Mainers in D.C. relish power shift Michaud, Allen stress importance of minimum wage hike, Rx drug cost cuts

WASHINGTON – With their party taking control of the U.S. House Tuesday night, Democratic Reps. Michael Michaud and Thomas Allen of Maine look forward to their first 100 hours in the majority beginning in January.

“The House in Washington doesn’t work the way the House in Augusta does, and it doesn’t work the way the textbooks say,” Allen said. “The majority party has enormous power to determine the legislative agenda, and for the last six years that power has been exercised to help the pharmaceuticals, insurance, oil and coal companies, and not for middle-class Americans.”

Both Democrats stressed the importance of ameliorating the high cost of prescription drugs and increasing the minimum wage.

“It is my hope that we’ll be able to get legislation passed in the House that would require the federal government to negotiate for lower-cost prescriptions,” Michaud said. “We’re the only industrialized country in the world that does not negotiate.”

During his first term, in 1998, Allen proposed negotiating prescription drug costs. The legislation, which he said would save taxpayers billions of dollars a year, has been strongly resisted by the pharmaceutical companies, according to Allen.

Michaud plans on continuing to push for his bill, America RX Act, which would pull together many existing patient assistance programs that provide low-cost or free medicines to qualified individuals. It is modeled after Maine’s Rx Cares for ME, which went into effect in 2003.

The minimum wage in Maine is $6.75 an hour, according to the Maine Department of Labor, higher than the federal $5.15. Both Michaud and Allen agree the federal minimum needs to be higher.

“If you look, every year Congress automatically gets a pay increase, but yet they refuse to increase the minimum wage,” Michaud said. “I think it’s very important that we raise the standard of living.”

Michaud also said he supported making higher education more affordable and making college tuition tax-deductible. Other legislation he ranks as a high priority is the Northeast Regional Economic Development Commission Act that would spend $40 million a year for the economic development of the Northeast.

Of first importance, Allen said, would be changes in the House rules.

“You could hear Nancy Pelosi promise a more open legislation process last night,” Allen said.

The rules changes, which Allen had a hand in developing, would provide more open government and restrict the ability of the leadership to manipulate votes or squeeze ordinary members to vote against their constituents’ interest.

“It would be a very different process from what the House has become in the last 12 years,” Allen said.

Michaud, currently the senior Democratic member of the Veterans’ Affairs Health Subcommittee, said he plans to challenge the acting senior Democrat on the full committee for the committee chairmanship.

“I think it’s very important that we have someone in the chairmanship that is willing to work with both sides but is also willing to work with veterans’ service organizations all around the country,” Michaud said. “So I definitely will be running for chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.”

Allen said he plans to continue his role on the Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the most powerful committees in the House.

“It makes a huge difference whether you are working to bring legislation to the floor for a vote – which you can do much more frequently in the majority than in the minority – or whether you are proposing legislation that you hope at some time there will be a majority willing to push it,” he said.