ICYMI: “Susan Collins Blazes a Bipartisan Trail”
Susan Collins Blazes a Bipartisan Trail
Newsmax Magazine | By: Barbara Boland and David A. Patten
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The stories about Sen. Susan Collins’ determination to never miss a Senate vote are legendary — and they go a long way toward explaining her reputation for being the U.S. Senate’s “Iron Lady.”
In one story the Maine Republican was on a plane that was about to taxi to the runway at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport when a Senate staffer called and informed her that the upper chamber, instead of going into recess as expected, was going to be taking a vote.
Mortified, Collins dashed off the plane, raced back to the Capitol, and arrived just in time to preserve her unbroken run of being present to vote. She thus maintained one of the longest consecutive voting streaks in the Senate’s history.
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If Collins decides to toss her hat in the ring and run for a fifth term in 2020, that gritty persistence will serve her well. Democrats have already announced she will be their No. 1 target in 2020.
The reason, of course: her decision to confirm Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, despite unsubstantiated allegations of a sexual assault 37 years earlier.
During that confirmation fight, the doughty Collins called on every bit of her intestinal fortitude. She tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview the Kavanaugh hearings were more bitterly divisive and vitriolic than anything she’s seen in her Senate tenure.
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Collins tells Newsmax the politically charged charade marked an “all-time low” for Senate confirmation hearings. It also triggered unprecedented personal threats directed at Collins, her family, and staff.
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For several days, the Capitol Police accompanied the senator virtually everywhere she went. But anyone thinking Collins would cave to threats did not know her very well.
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Collins is expected to play a key role over the next two years as a pragmatic legislator willing to reach across the aisle to overcome gridlock and get things done.
Larry Kudlow, director of President Trump’s National Economic Council and a longtime friend of Collins, describes her as “a senator who loves information,” adding that she is “very careful, measured, analytic” in her approach.
In a capital riven by fractious politics, Kudlow says Collins enjoys “tremendous respect from everybody.”
“That includes POTUS, that includes Senate Republicans and Democrats,” says Kudlow. “The way she handled the Kavanaugh business was really illuminating, unbelievable.
“She studied every single piece of evidence regarding the charges against Kavanaugh. The floor speech she gave to announce her support of Kavanaugh was, I think, one of the great Senate speeches in recent decades, and that’s typical of her: carefully drawn out, analytic, using facts and information.
“And that’s why people respect her so much.”
As the nation’s capital adjusts to the new reality of a divided government with Democrats controlling the House, Collins’ proven ability to overcome partisanship to enact bipartisan reforms could be a precious commodity inside the Beltway.
Indeed, Collins may be the only figure on Capitol Hill who can reassure the political newcomers that sensible legislators can not only survive, but even thrive, in the era of social media and Donald Trump.
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To this day, Sen. [Joseph] Lieberman hails Collins’ work on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which he says was instrumental in enacting the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations. He calls the anti-terror overhaul “the most significant reform in our national security and intelligence architecture since the beginning of the Cold War in the late ’40s. Susan was really in the center of it all in making that all happen.”
“So she’s a real model for this time of what a member of Congress can be, and I hope will be,” he says.
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In part, Collins plans to spend the next two years as a mentor to younger politicians on both sides of the aisle who hope to practice politics as “the art of the possible,” rather than zero-sum gladiatorial combat between two teams. She concedes there’s probably no way “to put the genie back in the bottle” for 60-vote cloture on nominations. But at least legislation will continue to have a 60-vote filibuster, thereby ensuring bipartisan support.
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Behind Collins’ willingness to work in a bipartisan fashion to get things done, Lieberman says, is a principled determination to do what’s right for the nation. “Every position she comes to,” he tells Newsmax, “is done because she thinks it’s the best, the most sensible — and because her basic philosophy of government is conservative, in the way that term used to be thought of.”
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