PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The U.S. Senate is broken, “like so many institutions in our society,” U.S. Sen. Susan Collins reminded a crowd on Thursday at the University of Maine Presque Isle.
She is worried about another potential federal government shutdown this fall in the U.S. Congress, Collins told those gathered at UMPI for the inaugural Distinguished Lecturer Series.
“We are paying a steep price for forsaking the principles that guide our institutions,” she said.
The 16-day shutdown in October 2013 cost the American economy an estimated $24 billion.
“Small businesses such as the inns, gift shops and restaurants around Acadia National Park lost some $16 million, or $1 million each day, due to the closure of the park during the peak fall foliage season,” she said.
In part, that shutdown ended after a number of established senators, including Collins, drafted a plan that, while unsuccessful in passing, helped encourage negotiations that led to a resolution, if temporary.
“As the shutdown ended its first week, I was alone in my senate office listening to the highly partisan debate on the senate floor,” and then Sen. Lisa Murkowski from Alaska called and said she wanted to help Collins resolve the impasse. “The next call was from Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire with much the same message. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota also called. The discerning in the room will recognize a pattern. The women of the senate led the way. We also attracted a few good men.”
These leaders from a broken institution helped it heal and get back to work, she said.
“I believe in the senate as an institution,” Collins said. “Like all institutions, it is a collection of unique individuals — 100 in our case — each with our own backgrounds, experiences, interests and passions. At its best, these disparate personalities can work together for the good of our nation because of senate traditions — rules that guarantee open and civil debate, clearly defined procedures for amendments, a committee structure that subjects legislation to informed evaluation, and respectful debate reinforced by a rule that prohibits attacking another senator’s integrity on the Senate floor.”
Collins said to look back in recent history for examples of Congress driving “extraordinarily positive change,” pointing to “land-grant colleges, the GI Bill, the interstate highway system, Medicare, Medicaid, the civil-rights legislation of the 1960s.”
“It is truly astonishing that the institutionalists dominate the scoreboard, yet the insurrectionists get all the headlines,” she said.
Looking forward to this fall’s legislative session, Collins said she wants to take some of that same tradition in working on issues including cybersecurity, transportation, biomedical research and Pell Grants for education.
“I have many priorities included in appropriations bills,” she said, highlighting one goal of increasing research funding for the National Institutes of Health.
“We are falling behind,” she said.
Collins also warned of the short-term highway funding law that expires Oct. 29.
“I’m glad to see Presque Isle’s Main Street looks better,” she joked, referring to Route 1 in the midst of re-pavement and sidewalk expansion. “Our infrastructure is a real problem.”
Old roads and bridges are “impeding the flow of products and people,” she said.
As Collins prepares to head back to Washington, she said she is thinking of the potato harvest in her native Aroostook.
“I am reminded of the strong sense of community in The County,” she said. “We could use more of that sense of community, of working together toward common goals throughout this country, and certainly in Washington.”