| Topic: Women in Politics | ‹ Back Next › |
On the Ballot: Susan CollinsBy CJP | July 16, 2008
Moving on, here’s a little background on Senator Collins:
This is just a quick intro, so for more info than you ever wanted on this race, Collins’ campaign website is HERE, Tom Allen’s campaign website is HERE, a blog written by an independent (who’s not a big Collins fan) is HERE, and the clearinghouse for all Maine politics is HERE. Happy voting, Maine Janes! |
Over the next few months CJP will be highlighting some of the women on ballots around the country. Today we’re looking at incumbent Senator Susan Collins of Maine. The two-term Republican is up for re-election this year, and is being challenged by Maine Congressman, Tom Allen, a Democrat. Allen is a Rhodes scholar, Harvard Law grad, and shares on his website that he was voted “most likely to succeed” in high school. Um, OK.| ‹ Back | Next › |
9 Responses to “On the Ballot: Susan Collins”Comments |
July 16th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I appreciate the shout-out.
Just two quick points.
First, on the NARAL rating: The 100% rating is for this year only.
Collins has, of course, earned much weaker ratings in other years–when she voted for the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, for example.
She also supported the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which pro-choice groups opposed.
Second, the National Journal rating is better at taking into account how *often* a legislator votes with their party than it is in factoring in the significance of the votes in question.
So while Collins has certainly crossed the GOP now and then, she’s been a reliable supporter of President Bush and the Republicans on literally every single one of the President’s top legislative priorities over the last seven-plus years.
That includes Alito, every vote on Iraq, tax cuts for the rich, the Military Commissions Act, No Child Left Behind, the Cheney energy bill, etc.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Thanks for those helpful points.
CJP
July 21st, 2008 at 11:41 am
Before anyone reads this comment I am letting you all know I am a Susan Collins supporter.
I also have problems with the wording in “The Unborn Victim of Violence act” but it should be clarified that the act does nothing to stop a woman who is seeking an abortion.
It allows the fetus to be classed as a victim in cases of violence where the woman is attacked or killed and the pregnancy is terminated in that incident. It also only applies to cases dealing with federal criminal laws.
This allows a pregnant women who has survived an attack to prosecute the assailant for not only attacking her but terminating her pregnancy as well. It also allows in the case that the woman did not survive the attack that the criminal can be sued for the death of the woman and the termination of the fetus since clearly no one gave the assailant the authority to commit the abortion.
The text of the legislation does refer to the fetus as a “person” which I do not like but it does not infinge on a woman’s right to recieve an abortion voluntarily.
It should also be noted that Susan Collins has voted for tax relief the for middle class and lower income people through various tax credits and deductions as well as outright tax cuts.
On top of that she was responsible for preventing the ultra conservative Republicans from destroying the minority party’s ability in the Senate to filibuster appointments that do not have a broad consensus.
As far as voting for Justice Alito it should be recalled that many republican Senators also voted for the appointments of Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer who are both as liberal as Alito and Roberts are conservative.
That is because the Senate tries to keep the politics of the judicial appointments to as much of a minimum as is possible (which is not easy)and focus on the legal qualifications and capabilty of the appointment at hand.
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:34 pm
First, on tax cuts: I doubt there’s a single person in Congress who hasn’t voted for tax breaks for middle class and lower income people. So I’m not sure if that counts as much of a credential
And with all due respect to John, the argument that Ginsburg and Breyer are as liberal as Alito is conservative is extraordinarily dubious.
I’ve been writing about the particulars of Alito’s out-of-the-mainstream record at Collins Watch (you can go to the blog and then type “Alito” in the search box at top).
But at the most basic level: Alito is a movement conservative who has used the law, in his career, as a lever to forward the conservative (and right-to-life) agenda.
Breyer and Ginsburg are mainstream lawyers that see the law through a center-left lens.
The difference is, Breyer and Ginsburg don’t show up at work everyday trying to move the country in a particular political direction.
Alito’s record suggests that this can’t be said of him.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
On tax cuts: Many of these tax cuts for middle class or lower income were initiated by her and despite what many people think, tax cuts for lower income and middle class do not have much broad based support in Washington by either party. Though of course all politicians make a big noise about it. I think the fact that if you make $8,000 bucks a year you still get taxed 10%!
Also there is nothing inherent that in taxing the rich more the lower income will be taxed less. That 10% tax rate on those super low income groups was 5% points higher under the older Clinton tax rates. Not to mention the middle class tax brackets were 4% higher and the upper middle class bracket was 3% higher. This was all while the super rich were taxed 39.6% to 38.6%.
On Judges: Breyer and Ginsburg have not voted very often on the same side as the conservative block on the court. Does this mean that the conservative block is extremist and the liberal bloc of the court is moderate?
That sounds like a very subjective argument not to mention partisan. They overwhemlingly vote with Justice Stevens and are hardly viewed as swing vote justices like the moderate Justice O’Conner or Justice Kennedy.
