The next administration faces the large task of rebuilding the U.S. economy, developing a comprehensive energy policy and reining in health care costs. This work depends on lawmakers with differing views and philosophies coming together. Sen. Susan Collins will be instrumental in bridging partisan divides and moving needed legislation forward. That is why Maine voters should elect her to a third term in the U.S. Senate.
Sen. Collins has been at the center of congressional debate and policy making on all the major issues in recent years. Currently, she is one of 20 senators — 10 from each party — working to develop an energy policy that recognizes the United States must use less while developing new sources and looking for additional domestic supply. Their efforts so far have been stymied by election year partisan positioning. But their work will provide a sound foundation for the new administration and Congress to build on.
Previously, Sen. Collins was instrumental in remaking the Federal Emergency Management Agency after its disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina, reforming the intelligence agencies after the U.S. invaded Iraq based on dubious information and creating a new homeland security department to deal more proactively with the continuing terrorist threat.
She fought the Bush administration to keep the watchdog agency in Iraq — the Special Inspector General for Iraq — operational when it tried to shut it down. Her legislation to change the U.S. mission in Iraq, with an emphasis on redeploying American troops so they could begin to come home in significant numbers, changed the debate over Iraq policy in the Senate. Her legislation to shift more of the burden, especially financially, to the Iraqis was recently enacted.
She has increased funding for home health care, hospice care and diabetes treatment and research — the disease consumes a quarter of Medicare funding and affects more than 23 million Americans.
She has helped secure more than $100 million in funding for research and development in Maine, much of it for the University of Maine. These funds support work on new sources of energy, climate change, biomedicine and other areas that are critical to the health, security and financial strength of Maine and the United States. In addition, such research has spun off new businesses in Maine that employ college graduates that otherwise would have left the state to further their careers.
All of this came about only because Sen. Collins has a long record of working successfully with Democrats to reach the compromises that are necessary to pass legislation. Many of these changes are slow and incremental, but that is the nature of lawmaking.
Sen. Collins, rated one of the least partisan members of the Senate, is not afraid to stand up to her party leadership. She voted against the last three budgets submitted by the Bush administration because she did not believe they aligned with Maine’s priorities and needs. She voted to override the president’s misplaced veto of funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. She has long advocated for stricter controls on pollution and higher automobile fuel economy standards in the face of strong opposition from the White House and many Republicans.
Tom Allen, who like Sen. Collins, has served in Congress for 12 years, has no shortage of big ideas, especially with regard to health care. However, his resume is short on legislation fulfilling these ideas.
Sen. Collins’ success shows that diligence, persistence and a centrist approach is necessary and valued. Such qualities will be needed even more over the next six years. That’s why Maine voters would be wise to re-elect Sen. Collins on Nov. 4.
On 10/25/08 at 8:13 AM,
GeraldWeinand wrote:
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Look at the part of Collins record that the BDN doesn't mention:
Her vote to authorize the unnecessary invasion of Iraq;
Her vote for the USA Patriot Act;
Her votes for the Bush tax cuts that benefited the wealthy;
Her vote against restoring habeas corpus to detainees at Git Mo, restored by the SCOTUS;
Her vote against protecting overtime pay;
Her vote to grant retroactive immunity to the telecoms that illegally spied on Americans;
And the list goes on.
In endorsing Collins the BDN chooses to ignore votes that have had a direct - and negative - impact on Mainers. The clear choice is the candidate thtat did not do so: Tom Allen.
On 10/25/08 at 10:11 AM,
bethanya1970 wrote:
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Come on, how ridiculously parochial your editorial view is when you endorse Susan Collins for re-election.
