Susan M. Collins

Susan Margaret Collins (born December 7, 1952) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Maine. A member of the Republican Party, she has held her seat since 1997 and is Maine's longest-serving member of Congress.

Born in Caribou, Maine, Collins is a graduate of St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. Beginning her career as a staff assistant for Senator William Cohen in 1975, she became staff director of the Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee of the Committee on Governmental Affairs (which later became the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs) in 1981. Governor John R. McKernan Jr. then appointed her commissioner of the Maine Department of Professional and Financial Regulation in 1987. In 1992 President George H. W. Bush appointed her director of the Small Business Administration's regional office in Boston. Collins became a deputy state treasurer in the office of the Treasurer and Receiver-General of Massachusetts in 1993. After moving back to Maine in 1994, she became the Republican nominee for governor of Maine in the 1994 general election. She was the first female major-party nominee for the post, finishing third in a four-way race with 23% of the vote. After her bid for governor in 1994, she became the founding director of the Center for Family Business at Husson University in Bangor, Maine.

Collins was first elected to the Senate in 1996. She was reelected in 2002, in 2008, in 2014, and in 2020. She chaired the Senate Special Committee on Aging from 2015 to 2021 and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs from 2003 to 2007. Collins is a senior Republican woman in the Senate, the dean of Maine's congressional delegation, and the only New England Republican in the 116th, 117th Congress, and 118th Congresses. She has been called a moderate Republican and is often a pivotal vote in the Senate. To date, Collins is the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate.

Collins, who has described herself as a pro-choice Republican, attracted controversy for her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She attributed her vote to her belief that Kavanaugh would not support overturning ''Roe v. Wade''; in June 2022, Kavanaugh joined the majority opinion in ''Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization'', which overturned ''Roe''.

During the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, Collins was one of 10 Republican senators to vote to acquit him on the first charge and one of five to vote to acquit on the second, and during the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Collins joined all Senate Republicans but one in voting to acquit him of all charges. On February 13, 2021, she was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump of incitement of insurrection in his second impeachment trial. She was the only Republican senator to vote against confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Upon the swearing-in of the 118th Congress, Collins will be the only Republican to represent a Northeastern state in the Senate. Furthermore, since the commencement of the 116th Congress, Collins has been the only Republican from New England in either house of Congress.

Early life

One of six children, Collins was born in Caribou, Maine, where her family operates a lumber business established by her great-great-great-grandfather, Samuel W. Collins, in 1844. Her parents, Patricia (née McGuigan) and Donald F. Collins (1925–2018), each served as mayor of Caribou. Her father, a decorated veteran of World War II, also served in the Maine Legislature, with one term in the House, and four in the Senate.

Collins's mother was born in Barrancabermeja, Colombia, to American parents. Collins is of English and Irish ancestry. Her uncle, Samuel W. Collins Jr., sat on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court from 1988 to 1994 and served in the Maine Senate from 1973 to 1984.

Collins attended Caribou High School, where she was president of the student council. During her senior year of high school in 1971, she was chosen to participate in the U.S. Senate Youth Program, through which she visited Washington, D.C., for the first time and had a two-hour conversation with Maine's first female United States Senator, Margaret Chase Smith, also a Republican. Collins is the first program delegate elected to the Senate and holds the seat once held by Smith. After graduating from high school, she continued her education at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. Like her father, she was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa national academic honor society. She graduated from St. Lawrence ''magna cum laude'' with a bachelor's degree in government in 1975.

Early political career

Following graduation, Collins worked as a legislative assistant to U.S. Representative and later U.S. Senator William Cohen from 1975 to 1987. She was also staff director of the Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee on the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs from 1981 to 1987.

In 1987, Collins joined the cabinet of Governor John R. McKernan Jr. as Commissioner of the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation. President George H. W. Bush appointed her the New England regional director for the Small Business Administration in 1992. After briefly serving in this post until the 1992 election of President Bill Clinton, she moved to Massachusetts and became Deputy State Treasurer of Massachusetts under Joe Malone in 1993.

Returning to Maine, Collins won an eight-way Republican primary in the 1994 gubernatorial election, becoming the first woman nominated by a major party for governor of Maine. During the campaign, she received little support from Republican leaders and was criticized by conservative groups for her more liberal views on social issues. She lost the general election, receiving 23% of the vote and placing third behind Democrat Joseph E. Brennan and the winner, Independent candidate Angus King, her future Senate colleague.

