Susan Collins

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Susan Collins (2007)

Susan Margaret Collins (born December 7, 1952 in Caribou , Maine ) is an American politician of the Republican Party , who has represented the state of Maine in the US Senate since January 3, 1997 . She chaired the Homeland Security Committee from January 2003 to January 2007 and has chaired the Special Committee on Age since 2015 .

Family, education and work

Susan Collins is the daughter of Patricia M. and Donald F. Collins. Her father was the fifth generation to run a wood processing company (SW Collins Company) in Caribou and was a member of the Maine State Senate . Her mother was Mayor Caribous, the family's hometown, and chair of the board of directors of the state's university system. Susan Collins is one of six children. The Catholic of Irish descent graduated from St. Lawrence University . She worked for Maine Republican Senator William Cohen from 1975 to 1987 , when she became chair of the financial regulation commission in her home state. In 1992 she worked briefly as the New England Regional Director of the Small Business Administration .

In August 2012, Collins married Thomas Daffron, who ran a policy advisory firm in Washington, DC and previously served as chief of staff to various Republican US Senators.

Political career

Beginnings

Collins moved to Massachusetts in 1993 , where she became Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in 1993. In 1994 she returned to Maine and ran for governor that same year ; she came third behind the non-party Angus King and the Democrat Joseph E. Brennan .

Senator for Maine

Brennan and Collins met again in the 1996 Senate election ; the Republican Cohen was no longer running for election. Collins received 49 percent and Brennan 44 percent. On January 3, 1997, Collins took up her seat in the United States Senate . In the 2002 election she defended her seat with 58 to 42 percent against the Democrat Chellie Pingree ; In 2008 and 2014 she was confirmed by a large margin on Tom Allen and Shenna Bellows.

Collins made her first high profile appearance in the Senate during the impeachment trial against Bill Clinton : She failed with the proposal to hold separate votes to vote once on whether Clinton was guilty and again to remove him from office. After that plan failed, she voted for acquittal because she found him guilty but, in her view, the charges were not weighty enough to remove Clinton from office.

Before the 2004 presidential election , she was under discussion as a possible Minister for Homeland Security in a John Kerry cabinet ; she was considered one of the few Republicans who would have been acceptable to Kerry and thus could have symbolized his claim to represent all Americans.

After the Republicans regained a majority in the Senate in the 2014 election , Collins became chair of the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging in 2015 , a special committee that deals with the aging of society. For a long time, Collins did not rule out an application as governor of Maine in the November 2018 election because the Republican incumbent Paul LePage could no longer run due to a term limit .

In the 2020 Senate election , Collins is considered to be at risk, especially since after her support for Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh, she faced opposition from activists who in a short period of time raised $ 4 million in donations for a (yet to be named) Democratic challenger. In the internal party primary , she is challenged from the right by Trump supporter Derek Levasseur, while on the side of the Democrats, among others, the previous spokeswoman for the House of Representatives Maines , Sara Gideon , competes against her.

Positions

Collins is considered a moderate Republican of the political center and represents liberal positions in particular on socio-political issues. She belongs to the Republican Main Street Partnership , which is committed to working closely with moderate Democrats. She advocated stem cell research and voted against further restricting abortions . She was also against introducing a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited same-sex marriages . On economic issues she often voted with the democratic minority and against several parts of George W. Bush's tax cut plans; she was also in favor of restricting oil drilling in Alaska. In March 2015, she was one of 7 of the then 54 Republican US senators to refuse to sign a public letter directed against Obama's negotiations to control the Iranian nuclear program .

On August 9, 2016, Collins announced that he would not vote for Republican candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election . This is difficult for her because she has been a Republican all her life. She justified her move by saying that Trump did not treat other people with respect.

