Below you will find Senator Collins' latest e-newsletter. To receive this e-newsletter by email on a regular basis, subscribe by clicking here.
Senator Collins recently led a bipartisan effort to forge a compromise to end the government shutdown and avoid a devastating default on our nation’s debt. Saying that “the shutdown represents a failure to govern and must be brought to an end,” Senator Collins took to the Senate floor on Saturday, October 5th and told her colleagues that “it is time that both sides come out of their partisan corners, stop fighting and start legislating in good faith.”
Within days, Senator Collins was leading a bipartisan group of seven Republicans, six Democrats, and one independent that successfully negotiated a compromise plan to reopen government, avert the default, and restart budget negotiations on a long-term fiscal plan to deal with our nation’s unsustainable debt, among other provisions. Elements of this plan were incorporated into the final plan, negotiated by Senate leaders, that led to the end of the government shutdown.
Senator Collins’ efforts are being recognized nationwide.
From the New York Times:
WASHINGTON — As the government shutdown dragged on, Senator Susan Collins of Maine was spending another weekend on Capitol Hill, staring at C-Span on her Senate office television as one colleague after another came to the floor to rail about the shuttered government.
Frustrated with the lack of progress, Ms. Collins, a Republican, two Saturdays ago quickly zipped out a three-point plan that she thought both parties could live with, marched to the Senate floor and dared her colleagues to come up with something better. A few days later, two other Republican female senators eagerly signed on — Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who overcame the Tea Party to win re-election in 2010, and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who benefited from the Tea Party wave.
Together the three women started a bipartisan group whose negotiating framework formed the centerpiece of a tentative Senate deal nearing completion Monday to reopen the federal government and avert a disastrous default.
“Before I went to the Senate floor, no one was presenting any way out,” Ms. Collins said. “I think what our group did was pave the way, and I’m really happy about that.”
From Time magazine:
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From the Washington Post and Portland Press Herald:
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine suggests way out of budget and debt-ceiling crises
By Jackie Kucinich
Can Susan Collins’s moderation save the day?
This weekend, as Republicans on both sides of the Capitol struggle for a path out of the latest Capitol Hill crisis, Sen. Susan Collins has emerged, once again, as a key player in any potential solution.
The senior senator from Maine is a regular on the list of Republican lawmakers invited to the Obama White House when compromise is in the offing on a wide range of issues, from economic stimulus to gun control.
Friday was no different. Collins’s most recent foray into legislative diplomacy is a 23-page proposal that would end the government shutdown, extend government funding for six months with ¬sequester-level spending cuts, repeal a tax on medical devices and raise the debt ceiling until the end of January.
She presented it to President Obama when a small group of Republican senators came to the White House to explore ways to reopen the federal government and raise the nation’s debt ceiling to avoid default.
The Collins plan is one of several under consideration by Republicans and Democrats as the budget crisis entered its second weekend, but it is the one that may have the greatest chance of providing a solution. While House Republicans have been slow to commit to any framework, Senate Republicans and some Democrats seemed open to the approach Collins presented.
“Susan has done us all a great favor by having the courage to come up with the . . . amendments,” Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said.
[….]
This kind of careful language is a Collins trademark. She has built a reputation as a moderate swing vote in a party where there are fewer of those than there used to be, and that has boosted her role as a broker during these very partisan times.
“She’s always in the middle because she makes such an earnest effort to shape the outcome and because she spends so much time and energy being a trusted player,” Dan Demeritt, a Maine-based political consultant and former Collins aide, said. “She doesn’t grandstand.”
Freshman Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who defeated her in the 1994 gubernatorial race, said that, while he has long respected Collins, working with her in the Senate has caused her to grow in his estimation.
“She is very smart, very tenacious, knowledgeable about how this place works and, I think, is truly a moderate in the best sense,” he said.
King said that Collins’s middle-of-the-road approach is in the tradition of Maine senators and is what residents of the Pine Tree State have come to expect.
From CNN:
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From NBC's TODAY show:
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From her colleagues on the Senate floor:
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Senator Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas)
“Senator Collins really led the effort and spearheaded the effort and she deserves a lot of credit for getting us together and helping to move the ball down the field.”