In December 1994, Collins became the founding executive director of the Richard E. Dyke Center for Family Business at Husson College. She served in this post until 1996, when she announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by her former boss, William Cohen, who retired to become United States Secretary of Defense under President Clinton. With Cohen's public endorsement, she won a difficult four-way primary and faced Brennan, her opponent in the 1994 gubernatorial election, in the general election. She defeated him, 49% to 44%.

U.S. Senate

Elections

Collins was elected to the Senate in 1996. During the campaign she pledged that, if elected, she would serve only two terms.

Collins was reelected in 2002 over State Senator Chellie Pingree, 58%–42%, in 2008 over Representative Tom Allen, 61.5%–38.5%, and in 2014 over Shenna Bellows, 68.5%–31.5%. In her first three reelection campaigns, she carried every county in Maine.

In 2020, Collins was challenged by Democratic State House Speaker Sara Gideon. The hotly contested race became the most expensive in Maine history, with Collins spending $23 million and Gideon nearly $48 million. The race also had national implications, as defeating Collins was a key part of the Democrats' strategy to achieve a Senate majority. Despite trailing Gideon in every public poll of the race, Collins defeated Gideon by a decisive margin.

In 2009, Collins was called one of "the last survivors of a once common species of moderate Northeastern Republican". She is considered a centrist Republican and an influential player in the Senate.

Although she shared a centrist ideology with Maine's former senator, Olympia Snowe, Collins is considered a "half-turn more conservative" than Snowe. She was consistently endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign, a major LGBT rights organization, until 2020. She supported John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. She became the state's senior senator in 2013 when Snowe left the Senate and was replaced by independent Angus King, who defeated Collins in the 1994 governor election.

Tenure

First term

In the 1990s, Collins played an important role during the Senate's impeachment trial of Bill Clinton when she and Snowe sponsored a motion that would have allowed the Senate to vote separately on the charges and the remedy. The motion failed, and Snowe and Collins voted to acquit, believing that while Clinton had committed perjury, that was not grounds for removal from office.

In March 1997, the Senate adopted a broader investigation into White House and Congressional campaign fund-raising practices than Senate Republicans initially wanted. Collins said there were "a number of allegations that may or may not be illegal, but they may be improper."

In a May 1997 interview, Collins stated her support for a proposal by Tom Daschle banning all abortions after the fetus is capable of living outside the womb except to save the life of the woman or protect her from physical injury. Of an alternative measure proposed by Rick Santorum that would ban partial-birth abortion, Collins said it "ignores cases in the medical literature involving women with very serious physical health problems".

In 2001 Collins authored a measure that granted the United States Secretary of Education authority to grant waivers that would relieve reservists and members of the National Guard from making federal student loan payments during active duty and grant the same privileges to victims and families of those affected by the September 11 attacks. The bill passed the Senate and House in December 2001.

In November 2002, the Senate overwhelmingly approved the creation of the Department of Homeland Security while a Democratic effort to remove the bill's provisions fell short on a 52-to-47 vote that came after President George W. Bush lobbied against the vote. Collins and other senators said that Senate and House Republicans, as well as the White House, had given them an "ironclad promise" to essentially rescind provisions in the first spending bill to pass Congress the following year.

Second term

In 2004, Collins was one of the primary sponsors of legislation overhauling the U.S. intelligence community by creating a new post, Director of National Intelligence, to oversee budgets and most assets of the spy agencies, and mandating that federal agencies establish minimum standards for states pertaining to issuing driver's licenses and birth certificates along with directing the United States Department of Homeland Security to form standards for ID used to board airplanes. The bill passed in the House and Senate in December. Collins said, "This was the most difficult bill to bring from conception to birth that I can imagine being involved with. But that makes the victory doubly satisfying." Bush signed the bill, formally known as the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, on December 17, 2004.

In May 2005, Collins was one of 14 senators (seven Democrats and seven Republicans) to forge a compromise on the Democrats' use of the judicial filibuster, thus allowing the Republican leadership to end debate without having to exercise the nuclear option. Under the agreement, Democrats agreed they would filibuster Bush's judicial nominees only in "extraordinary circumstances"; three Bush appellate court nominees ( Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and William Pryor) would receive a vote by the full Senate; and two others, Henry Saad

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