Platner urges Democrats to wield power aggressively, backs court impeachments

Graham Platner is betting that Maine Democrats want confrontation, not caution. The oyster farmer and Iraq and Afghanistan War veteran said Democrats should use aggressive oversight if they win back Congress, including investigating President Donald Trump and pursuing impeachment of at least two Supreme Court justices.

Platner said there was a “compelling case” for impeachment if justices were held to the same standards as lower federal judges. He tied that argument to broader ethics concerns around the modern Supreme Court and to his belief that Democrats need to wield power more forcefully, not treat it as a ceremonial prize.

The comments sharpen an already stark contrast in Maine’s U.S. Senate race. Platner, 40, launched his campaign in August 2025 and has emerged as a leading challenger to Gov. Janet Mills in the June 9 Democratic primary. He has also drawn national attention from progressives, including an endorsement from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who called him a “real fighter.”

Platner has also said he would want a seat on the Senate Appropriations Committee if elected, a powerful panel that controls discretionary federal spending. That puts him directly in the orbit of Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who has represented the state since 1997 and became chair of the committee on January 7, 2025. Collins has used that post to underscore her influence over federal dollars flowing back to Maine.

The politics of Platner’s pitch extend far beyond Augusta or Washington. Trump has been impeached twice in American history and acquitted by the Senate both times. Only one Supreme Court justice, Samuel Chase, has ever been impeached by the House, in 1804, and he was acquitted by the Senate in 1805. Under the Constitution, the House has the sole power to impeach and the Senate has the sole power to try those cases, making any new effort both symbolically explosive and procedurally difficult.

That tension helps explain why Platner’s remarks have become a test case for the Democratic Party’s post-2024 mood. With polling showing him ahead of Mills in recent surveys and running competitively against Collins, the Hancock County native is arguing that voters are ready for a less restrained response to Trump, the courts and the institutions around them. In Maine, that argument now sits at the center of a race that could help define how aggressively Democrats want to use power if they get it back.