Following in the footsteps of Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, for whom he once worked, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden has made a regular habit of drawing the ire of his own party. Sometimes it’s been through votes, sometimes with bills he’s sponsored. Other times it’s been through rhetoric. Regardless, it’s been consistent enough that liberals have protested outside his office in Waterville.

Golden’s latest act of defiance was voting for the Republicans’ election security bill, the SAVE Act. In fact, he not only voted for it, he wrote an entire post on Substack defending both the bill itself and his vote. The bill itself is reasonable and limited. It’s not a national voter ID bill, which would be difficult to pass even with Republicans in control in Washington. Rather, it requires states to ensure that anyone registering to vote in federal elections is a U.S. citizen.

Golden is entirely correct in his defense of the bill. It’s quite reasonable and wouldn’t be a huge burden on Maine, other states, or on voters.

Contrary to the hysteria being whipped up by some on the left, it wouldn’t hinder people’s ability to register to vote simply because they changed their names or didn’t have the right documents. He’s also right that most Mainers already have the documentation required by the bill. It’s not bizarre that Golden voted for it; rather, it’s bizarre that more of his fellow Democrats didn’t. More widespread bipartisan support for a reasonable measure like this one would help get the Democratic Party on the correct side of an issue where the American public largely agrees with the Republicans.

So, Golden’s right about the legislation itself and he’s right about the politics of it — for the most part. What he fails to mention, though, is that there were two votes on the bill: an initial vote to send it back to committee, called a motion to recommit, and a vote on passage. Before voting for it on passage, Golden — along with the other three Democrats who voted for it — also voted for the motion to recommit, which failed on a straight party-line vote.

To put it simply, Golden voted against the bill before he voted for it.

He only voted for it once he knew that Democrats couldn’t halt its passage. That brings us to another point he made in his post: that progressive groups were engaging in fear-mongering over it because, when it was up for a vote in the last Congress, they ignored it. While he’s right that the bill itself hasn’t changed, the political circumstances have. With Democrats in the majority and President Joe Biden in the White House, the bill stood no chance of becoming law; now, with President Trump in office and a Republican Congress, it does.

Moreover, as is often the case when Golden defies his own party, his vote didn’t really matter. Now, many liberal critics of Sen. Collins like to point out that often her votes against Republican bills or nominees don’t make a difference, but they somehow ignore the same, even more pronounced, pattern in Golden’s record.

In Collins’ case, there was an instance where her vote against her party made a difference: when Republicans attempted to repeal Obamacare during Trump’s first term. Sen. John McCain’s vote got the most attention, but if Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski hadn’t also voted against it, the bill would have passed.

If activists and commentators are going to assign a particular motivation to Collins’ voting record, they ought to hold Jared Golden to the same standard.

While his claim to be bipartisan and centrist is, in fact, backed up by his votes, it has yet to alter an outcome. That caution has worked beautifully for him so far, but it will be interesting to see if it holds up in the coming months as Republicans attempt to push their “big, beautiful bill” through Congress that extends the Trump tax cuts, improves border security and fulfills many of Trump’s other campaign promises.

Just as in Collins’ case, it’s not necessarily Golden’s fault that his vote hasn’t made a difference. Neither of them can control the larger circumstances that surround every vote. It will be interesting to see what Golden does if numerous Republican defections over the “big beautiful bill” — or any other piece of future legislation — make Democratic support necessary for passage. That will be when we will find out whether Golden’s independence is performative, like so many of the anti-Trump protests, or actually productive.