortage, noting that she’s proposing to shorten the federal waiting period to apply for a work permit to 30 days after arriving in the U.S., but her bill has not advanced in Congress.

Pingree said, “Everything about immigration is blocked, and I think it’s probably because the Republicans use it for rhetoric and campaigns, they want to scare people, and they’ve forgotten, unless we have a workforce in this country, which is the number one issue I hear from small businesses, we don’t have a future economy in this country. So, all this talk about not letting people into our country, not letting them work, that they’re going to, quote, ‘take away your jobs,’ you know, in a state like Maine, we are clamoring for jobs everywhere we turn.”

Thelander said, “This is one of those ways we’re gonna agree. If people come here legally – legally – we need to get them to work. ‘Cause if they’re coming here, and they can’t work, what are they doing? They’re stealing or causing problems. So, we do need to get them to work, because we do have a workforce shortage, and we still have to address problems at the border, though, because what’s happening there is not right.”

Thelander’s wife is a Venezuelan immigrant, and his mother is a Canadian immigrant.

Pingree said Congress has appropriated more money to secure the border and that 1 million of the 2.5 million people who had arrived in the U.S. from Mexico in the past year were refused entry.

Pingree said, “The people here in the state of Maine, the people staying in hotels are legal asylum seekers. They’re not stealing, they’re not causing trouble. They are waiting. Many of them come to my office every single day figure out if their work permits are coming through or can they apply for a job yet.”

The candidates were asked about the recent move by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to lure and relocate a group of Venezuelan immigrants to Massachusetts.

“There needed to be light drawn to the problem. Martha’s Vineyard’s a nice place, you know, Maine is a nice place to,” Thelander said. “The biggest problem about this is there is no plan for bringing these people in.”

Pingree said DeSantis’ move was “outrageous” and a “political stunt.”

On abortion, Pingree said she supports legislation to codify the Roe v. Wade precedent that had guaranteed a nationwide right to abortion, overturned in June by the U.S. Supreme Court, which empowered states to set restrictions.

“Who knows how this particular election’s going to go in Maine? If Paul LePage were to win, and Republicans were to take control of the House or the Senate, I have no doubt they would immediately make abortion illegal. We would be Alabama tomorrow,” said Pingree, who voted for the Women’s Health Protection Act, which passed the House in a party-line vote but was blocked by Republicans in the Senate. “In my opinion, that’s a right that women have, that’s a right women should have to discuss with their practitioners, their own families. That is not something that any politician should be meddling in.”

Thelander said he would oppose a national abortion ban or a federal restriction on terminating a pregnancy after 15 weeks, such as proposed by Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina.

Thelander said, “I am pro-life, but that is not a federal issue. The Supreme Court decided it. It could change again. The Supreme Court changes its mind more than once a year and overturns decisions, and it could happen again. Having a federal law on it is wrong.”

Asked about his position on a bill that could criminalize crossing state lines to obtain an abortion, Thelander said, “If Lindsay Graham’s bill came up, any federal bill came up, I would go against probably most, a big portion of my party, and I would vote ‘no’ on it.”

Asked about climate change, a topic absent on his campaign website, Thelander said, “No one can deny that the climate is changing. It’s getting hotter, otherwise, we’d be under 100 feet of ice right now. How much does the human factor really weigh into that? You know, I don’t think it weighs as much as it does to do what we’re doing. If we’re going to go all-electric cars right now, we can’t do it. There’s not enough lithium in the planet” for batteries.

Pingree said there is no debate about global warming and its impact, which she said, the Inflation Reduction Act addressed with incentives for renewable energy development and consumption.

Pingree said, “The fact is the Gulf of Maine is warming at a rate faster than any other ocean body in the world. If we’re going to talk about lobsters, and we’re going to talk about the future of our fishing, we need to think seriously about the species that are moving north and what that means to the state of Maine.”

Pingree criticized Thelander’s comments, earlier in the day at a lobstermen’s rally in Portland, about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which seeks to impose new restrictions on fishing to protect the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale – restrictions the whole Maine congressional delegation, both House challengers, and both candidates for governor oppose.

Thelander said at the rally, “NOAA wants to rape you and your family, and they’re saying, ‘pick a child.’”

At the debate, Pingree said, “I don’t think it’s ever appropriate, when you’re talking about a government rulemaking, to use derogatory terms that talk about a sexual assault on a woman or a child.”

Thelander said, “My comments were over the top, and I apologize for that.”

The candidates disagreed on college debt forgiveness and President Biden’s plan to cancel $10,000 to $20,000 of an individual’s federal student loans.

“Probably the president found a middle ground,” Pingree said, between people who hoped all government-backed student loans might be forgiven and those who disagree with canceling those debts.

Pingree touted her own proposal for zero interest on federal student loans.

Pingree said, “Why the federal government ever charged students any amount of interest on that debt doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Thelander rejected government loan forgiveness.

Thelander said, “There are so many people that are struggling hard, that started a business, that bought an excavator. No one gave them free money on the loan they took out on that. You don’t see anybody who went to vocational school asking for loan forgiveness. They got a job, and they paid for it.”

Thelander said, “It is a business decision to go to college, and if you go there without purpose or idea that you’re going to pay that back, shame on you, you made a deal.”

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