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Angus King

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If you like the system as it is, I’m not your guy.

Angus Stanley King, Jr. (born 31 March 1944) is an American politician and the junior United States Senator from the state of Maine. As an Independent, not affiliated with either the Republican or Democratic parties, he served as the 72nd Governor of Maine from 1995 to 2003. In March 2012 he announced that he would run as an Independent for the Maine seat in the U.S. Senate which was being vacated by Olympia Snowe. King won Maine's 2012 Senate election and took office on January 3, 2013. For committee assignment purposes, he caucuses with the Democratic Party.

Quotes

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We proved that with civility, common sense, building bridges, working with coalitions and working with people one at a time, we could do something.
The economic future will belong to the technologically adept.
I had no intention of getting back into politics. I was teaching at Bowdoin and happily retired from politics.
  • Michael Jordan did not get good at basketball by practicing 42 minutes a week, which is what most kids have in the computer lab. … Whether it's a scalpel, baseball bat or a computer, the skill in the use of a tool rests upon practice and familiarity, and that's what these kids are going to have to an unprecedented extent.
    • On his program to purchase iBook computers for Maine public schools, as quoted in "Maine Students Hit the iBooks" by Katie Dean in WIRED (9 January 2002)
  • I think I can honestly say that if Olympia had announced her retirement because of ill health or to spend more time with Jock I probably wouldn't have run. … What perked me up is why she is leaving. Olympia has 30 years of seniority, she's likable, she works very hard, and if she can't make it work, nobody in either party is going to make it work. … I don't have any illusions it will be easy, but I do think particularly if the two parties are closely divided, I will have an influence … I might have a chance of starting a movement toward change in this broken system. This country has serious problems, but you can't address them if the institution set up to address the problems is broken.
  • We could send down a combination of Pericles and Thomas Jefferson, and if that person's reporting to Harry Reid [Senate Majority Leader] or Mitch McConnell [Senate Minority Leader], he's going to be ineffective. … Every vote is a test vote. Every vote is party loyalty. We're sunk if it keeps up this way. … It wouldn't take but four or five centrists like me to completely change the dynamics.
    • As quoted in "Angus may be a king-maker" by Deborah McDermott in Seacoast Online (11 March 2012)
  • I don't have any illusions that I'm naively going to go down and Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell are going to say, "Angus, tell us how to do this." I mean, I know that's not going to work. But I think, No. 1, my election would send a significant message and, No. 2, it might provoke similar movements in other states. If there were four or five people like me, that would change the whole dynamic.

Governor's Travels : How I Left Politics, Learned to Back Up a Bus, and Found America (2011)

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  • My approach to the job can be summed up pretty simply — I never viewed politics as my career. Important, yes, worthy of intense commitment, of course — but it was not my whole life. … I saw politics as a way to make a contribution and satisfy my penchant for public policy, but not as something I couldn't live without.
  • I always had a kind of Myth of Cincinnatus idea about politics — that public service was something you do for a while in between stints at real life. And when your time is up, you return to the plow, which is hopefully still somewhere close to where you left it.

Bowdoin Academic Spotlight interview (2011)

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I'm a retired state employee from Maine.
"Bowdoin Lecturer is King of the Road in 'Governor's Travels'" in Academic Spotlight (2 August 2011)
  • One of the real benefits of any travel is gaining some perspective. You see things from different points of view. That came home to me in a variety of ways: politically, economically, seeing what was going on in other states.
  • When people asked me in a RV park, "What do you do?" I just said, "I'm a retired state employee from Maine."
  • Jefferson said the states are the laboratories of democracy. But the problem is, nobody reads the lab reports.
    We've got every state trying to reinvent everything. I was struck even more so after this trip how little exchange there is among states that are coping with exactly the same issues.
  • The Southwest was spectacular, but I have no interest in moving there. North Carolina is beautiful in spring and fall. But I can say I didn't find anyplace I'd rather live than Maine.
  • You have to take advantage of the opportunities that life gives you, particularly the moments in time when you have time, when you're between jobs or you retire. Get out and go. I think most of us are way too intense. We need to take a deep breath and do things that maybe don't fit the normal picture of what we're supposed to do at that stage of life. In some ways, this book is one big argument for just plain loosening up.

Address to Senate Colleagues (6 February 2025)

