Voices inside the beltway were buzzing again this past week about Sen. Susan Collins's role as an aisle-crossing beacon of bipartisan dealmaking, with the narrative crafted mostly around her comments and supposed efforts on the minimum wage issue.
We pay much less attention to this type of chatter than we used to and it's worth reiterating why: Particularly on the most salient topics of the day, there's often a large gap between Collins's words and actions--between what she professes to believe and what she's actually willing to do.
We've seen this on climate change, with Collins saying the right things and voting to advance a serious proposal right before the 2008 election when it had no chance of passing only to abandon ship once the prospects for reform become real.
And we saw it with the Obama health care proposal, when Collins told voters during the 2008 campaign that she thought his plan was "pretty good" and was open to supporting it--only to fight it tooth and nail once she won reelection.
Collins's willingness to talk out of both sides of her mouth on these issues and others makes the job of reporters harder; it forces them to peel back the rhetorical facade and to do the boring, difficult work of sifting through her actual record in office if they want to get at the truth.
For a mix of reasons including journalist time constraints, Collins's branding and the stake that the DC press corps has in sustaining the "moderate narrative" such digging rarely happpens. And so we get the kind of coverage we saw last week.
But on the minimum wage in particular, it's easier than usual to see that Collins is playacting rather than looking for actual solutions--that she's guilty of the very political point-scoring approach that she professes to be combating. All you have to do is look at her proposal.
Specifically, Collins is trying to tie even a modest minimum wage hike to an Obamacare "fix" that would add $140 billion to the federal debt over ten years, cost 1 million Americans their job-based health coverage and leave 500,000 fewer Americans insured.
It's pretty safe to say that such a proposal--completely unrelated to the minimum wage itself--counts as a poison pill in the current political context. And so it's not the sort of thing you'd try to tack onto a wage hike if you were truly animated by a concern for improving the lot of the working poor.
On the other hand, it's exactly the kind of plan you'd propose appending if you were facing a surprisingly vigorous challenge and your main concern was to make a show of attempting compromise in order to win praise from beltway pundits--without actually moving the ball forward.
On that score, Collins's efforts have been an unmitigated success.
According to the filings at FEC.gov, one couple gave Sen. Susan Collins more than any other--the legal maximum of $10,400--during the most recent filing period. And there's a good chance you've heard of them: Linda and Vince McMahon, the duo behind World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).
Let me say at the top: I'm not a huge fan of judging politicians by who supports them. It was unfair and offensive when, in 2008, Collins smeared Rep. Tom Allen as an ally of flag burners and other nefarious miscreants (including rich Jews) simply because MoveOn.org had encouraged supporters to donate to his campaign.
That the group endorsed Allen didn't mean he endorsed everything it had ever done. And it didn't mean that he ought to be held responsible for the political views of every one of his small dollar donors (let alone the Collins camp's ghoulish and hysterical caricature of those donors and their views.)
That distinction--between a candidate endorsing his donors and being endorsed by them--seems pretty elemental and easy to grasp. Unless, of course, you're committed to playing a political "gotcha" game.
That said, there are obviously limits to what a pol can fairly disassociate herself from: Some actions are so egregious--some actors on the world stage so odious--that we expect candidates to explicitly reject them.
Contributors who are under investigation for political bribery is one category that comes to mind. Notorious bigots is another--which is why I've been critical of Collins's decision to take $5000 from the PAC of strident homophobe Sen. Tom Coburn R-OK: When you say things like "The gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country...That agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today" you put yourself outside the bounds of civilized discourse in a way that demands to be called out.
But Collins's relationship with the McMahons raises different questions: Specifically, in this case the usual dichotomy between endorsing and endorsed by doesn't apply. Why?
Because in this case the endorsing does actually go both ways:
Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski...were the featured speakers at a "Women for Linda" rally McMahon held Saturday afternoon at a Norwalk hotel...
Both Collins and Murkowski said McMahon would bring a woman's common sense touch to the dysfunction of Washington...
Collins said she and the 16 other women Senators gather for dinner every six weeks or so. One day, a male colleague asked what those dinners were all about. Collins said she smiled sweetly and responded that the women were planning a coup. "And I can't think of a better person to help us execute that coup than Linda McMahon," she said as the crowd cheered. (Emphasis added.)
Peg Dilley of Casco on her fear of tar sands oil being pumped through her neighborhood:
I have asked Susan Collins and I'm asking Angus King and I'm asking any of the other legislators to come and we will find you a horse and I would like to put you on a horse right here, bring you down the pipeline and let you see the smush and the trickle brooks because that's all this area is, is natural springs and trickle brooks that run.
On Thursday afternoon, the Canadian National Energy Board ruled in favor of a project that will allow tar sands oil to flow east from Alberta Provence to Montreal, Quebec.