During Donald Trump's presidency , Collins was among the key senators a few times who did not always vote with the Republican faction. Collins and her Republican colleague Lisa Murkowski agreed on 7 February 2017 Senate against the education minister in the Cabinet Trump nominated Betsy DeVos . This resulted in a 50-50 stalemate, which led to a decision by US Vice President Mike Pence . For the first time in United States history, a cabinet member was confirmed by the vice president's vote. Murkowski and Collins justified their vote with the fact that DeVos had too one-sided attitude towards the education system and preferred private schools to public ones.

In 2017, Collins rejected the health care reform sought by the Republican majority in Congress, which Trump had promised in the election campaign to abolish Obamacare . The proposed variants could not be supported by Medicaid because of the planned strong deletions . As one of three Republican senators, she announced on July 18, 2017 that she would also refuse the plan to initially abolish Obamacare and work out a replacement within two years. On July 28, 2017, Collins voted with the Democrats against another Republican bill in the Senate that only contained the basics of abolishing Obamacare. In cooperation with her party friends Lisa Murkowski and John McCain , she rejected this draft, which completely stopped the legislative work directed against Obamacare until further notice.

Before the decisive vote to confirm President Trump's proposed Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh , Collins was long tied with Jeff Flake , Lisa Murkowski, and Democrats Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Manchin . She voted on October 5, 2018 to vote the following day and gave a speech to declare her support for Kavanaugh, securing a majority for confirmation the following day. During the speech, a website collapsed due to congestion that raised funds for an opponent of Collins' upcoming 2020 re-election and had raised over $ 2.2 million by then.

literature

  • Angela Kouters: Collins, Susan (Susan Margaret Collins). In: Lynne E. Ford (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Women and American Politics. Facts on File, New York 2008, p. 124 f. (Preview) .
  • Dianne G. Bystrom: Susan Collins. In: dies., Barbara Burrell (Ed.): Women in the American Political System: An Encyclopedia of Women as Voters, Candidates, and Office Holders. Volume 1. ABC-Clio, Westport, CT 2018, pp. 88-90 (preview) .

Web links

Commons : Susan Collins  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nancy Garland: Trustees Head: Call me Madam Chairman. In: Bangor Daily News , August 6, 1991, p. 1.
  2. ↑ Susan Collins and Thomas Daffron. In: The New York Times , August 12, 2012.
  3. ↑ Susan Collins's near-retirement speaks directly to the frustrations of Washington. In: The Washington Post , October 13, 2017.
  4. ^ Sarah Jones: Susan Collins Has a New Democratic Challenger. In: The Cut , June 24, 2019; Hayley Miller: Senator Susan Collins Gets New Republican Primary Challenger In 2020 Race. In: The Huffington Post , March 31, 2019.
  5. ^ Republican Senators Warn Iran in Open Letter. In: Politico . March 9, 2015.
  6. ^ Daniella Diaz: GOP senator: 'I will not be voting for Donald Trump'. In: CNN.com . August 9, 2016.
  7. ↑ Betsy DeVos can only do it with the help of Mike Pence. In: Spiegel Online , February 7, 2017.
  8. ↑ Thomas Kaplan: 'Plan C' on Obamacare, Repeal Now and Replace Later, Has Collapsed. In: The New York Times , July 18, 2017.
  9. ^ Ed O'Keefe: The night John McCain killed the GOP's health-care fight. In: The Washington Post , July 28, 2017.
  10. ↑ Dana Bash, Clare Foran, Manu Raju: Susan Collins expected to announce Kavanaugh decision in 3 pm ET speech. In: CNN.com , October 5, 2018; Jordain Carney: Collins to support Kavanaugh, securing enough votes for confirmation. In: The Hill , October 5, 2018; Sheryl Gay Stolberg: Senate Confirms Kavanaugh to Supreme Court, Ending a Clash With Lasting Fallout. In: The New York Times , October 6, 2018.
  11. ↑ Julie Bort: Minutes after Sen. Susan Collins announced her support for Brett Kavanaugh, the site to fund her opponent was so overwhelmed that it crashed. In: Business Insider , October 5, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Collins, Susan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Collins, Susan Margaret (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician, Republican Party Senator for Maine
DATE OF BIRTH 7th December 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Caribou , Maine