Posted on 09/25/2018 5:14:56 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a prominent moderate voice and one of the Senate’s most conscientious members, is poised to make or break Brett Kavanaugh’s chance at becoming a Supreme Court justice.
A big reason for that is several Senate colleagues are waiting to see what Collins will do before announcing their positions.
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) has asked centrist members of his caucus to keep their powder dry on Kavanaugh until they know where all Republicans stand.
And GOP senators will need to take a position if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) follows through with Monday’s promise to eventually hold an up-or-down vote on the floor.
Over her 22-year Senate career, Collins has built a reputation as a fair-minded, practical swing vote who is willing to stand up to Republican leadership and presidents from her own party.
She voted against former President Clinton’s impeachment in 1999, helped craft a compromise to get past a major partisan impasse over circuit court nominees in 2005, was a key player in sinking a proposal to repeal ObamaCare last year and has consistently criticized President Trump for controversial statements since he took office.
She also voted against Betsy DeVos and Scott Pruitt, Trump’s controversial picks to head the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency, respectively.
One of her first legislative accomplishments in the Senate decades ago was to co-sponsor an amendment with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to repeal a $50 billion tax break for the tobacco industry.
Kavanaugh will have virtually no chance at confirmation if Collins says she believes Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her at a high school party in 1982, according to people on both sides of the partisan Supreme Court fight.
On the flip side, it will be very difficult for Democrats to muster the votes to stop him if Collins rejects Ford’s accusations as insufficiently substantiated and announces support for Kavanaugh.
Senate Republican aides think that Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) will likely vote the same way as Collins, who thus far has played a more vocal role in the debate over Kavanaugh.
“We’re talking about a jury of one: Susan Collins,” said a senior GOP aide.
“When you look at Murkowski and even Flake, no one lets Collins get to the left of them, so she’s going to be the lodestar here,” the source added, referring Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), who is seen as another GOP swing vote.
The aide gave Collins a “51 percent chance” of voting for Kavanaugh.
Democrats agree that Kavanaugh will be defeated if they can flip Collins, who has voted for many of Trump’s nominees and helped pass his signature $1.5 trillion tax-reform bill last year.
“If Collins were to oppose him then that would be the kiss of death,” said Brian Fallon, a former Senate Democratic leadership aide and executive director of Demand Justice, which has helped lead liberal opposition to Kavanaugh.
Progressives on Monday amped up the pressure on Collins with protests urging her to vote against Kavanaugh. Capitol Police said they arrested 46 people outside Collins’s office and charged them with unlawful demonstrations.
Collins’s allies, however, say it’s unfair to shove all the responsibility for the nominee’s fate on her considering there are 100 members of the Senate and many of them are still publicly undecided as to how they will vote.
“By last count, there are eight members of the United States Senate who have yet to announce a position on Judge Kavanaugh,” said Annie Clark, a spokeswoman for Collins.
Republicans hold a 51-49 majority, meaning Kavanaugh could still be confirmed in a 50-50 tie with Vice President Pence casting the deciding vote.
“I think Collins will vote with us. Kavanaugh gave her the right answer on Roe v. Wade,” said a Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment on her position.
Collins told Showtime’s “The Circus” in a recent interview that she “doesn’t think Kavanaugh will overturn the landmark abortion rights case.”
Collins said Monday that she believes Senate investigators should reach out to a second woman, Deborah Ramirez, who has accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her at a college party. A Democratic aide cited her statement as evidence that she hasn’t dismissed the second woman’s allegation as other Republicans have.
Some Senate veterans see Collins as a possible heir to the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was often considered the conscience of the Senate — or at least the Senate GOP conference.
“She has the opportunity to be the conscience on this issue,” said former Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who worked with Collins in 2005 to fashion the so-called Gang of 14 compromise on judges, and also teamed up with her in 2009 to pass a major fiscal stimulus, one of former President Obama’s first legislative accomplishments.
“I always feel empathy with people who are put in that position,” said Nelson, adding that he voted for the 2010 Affordable Care Act because he knew it was the right thing to do even though he knew it would cause a major political backlash.
“I just hope she does what she thinks is right,” he said. “You can’t couch votes on what’s best for you. You have to couch votes on an entirely different standard and that’s where conscience plays a major role. Clearly it did for Sen. McCain.”
Republicans say that McConnell will give Collins wide latitude, but in the end, he is counting on her vote in support of Kavanaugh.
“Susan is a uniquely independent person,” said former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). “She embodies what we call the Northern New England ethic, which is absolute integrity, very serious approach to issues and willingness to march to her own drum and find her own path.”
“On the conscience issue, she’s always sort of seen Margaret Chase Smith as a role model, for lack of a better word,” Gregg added, referring to the former senator from Maine who was one of the first Senate Republicans to publicly challenge Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.), the infamous redbaiter, in her 1950 “Declaration of Conscience” speech.
Collins commemorated Smith in a 2014 floor speech as “a wonderful inspiration to me.”
Gregg said the “effort by the left and the Hollywood crowd to intimidate her is the wrong approach because she doesn’t intimidate.”
Protesters occupied Collins’s Senate office last week as well, and her staff has received vulgar phone calls from people saying they’re opposed to Kavanaugh.
Three advocacy groups — Mainers for Accountable Leadership, the Maine People’s Alliance and Be a Hero — have led a crowdfunding campaign that has raised at least $1.3 million to pressure Collins to oppose Kavanaugh. She blasted the effort as an attempt to “bribe” her.