Environmental groups in Maine believe the decision paves the way for energy companies to seek to have tar sands oil flow from Canada to Casco Bay via the Portland Montreal Pipeline.
"Up until this point, the line that comes from Alberta down towards the New England border has not been able to carry tar sands," explained Lisa Pohlmann, executive director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine. "So it is literally now at our doorstep."
[...]
"We really need to take this latest move seriously," said Pohlmann.
She is urging Mainers to contact Senator Susan Collins, the only member of Maine's congressional delegation that has not called upon the State Department to do a full environmental review were the pipeline company [to] seek permits to move tar sands through Maine. (Emphasis added.)
The pressure from NRCM comes at a sensitive time for Collins, a Keystone pipeline supporter who was endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters in 2008 despite having a lower rating on the organization's own scorecard than her Democratic opponent.
With Sierra Club recently declining to back the 18-year incumbent, it remains an open question whether and to what extent left-leaning interest groups will again be willing--as they were during the 2008 campaign cycle--to greenwash the senior senator's record in exchange for a (momentary) bolstering of their bipartisan credentials.
With the 2014 race picking up steam, Sen. Susan Collins's campaign recently unveiled a spiffy new version of their campaign website. Among the new features is a "Latest News" tab that, soon after launch, included unabridged reprints of articles from the Portland Press Herald and Bangor Daily News.
Asked whether Portland Press Herald had consented to have its work reprinted by the campaign, the writer of one of the pieces posted in full, Eric Russell, confirmed via e-mail that his article had been republished without permission. Which is a big no-no. Specifically, it's a violation of federal copyright law.
Earlier today Russell suggested that an editor would be reaching out to the Collins camp and--lo and behold--the page was changed within minutes.
According to FEC records, the campaign has paid $29,917 in "web consulting" and related fees to longtime Republican operative and As Maine Goes proprietor Lance Dutson since January 2013.
If senators like Collins try to survive the Tea Party threat by letting it set the agenda, traditional Republicans could turn out to be little more than foot soldiers in a right-wing army.
Sierra Club has decided not to endorse in the race between Sen. Susan Collins and challenger Shenna Bellows, according to Melissa Walsh Innes of the organization's Maine chapter.
Sierra Club declined to elaborate.
To an unknowledgeable observer, the move might seem a setback to Bellows, whose positions on the issues are more closely aligned with Sierra Club's than those of Collins. That Bellows has incorporated warnings about the urgency of addressing climate change into her campaign pitch while Collins has spent the last four years virtually ignoring the topic might seem to corroborate that view.
But such a conclusion ignores the relevant history and context.
Specifically, given Collins's sizable lead in the race's only published poll, Bellows's lack of voting record and the history of environmental organizations greenwashing the Maine Republican's record in a (desperate) attempt to burnish their bipartisan bona fides, Sierra Club's decision can more accurately be seen as one which raises questions about the eagerness of beltway-based left-leaning interest groups to go to bat for Collins in 2014 as they did last cycle.
When you factor in Sierra Club's unwillingness to endorse Collins challenger and stalwart environmental protection supporter Rep. Tom Allen in 2008, despite the vivid apples-to-apples contrast on the issues between Allen and Collins, the decision starts to seem like a win for Bellows.
(More on the peculiar reticence of left-leaning interest groups to tell the truth about Collins here and here.)
What nexus of considerations figured into Sierra Club's decision to buck Collins remains unclear. That Maine's senior senator has continued to side with her GOP colleagues on environmental issues with disappointing regularity is one likely factor--her lifetime score on the scorecard of the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) remains stuck at 67% and she scored an astounding 0% as recently as 2010.
It also seems plausible that Bellows's long-standing membership in--and familiarity with--Maine's left-leaning activist community might have played a role: Her work at the ACLU would have almost certainly put her on the radar of the local affiliates of these organizations in a way that may have given her an opportunity to prove her credibility with their leaders.
It will be interesting to see what similarly-situated organizations such as LCV--which endorsed Collins last time--will do with a similar confluence of pressures. One notable difference on that front: Beth Ahearn of Maine Conservation Voters told me in a phone interview that at LCV, the local affiliate has no voice in endorsement decisions for federal officials.
Why Maine-based activist on the ground should have zero influence in decisions about who is best qualified to represent them in Washington she couldn't explain. But it is what it is.
In a move that's that's hard to make sense of in strategic terms, National Republican Senatorial Committee Communications Director Brad Dayspring has gone out of his way not only to attack Sen. Susan Collins's challenger Shenna Bellows, but to link her to the popular left-leaning online community Daily Kos:
"Susan Collins is a strong, independent woman, and an effective legislator who always puts Mainers first. If the Daily Kos declares statehood, Shenna Bellows would fit in well, but in Maine she's way too far outside the mainstream for independent minded voters," he said.
