Maria Cantwell

BDN Exclusive Election 2026 Visit the BDN election page for our latest coverage of local, state and national races. A top Senate Democrat whom U.S. Sen. Susan Collins accused this week of blocking a lobstering bill told Maine fishermen in Ellsworth on Saturday that she would help move it, according to the union leader who organized the meeting. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, held the closed-door meeting at the Ellsworth Elks Lodge with former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, the Democrat challenging Collins in Tuesday’s election. The bill now appears to be on solid footing in the Senate, thanks in part to one-upmanship in the toss-up race between Collins and Jackson, which could decide control of the chamber. It broke out when word of the meeting leaked this week. On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the commerce chairman, said his panel would take up the bill next month and credited Collins. “Exactly what we’re asking for was bipartisanship for the industry, and I’m pretty sure we got that,” said Virginia Olsen, the political director of the Maine Lobstering Union Local 207, who organized the event billed as an opportunity for fishermen to speak to Cantwell. The bill, championed by outgoing U.S. Rep. Jared Golden , a Democrat from Maine’s 2nd District, would extend a pause on new federal rules meant to protect endangered whales from 2028 through 2035. It will need Democratic votes to get through the Senate, and the lame-duck session is the last chance to pass it before a new Congress arrives in January. The fight over credit has also gotten personal. On Friday, Collins told Fox News that Cantwell had stood in the way. “In 2022, Sen. Cantwell worked against the Maine delegation’s effort to halt the Biden regulations that threatened lobstermen’s livelihoods, and this year she has been blocking the bill to extend the regulatory pause that we secured in 2022,” Collins said. Olsen said the opposite. Cantwell was commerce chair in 2022. Olsen said backers of the original pause did not have the votes until Dave Sullivan, the International Association of Machinists’ general vice president for the Eastern Territory, asked Cantwell for help. Cantwell’s office did not immediately comment on the Saturday meeting. In a statement to Fox News, she called similar remarks from Collins “desperate” and “false accusations.” “I support the Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act and extending regulatory relief for Maine lobstermen through 2035,” she said. “When the Senate returns next week, I will continue to do the hard work on this bill, instead of engaging in political finger pointing.” Sullivan and the IAM are close to Jackson . The union’s Maine State Council endorsed him in July and paid him $90,000 as a consultant until he won the Senate nomination in August. The House passed the extension 219-196 in September, with 10 Democrats in support. Golden first introduced the bill, but Republican leader