Yes those two justices were center right (though many right wingers would disagree) but it is interesting to not find Ginsburg or Breyer really break ranks with the liberal block of the court as often as O’Conner or Kennedy do from the conservative block. This makes me certain they are by no means moderate center left judges. They vote for the liberal argument in the vast majority of cases.
As far as pushing the country in one way or another Ginsburg and Breyer do just that. They vote liberal which is fine since that is their right as Supreme Court Justices. The fact is they are as ideological as the ardent conservative block and their record shows it.
July 30th, 2008 at 6:56 am
John wants to make the argument that Alito–whose nomination passed narrowly with the help of Collins’ vote–is no more of an extremist than Breyer and Ginsburg, who passed by wide margins.
Let’s inject some facts into the discussion.
As a DOJ employee seeking a promotion, Alito wrote:
“I am and always have been a conservative and an adherent to the same philosophical views that I believe are central to this administration…
In college, I developed a deep interest in constitutional law, motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren Court decisions…
Most recently, it has been an honor and source of personal satisfaction for me to…help advance legal positions to which I personally believe very strongly. I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court…that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.”
And once he made it to the federal bench, he backed this statement up with action.
In Sheridan v. Dupont, he was the only one of his district court’s 11 members to argue (in dissent) that just because an employer lies about the reasons they have fired someone who has alleged sex discrimination, that alone shouldn’t mean the employee is entitled to a day in court.
The Supreme Court later rejected his line of reasoning.
In US v. Rybar, he was the only judge to argue that the federal government has no right to regulate intrastate machine gun possession. Eight different appeals courts and the Supreme Court later rejected his line of reasoning.
And in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Alito was the only judge to argue (in dissent) that mandatory spousal notification did not present an “undue burden” to those seeking an abortion. He argued this on the grounds that the spousal notification provision, “cannot affect more than about 5 percent of married women seeking abortions or an even smaller percentage of all women desiring abortions.”
Seriously.
There are many other cases where Alito was alone arguing for a novel interpretation of the law that just happened to mesh with his hard-right ideology.
And this was all known and out in the open at the time of his nomination. But Collins voted for him anyway.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Alito is no Robert Bork if that is your case. Their views of jurispudence differ widely on doctrinal grounds.
You also have failed to make the case that Ginsburg and Breyer are moderate liberals. They are liberal ideologically and have little tendency to curb those views. That is all well and good to hold those views BUT they are not moderate in the sense.
You focus on Alito’s conservatism without contrast to the other two’s liberalism.
One of the reasons that Ginsburg passed on such wide grounds was that she did not answer various questions which lead to the debate that arose in the Alito appointment called the “Ginsburg precedent”.
As far as Breyer or Ginsburg not being ideological to the degree of Alito is you setting your own political standards as being what moderate is. Ginsburg for instance is rated as the most liberal judge on the supreme court.
Breyer ruled that fleeing from the sight of police is not probable cause to search their person if they are caught. To many that is an incredibly liberal view.
All in all I am not crazy about Alito nor do I agree with him an many issues but he is one man on the court that is the conservative equivalent to those justices and especially Justice John Paul Stevens.
Hypothetically however if worse came to worse and Roe v Wade was overturned the scenario would not be a national ban on abortion it would be left up to the individual states. This scenario is not likely to happen anytime soon either.
You can continue to attack this single issue of Susan Collins vote for Alito but it seems you would perfer to argue this point above the other aspects of her record.
You also leave out the fact that the gang of 14 had to compromise to settle the debate and prevent the destruction of the filibuster as a senate procedure. The Democrat reponse to this “nuclear option” would was going to be the prevention of all the legislative and routine business in the Senate and effectivly preventing it’s operation through the various other parliamentary procuders.Is that what you would want?
As for the vote for Alito’s appointment it was 58 to 42. Subtract Susan Collins vote for him it would be 57 to 43 and he still would pass.
If she did not make the compromise in the Gang of 14 (which included several democrats as well) the filibuster would have been obliterated and Alito would still get appointed to the Supreme Court and various other judicial appointments would be crammed through without any debate or compromise.
Absent the gang of 14 strategy the federal government would be essentially shut down minus the president.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:42 am
I should also clarify how the nuclear option would work when I mentioned that the government would also shut down.
To the extent of the judicial appointments the majority party would be able to vote yes for all president Bush’s picks while the democrats would have little say due to the shut down of the filibuster procedure. Now when it would come to other areas the democrats would use Senate procedure to effectively block all OTHER Senate business.
So in their capacity to vote yes on appointments the Senate would say yes to everyone Bush set up while the rest of the legislative ability would be stalled since the Democrats would be reacting to the loss of the filibuster on judicial appoitments. This would therefore shut down the ability of the House of Reps to get much through since the Senate’s agendas would be frozen.
July 30th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
In the Rybar case it should be noted that Alito did not say the Federal government had no right regulating machine guns within a state.
He stated that the legislation should be accompanied with the proper amount findings to justify the legislation.
That idea of the reasonablness of legislation accompanied by statistics and data is a doctrine that is applied to nearly all of the first eight amendments. So Alito never called the legislation unconstitutional nor did he deny the right of federal regulation of machine guns.