“Everyone understands that when you come from a constituency like she does, you’re not going to march in lockstep with agenda-driven Republicans from other parts of the country,” said Gregg, the former chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “But she was always there when you needed her, in my opinion. I used to go to her on budget votes, which were tough ones, and she would be there when I needed her.”
If Collins were to vote to confirm Kavanaugh, her reputation as an independent voice would likely suffer a blow as that decision would be met with a barrage of criticism from Democrats and advocates of the “Me Too” movement.
NARAL Pro-Choice America wrote in a recent memo that Collins had an obligation to vote against Kavanaugh because of his uncertain views of abortion rights and the assault allegation leveled against him by Ford.
The group noted that Collins has been willing to go further than many of her colleagues in criticizing Trump’s past behavior and that she championed legislation to decrease instances of sexual assault on college campuses.
Some critics have questioned whether Collins is willing to buck McConnell on such a high-stakes vote.
“The only time that she votes and takes a position opposite to the party is if there’s someone else and there’s safety in numbers,” said Janet Martin, a professor of political science at Bowdoin College, who studies Congress and women in politics.
She argued that the 2017 ObamaCare repeal bill that Collins helped defeat would have passed had McCain not surprised colleagues at the last minute by voting against it.
Martin also noted that Collins held back last week from calling for an FBI investigation to examine Ford’s sexual assault claim.
“Based on what she was saying last week, there was nobody I know in Maine that thought she was going to do anything to stop or delay progress on the confirmation of Kavanaugh,” Martin said. “Not every woman has come out and been in support of the ‘Me Too’ movement or thinks there really is an issue here.”
Clark, Collins’s spokeswoman, rejected the claim that the senator isn’t willing to go against McConnell if she feels the evidence warrants rejecting Kavanaugh.
“It’s absurd to suggest that Sen. Collins hesitates to vote against leadership when the stakes are high,” she said.
Sisterhood of the Vagina trumps all else.
If Kavanaugh is voted down, President Trump will renominate him after the midterm election - IF the Rs pick up additional Senate seats. There is no rule against it and President Trump is a pretty determined guy.
Of course, if the Republican senate can't do the right thing now, many people may walk away from them in November.
No, you can only be an independent voice if you’re anti-republican and especially anti-conservative. If you are anti-democrat, then you’re not an independent voice but instead a hater, a racist, a homophobe, etc., etc.
‘If even 1 Republican votes no there will not be a single Rat voting yes to save him, bank it.’
yep; you are right...
I make no prediction on how Manchin will vote, but it seems like you folks from around the country have a lot more faith in Joe than a wholebunchalotta Mountaineers do.
Even the brotherhood of the Viagra?
Senators,Our system of jurisprudence has always been based on the tenet of the presumption of innocence. The accuser must meet the burden of proving the accusation is true.
As a Justice on the Supreme Court, would you have had me rule that the burden was on Dredd Scott to show why he should be an American citizen, or should that burden have been on Sandford to demonstrate why Mr. Scott should not be a citizen?
Should the burden have been on Oliver Brown to show that the separate school his daughter was forced to attend was not equal to closer white-attended schools, or should that burden have been placed on the Topeka Board of Eductation to prove that "separate but equal" schooling was necessary?
Should I rule that the burden was on Ernesto Miranda to know his full legal rights when he was arrested, or should Arizona police have to inform Mr. Miranda of his right to an attorney when they arrested him?
Should Norma McCorvey have to justify to the state why she needed an abortion? Should Fred Korematsu have to prove his loyalty to the United States? Should women have to demonstrate their competency to sit on juries? Should the Cantwell family have to prove that their public expression of religion was not a breach of the peace and a public disturbance?
In our system, the accused has a right to know the specific charges and factual evidence against him or her. It is a mockery of our judicial system to suggeest that a sitting federal appellate judge, or anyone else for that matter, has to prove his innocence against vague, unspecified, and suddenly recalled allegations, when the very essence of being a judge is to balance the rights of the accused with the rights of the accuser. The burden of proof is on those who make the claims, not on those who are their targets.
Thank you.
-PJ
“Kavanaugh’s fate rests with Sen. Collins”
Collins’ fate rests with Collins too.
We can only use logic, since Trump won West Virginia by such a wide margin.
It would seem that a no vote from him would finish him off.
It is not faith in him, it just human nature to want to hold on to power.
“Over her 22-year Senate career, Collins has built a reputation as a fair-minded, practical swing vote...”
Her, and the other hag from Maine, Olympia Snowe, built up a reputation as unreliable idiots.
“Ford should already be on the road.”
According to Joe DeGenova she is already on the East Coast, and has been for some time, staying at her father’s house in Delaware.
I agree.
“We are in this mess because the GOP would not help Roy Moore in his election.”
We are in this mess because Mo Brooks was not the candidate against Doug Jones.
“No. If even 1 Republican votes no there will not be a single Rat voting yes to save him, bank it.”
That’s a fact. Pence will have to break the tie.
Since a helicopter would likely be on her tail, I tend to believe Joe.
Pence is a vote possibility.
Moore should have never run in the first place.
Because of this I will no longer vote for a woman who runs for any congressional or senate seat. Too bad, because there are some good, solid female leaders out there. This #me too movement is now a runaway train.
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