I'm sure Susan Collins is a nice person, but she's a Republican who voted in lockstep with the disastrous Bush-Cheney administration domestic and foreign policies: the war in Iraq, the radical rightward lean of our Supreme Court, the misnamed 'Patriot Act' which even Richard Nixon would never have countenanced, the assault on our environment and the muzzling of respected scientists who say that our planet is in real perild. Real peril. In fact, we may have reached the tipping point. And you endorse Susan Collins for re-election? How out of touch are you? Do you think re-electing a Bush-Cheney enabler is going to improve our nation? All you're doing is adding one more Republican vote in the Senate against the necessary changes in policy and direction that a President Obama will have to bring about if our nation is going to be able to lift itself up from the floor. How dare you lend any sense of legitimacy to a senator who has helped imperil our nation's fiscal, economic and environmental future!
On 10/25/08 at 10:23 AM,
kleban wrote:
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Susan Collins has done some things for Maine, but that's her job. Any good Senator will do that, and Tom Allen has also done a lot (you don't hear much about it up here since he's Congressman in the first District). But Collins has been a Bush-Cheney water carrier on all the big issues. Look at the list in GeraldWeinand's comment above. In addition, she was chair of a Senate committee that could have investigated the billions in waste and fraud in Iraq but refused to do so. For example, she refused to hold hearings on the contractors who made our soldiers shower in sewage. Protecting fat cats (like Halliburton)? That's "Our Senator".
And there's another thing. If you're voting for Obama, remember that the Senate is barely Democratic. Obama will need all the help he can get to clean up the problems that Bush, Cheney, and their enablers like Collins have go us into. Without a veto-proof majority it will be much harder to pass the kind of reform we need--health care, for example. Voting for Allen is a win-win.
On 10/25/08 at 10:45 AM,
Woody1 wrote:
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At least she was around to vote and I was represented. I didn't agree with all her votes. But at least I was represented. It may have been easier to agree with Allen because he didn't vote all that much. I'd rather be represented by someone who sticks around, does the homework and the job, then votes conscience, regardless of party. Allen's a do-nothing who takes the money and runs.
On 10/25/08 at 11:22 AM,
GeraldWeinand wrote:
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Woody1:
Her perfect attendance record, while nice, is hardly something that should be considered as a reason to re-elect her. It would be like saying that since Tom Allen cast nearly two and a half times more votes than she did, he should be elected because he has more voting experience (and yes - he did cast that many more votes in the House). Allen has missed 157 votes out of more than 4,000 opportunities.
Do you agree with any of her votes that I list above? If your answer is "no" or "mostly no" than why do you support her? These votes were not about whom to name a post office after, but on things that matter.
Any readers out there receiving food aid? One in eight Mainers are getting some kind of aid, and yet Collins voted against the Farm Bill that would have increased Federal funding for it - direct aid to Mainers. I didn't agree with the subsidies to big agribusinesses either, but sometimes this is what is required to get things done.
If missing votes is such a huge deal, then no one should be supporting John McCain, who missed EVERY vote from April until the banking bailout bil in late September. Every vote. Now that's mavericky.
On 10/25/08 at 2:34 PM,
ronscave wrote:
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We need to change as many incumbents as possible. The message will be that we need congress critters to understand that they work for us not the big corporations and fat cats of the the elite.
On 10/25/08 at 9:21 PM,
downeastdave wrote:
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Collins while more independent than other republican senators has not done enough to repudiate the eight corrupt years of the Bush administration. While I do believe Maine has benefitted from her service, I have to support Tom Allen for having the courage to oppose the war in Iraq in 2002 when it was considered unpatriotic to do so. He has opposed the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. I have already voted for Tom Allen and encourage others to do the same.
On 10/28/08 at 12:13 PM,
CommonsensePaine wrote:
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Do we vote for the kid in the class who got the perfect attendance award, or the one who went on to distinguish himself at Bowdoin and Oxford? Anyone who understands the way congress works knows that showing up for votes is not a very good measure of job performance. Collins was one of 100 senators; Allen one of 435 or so congresspersons. His work in front of the scenes and behind them has been far more brilliant than Collins's, and far more productive for Mainers. When it comes to national and international issues, he gets it; and he doesn't talk down to the people of Maine the way Collins does. Collins always sounds as if she is addressing second graders. I too know and like her as a person; but she has always been in over her head as a senator. We need the stronger and more insightful leadership that Allen will provide.
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