1) [...] The national GOP is way outside the Maine mainstream. Objectively so.
2) Shenna Bellows grew up without electricity in rural Maine. Her dad's a carpenter, her mom's a nurse. So try to paint her as an outsider at your own peril.
[...]
5) If Dayspring had been magnanimous, I wouldn't be writing about this race right now. The last thing Republicans want is for buzz to start building around this race. They want it to remain sleepy, out of people's minds. Instead of having people follow a link to Shenna Bellows' campaign website.
Why Collins's NRSC allies would want to boost the prominence of the Maine Senate race among the national left-leaning grassroots--and to do it in a way designed to tweak activist Democrats, implicitly linking it to the national battle between Republicans and Democrats--is hard to fathom. Espcially given the track record at Daily Kos for grassroots fundraising.
But every time Collins and her allies go after Bellows it seems more likely that they see her as a real threat.
Collins has not taken a clear stance on the issue. Her office said that the Republican continues to listen to Mainers and others as she weighs the implications.
The Bangor Daily News, which has a history of using its coverage to advantage rather than challenge Sen. Susan Collins, for some reason makes an exception when it comes to one topic in particular: The paper has run not one, not two but three separate Op-Eds in the last four months prodding Maine's senior senator on torture.
And now the vote referenced in each of those pieces seems like it may finally be upon us:
Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins could provide the swing votes on whether to release a secret 6,000-page report that has been described as a scathing indictment of CIA interrogation techniques used against suspected terrorists.
[...]
Collins has not taken a clear stance on the issue...While she strongly opposes torture, Collins' primary goal with the Intelligence Committee report is to "ensure that the report remains a tool for meaningful oversight and that it does not become a political issue that can be used by either party," according to a staffer in her office. (Emphasis added.)
Collins's position makes a certain amount of sense...until you actually think about it.
Certainly it's laudable--and probably imperative--for an investigation on a topic as serious as torture to avoid any hint of partisan slant. But the report has already been written, so that's not the question in front of the committee and it's not what Collins's (weirdly anonymous) spokesman is talking about.
Rather, the point being made by the Collins camp in the second bolded clause is about the report's impact--specifically the worry that it will yield partisan advantage to one side or the other. That's what it means when you say your "primary goal" is not to let the report become "a political issue."
But letting the political implications of a report outweigh the public interest in transparency and accountability isn't rising above partisan concerns. It's the essence of playing politics.
It means letting considerations about who gains and loses politically dictate what should and shouldn't be revealed to the American people.
Such a politically-focused approach would allow the crassest of calculations to factor into Senate oversight decisions. It requires salient information to be suppressed simply because somebody--anybody--might reap political benefit from its publication.
That is, of course, an extremely cramped vision of legislative oversight. Once spelled out, it's hard to take seriously.
Whether this is merely a talking point being floated by Collins (whose record indicates a willingness to abide torture) or a true reflection of her philosophy (which would explain her timid approach to Iraq war oversight during the Bush administration) is impossible to know.
Sen. Susan Collins's prospective Republican primary challenger Erick Bennett:
Can you imagine if the media did it's [sic] job and asked Susan Collins the hard questions about her record like they ask me the hard questions about mine?
In the wake of surprisingly strong fourth quarter fundraising numbers from Shenna Bellows--the first time candidate beat three-term incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in total funds raised; received almost eight times as many donations as Collins; and reported having raised 80% of her money from Maine compared to 32% for Collins this cycle (according to the most recently published figures)--the Collins camp has launched the first negative attack of the campaign.
Specifically, in a letter to the editor, on Twitter and in a subsequent Tumblr post too silly and egregious to link to, Maine GOP Executive Director Jason Savage worked to downplay the significance of Bellows's numbers, raise doubts about the strength of her grassroots momentum and, improbably, portray her as a tool of big money donors.
That his attacks were built on baseless allegations and (deliberately?)
false premises is really beside the point. (Though it's hard not to wonder where this sort of misleading blitz fits into Collins's campaign to restore civility to American politics.)
The real news gleaned from Savage's attack is what it reveals about the Collins campaign.
Namely, Collins and her team clearly think Maine's senior senator is vulnerable to being seen as an out-of-touch beltway insider. And it's not hard to figure out why: When you try to ride a wave of high dollar contributions to your fourth term in office--amassing a $3 million war chest from lobbyist-hosted DC fundraisers, corporate PACs and other influence-seekers--it becomes somewhat tricky to make the case that you're a Woman of the People.
Particularly if you recoiled at the idea of participating in the money-for-access merry-go-round when you first went to Washington.
In the absence of a politically defensible explanation for that kind of evolution, the Collins camp is responding by working to tear Bellows down, to neutralize whatever political advantages her strong grassroots showing provides.