Senator Angus King (I-Maine)
“I also have to acknowledge the leadership of my senior colleague from Maine, Susan Collins. …it was really her initiative to stand up and take a risk and say, let's try to work something out…”
Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
“…to see so many of our colleagues who have been working on this proposal that Senator Collins from Maine, who has truly been I think remarkable in her persistence and insistence that we continue this effort to work collegially, to work collaboratively on these very, very difficult issues that we have been facing in these past several weeks… so to Senator Collins for her leadership most particularly….”
From USA Today:
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WASHINGTON — Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who helped chart a way out of the government shutdown last week, says the bipartisan group of senators who got together to work on that impasse may try to tackle other fiscal issues in hopes of easing the Capitol's sharp partisanship.
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On the fifth day of the shutdown, Collins said she was watching TV in her office with growing frustration as "colleague after colleague from both sides of the aisle (was) coming to the Senate floor and blaming the other side and making very partisan speeches, none of which offered a way out of this impasse."
She outlined a plan, drafted a speech, walked over to the Senate floor and delivered it.
"Immediately my phone started to ring," she said, first with a call from Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, then New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte.
In the end, the ad hoc group that began to meet included fellow Republicans John McCain of Arizona, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Mark Kirk of Illinois and Jeff Flake of Arizona. The Democrats in the group were Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. Independent Angus King also was part of the group.
They met in Collins' corner office, which sports a spectacular view of the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument.
Her three-point plan, designed to open the government, eventually became a six-point plan that also included raising the debt ceiling. It created the framework followed by the final version, negotiated by the Senate leadership.
Eleven days after Collins' floor speech, as they waited for a final vote on the package, most of the group went to La Loma, a nearby Mexican restaurant on Massachusetts Avenue, for dinner. "Everyone felt really good about the role we played," she said.
It was no surprise, she said, that nearly half of the group was drawn from among the Senate's 20 female members. "The women of the Senate span the ideological spectrum," she said. But "it has been my experience that women tend to be more collaborative in their approach and more interested in solving problems rather than just scoring political points."
From CNN.com:
Washington (CNN) -- The government is open. The debt limit is lifted. The fight is over. But in every fight, there are winners and losers, and this fight is no exception.
[….]
A league of her own
WINNER: Sen. Susan Collins The moderate Maine Republican refused to wait for political leaders to announce a deal, and she began talking to senators on both sides of the aisle. Although her talks didn't result in the final agreement, it precipitated talks between Senate leaders after Boehner and Obama's efforts hit a brick wall.
From the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal:
Maine Senator steps into familiar role
October 18, 2013
By David Sharp (AP)
WASHINGTON, DC — During the lead-up to a compromise by Senate leadership to end the partial government shutdown, more than a dozen senators came and went from Sen. Susan Collins' office — the hub for the "Gang of 14" pressing for a compromise to end the stalemate, reopen government and avert a Treasury default.
Angus King, her fellow senator from Maine, describes her as the "gang leader."
Collins acknowledges her leadership role in helping to resolve the stalemate but said the word "gang" has negative connotations. "I like to think of it as the 'common-sense caucus,'" she said.
Key elements agreed upon by the 14 senators — seven Republicans, six Democrats and one independent — were part of the final bipartisan proposal that was put forward by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican leader Mitch McConnell and approved by Congress on Wednesday, resolving the budget crisis for the time being.
"There is a group in the common sense caucus that's willing to lead, take risks and come up with solutions that are bipartisan. I think that's good for country," Collins said.
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Raised in northern Maine, Collins might seem like an unassuming senator to take on the role of shepherding the various factions. But she's also known for being determined.
"I don't give up easily. And when I believe in something that something is right and right for the American people, I'm going to keep working until I have a solution. I think that's what people want," she said.
Collins, who hopes the coalition sticks together, said it's too early to say whether this is the start of something new in terms of bipartisan cooperation.
"I think most people in this country are centrists and they want pragmatic solutions to problems. They want the application of common sense. But it's too early to assess exactly what the impact will be on political parties. I'll leave that to the pundits," she said.
OFFICE OF SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS
413 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: (202) 224-2523
Fax: (202) 224-2693
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