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Our oath was not to the Republican Party, not to the Democratic Party, not to Joe Biden, not to Donald Trump, but our oath was to defend the Constitution.
And right now — right now literally at this moment that constitution is under the most direct and consequential assault in our nation's history.
"King to Senate Colleagues: 'Now is the Time to Establish a Redline—the Constitution Itself'" (6 February 2025) · YouTube video downloads & transcripts
  • We began our careers here with the following words, "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic."
    When each of us arrived here in the Senate, we took this oath to support and defend the constitution and as it says against all enemies foreign and domestic. I think it's interesting that the framers concede that there might be domestic enemies to the constitution. Our oath was not to the Republican Party, not to the Democratic Party, not to Joe Biden, not to Donald Trump, but our oath was to defend the constitution.
    And right now — right now literally at this moment that constitution is under the most direct and consequential assault in our nation's history. An assault not on a particular provision but on the essential structure of the document itself. It's hard to grasp what is happening because of all the events that are swirling around us over the last several weeks. It's coming from so many different quarters and so many different actors. It's hard to get a picture of what's really happening fundamentally.
    But this is an assault, and how we respond to it will define our life's work, our place in history, and the future of our country. None of us will ever face a greater challenge.
  • There's a paradox at the heart of the creation of any government, whether it's here or anywhere else on Earth, and anywhere else in history. There's a paradox built in, because the essence of creating government is to give it power, give it our power, in order to look after us, in order to provide for the common defense, to ensure domestic tranquility, to provide justice to our people.
    In other words, we're giving our power to this separate entity. But we have to do so with the realization that the power that's being given has the potential to be abused. In other words, how do we give power to this entity, this government, and ensure that the government itself doesn't use that power to abuse us as citizens? This is a question at the heart of all political discussion throughout history.
    The Romans even had a question that captured it. The question was, "quis custodiet, ipsos custodes?" It means who will guard the guardians? Who will guard those who we have given power to guard us? It's a fundamental question that's confronted every society and every government throughout history.
  • Our framers understood this. They were deep students of history and also human nature. And they had just won a lengthy and brutal war against the abuses inherent in concentrated governmental power, George III. The universal principle of human nature they understood was this — power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's a universal principle, all over the world throughout history.
    • King here paraphrases Lord Acton: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
  • How did they answer the question who will guard the guardians? They answered it by building into the basic structure of our government two essential safeguards. One was regular elections. In other words, returning the control of the government to the people on regular scheduled elections. By the way, this is what we learned in sixth grade, checks and balances. But the other piece that's built into our system that's the other essential safeguard is the deliberate division of power between the branches and levels of government.
  • The cumbersomeness, the slowness, the clumsiness is built into our system. The framers were so fearful of concentrated power that they designed a system that would be hard to operate. And the heart of it was the separation of power between various parts of the government. The whole idea, the whole idea was that no part of the government, no one person, no one institution had or could ever have a monopoly on power.
    Why? Because it's dangerous. History and human nature tells us that. This division of power as annoying and inefficient as it can be, particularly to the executive, I know because I used to be a governor, is an essential feature of the system, not a bug. It's an essential, basic feature of the system, designed to protect our freedoms.
  • Power is shared, principally between the President and this body, this Congress, both houses. In fact, this herky-jerkiness, the two houses, the war power divided between the President and Congress, this unwieldy structure is the whole idea. No one has or should ever have all the power.
  • We have to understand, we are an anomaly in history. The historical norm is pharaohs, kings, dictators, emperors, presidents for life. But the fact that we're such an anomaly, and we've seen in our lifetimes other governments, other systems based upon ours slip into authoritarianism and dictatorship tells us how fragile what we have is. What we have in this country is an anomaly in history and it's fragile, and it needs to be, must be, protected from generation to generation. This makes this moment all the more urgent and portentous.
  • We have to keep our eye on the big picture. Not all the confusion and smoke that's going on over the last couple of weeks. Mr. Vought is one of the principal authors of the infamous Project 2025 which the President strangely hadn't heard of during the campaign but now seems to be the essential guideline for his presidency. Project 2025 is nothing less than a blueprint for the shredding of the constitution and the transition of our country to authoritarian rule. He's the last person who should be put in the heart of the operation of our government.
  • Just in the past ten days, we've seen the literal destruction of a statutorily, I emphasize that word, statutorily established and funded federal agency by people ostensibly working for the president understand vague authority, no transparency, and no guidance from the congress.
  • This small group, and we don't know who they are, but this small group apparently it's reported in their 20's have no experience with government, no experience with foreign aid, no experience with the operation of the United States government, but they're making basically policy decisions and constitutional decisions.
    The Constitution does not give to the President or his designee the power to extinguish a statutorily established agency. I can think of no greater violation of the strictures of the Constitution or usurpation of the power of this body. None.
  • I find it especially galling to read the sneering comment from the richest man in the world that, quote, ‘we spent the weekend feeding said into the chipper.' Describing an action that will literally take food from the mouths of starving children. Forget red lines. Do we have no decency?
  • I picked a few examples, but my final example is the power seemingly assumed by DOGE to burrow into the treasury's payment system, and now CMS for undefined purposes, zero oversight and raises questions up to and including threats to national security. Do these people have clearance? Are the doors closed? Are they going to leave open doors into these? What are the opportunities for our adversaries to hack into the systems?
    We're already under unprecedented cyberattack and we're opening doors, although it's impossible to determine what they're taking. Remember there's no transparency or oversight. Access to social security numbers seem to be in the mix. All the government's personnel files, personal financial data, potentially everyone's tax returns and medical records. That can't be good. That can't be good. That's data that should be protected with the highest level of security and consideration of Americans' privacy. And we don't know who these people are. We don't know what they're taking out with them. We don't know whether they're walking out with laptops or thumb drives. We don't know whether they're leaving back doors into the system. There is literally no oversight. The government of the United States is not a private company. It is fundamentally at odds with how this system is supposed to work.
    Shouldn't this be an easy redline?
  • The power of the majority is with you, my Republican colleagues. Together, together we have the power to right the balance, to reclaim the authority we thought was inherent in our jobs, and in the process save our country.
    At a prior time of crisis, Abraham Lincoln defined the stakes for each of us, "Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We, of this Congress, and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation."
    Now is the time to establish a redline — the Constitution itself.

Quotes about King

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Alphabetized by author
  • On Monday night, Feb. 27, former Maine Gov. Angus King was sitting in his Brunswick home talking with his wife, Mary Herman, about the trips they would take in their new RV.
    On Tuesday night, they were discussing whether he should run for the U.S. Senate.
    It was just that quickly that his world shifted into high gear, after Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe announced Feb. 28 that she would not run for re-election.
    "I really agonized over it. It was a huge personal decision and it completely changes our lives," said the former two-term independent governor. "But I've been handed a truly unique opportunity, and if I didn't take it, I think I would have regretted it."
    That unique opportunity, he said, is to shake things up as a centrist independent in Congress, an institution he called broken.
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