It's an understandable political calculation--you might even call it predictable given Collins's history of brass knuckle politics. But it's not an especially ennobling one.
I'm really surprised [Sen. Susan] Collins et al. wouldn't give McConnell and Cornyn a pass on the vote, either. DrewM is right that this is ultimately Ted Cruz’s victory in having forced a cloture vote in the first place--it ended up being a gift to Matt Bevin, McConnell’s challenger in Kentucky--but credit the RINO caucus with an assist in demanding that McConnell and Cornyn jump off the cliff with them.
For all the squawking centrists do about how the caucus has grown more "extreme," making McConnell bite the bullet on this one improved the odds that he’ll be replaced with a more conservative senator.
Given that the entire 55-member Democratic caucus is expected to support the clean debt ceiling bill, that means five Republicans would need to join with Democrats to advance the bill to passage. Centrist-minded [sic] Republicans like Sens. Mark Kirk of Illinois, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Susan Collins of Maine all said they were undecided on how they will vote.
Sen. Ted Cruz and the GOP rank and file ultimately backed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Whip John Cornyn into a corner on the debt ceiling increase.
The leaders had wanted to allow the toxic measure to pass with just 51 votes so all 45 Republicans could vote against it. But Cruz, the Texas tea party freshman, demanded approval by a 60-vote threshold.
So McConnell and Cornyn tried to persuade more than five Republicans in safe seats to support the plan, but they were met with stiff resistance. No Republican wanted to be vote No. 60 on a bill to raise the debt ceiling without spending cuts, forcing the GOP leaders to secure a comfortable margin of victory or risk being blamed for a historic debt default.
Miffed that they have long been asked to take tough votes when the GOP leaders voted 'no,' Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski, privately pressured McConnell and Cornyn to vote to break the filibuster, sources said. Murkowski resisted voting for the measure without the support of her leadership...
The vote proved to be anything but quick and easy...
That internal debate spilled into open view on the Senate floor. A grim-faced McConnell stood next to the white-haired Cornyn, who quietly discussed a way forward with Murkowski, Collins, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and a handful of other senators. Tension filled the room as the vote was kept open for more than an hour. The clerks were informed not to announce the names of the senators who had voted, allowing the leaders to urge senators to switch their votes.
David Weigel on political stories about "what will matter" come election season:
Journalists, in real time, are not the best arbiters of what people will come to believe months later. The fact that one party is spinning an incorrect story does not mean voters will buy that story...The journalist--any journalist--is better equipped to find the truth than he is to explain how someone might lie about it, and how the lie might work.
It was a surprisingly active week in the Collins-Bellows race. It started late Friday with the news that Shenna Bellows had managed to outraise Sen. Susan Collins in the 4th quarter of 2013.
That development, taken together with Tuesday's endorsement of Bellows by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), spurred a flurry of Bellows coverage in the national press, culminating in a National Journal piece that called the former American Civil Liberties Union of Maine executive director, "nothing short of a progressive's dream candidate."
(Coverage from local outlets Portland Press Herald and Bangor Daily News exhibited the usual pathologies, with PPH privileging the senior senator's point of view and BDN waiting four days to deliver a slanted piece built on bizarre assumptions.)
It's striking how quickly Bellows has been able to move from nationally-unknown long shot to progressive standard bearer. This is a function of the ever-accelerating pace of the news cycle, enabled by social media and in particular Twitter--which was not a factor in the 2008 Maine Senate race. But it's also a function of the growth of left-of-center media infrastructure.
Bellows has adeptly leveraged TV, radio and webcast to get her message out. And link by link, retweet by retweet, her candidacy has edged onto the radar of literally tens of thousands of activists, political junkies and potential donors.
Of course, even with PCCC calling her the "Elizabeth Warren of civil liberties" it's far from certain that Bellows and her campaign will emerge as a key progressive focus in 2014. But the odds are exponentially better than they were just seven days ago.
Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) is endorsing Shenna Bellows for the U.S. Senate in a key Senate upset race against Republican incumbent Susan Collins...
"We call Shenna Bellows the 'Elizabeth Warren of civil liberties' because she's campaigning boldly on constitutional freedom and economic populism," said PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor. "Like Elizabeth Warren's challenge to former Sen. Scott Brown, many insiders thought Susan Collins was unbeatable. Until now."
By claiming to support a two-state solution while helping to bolster the occupation, Scarlett Johansson is acting as a Susan Collins for the occupation, pretending to be moderate, while acting to bolster extremists.
The President's decision to issue Executive Orders, to make recess appointments, or to suspend enforcement of certain laws is inconsistent with our Constitutional system of checks and balances.
Of course, every president except for William Henry Harrison--who served about a month in office--has issued executive orders. That includes Collins's beloved George W. Bush, who'd issued far more than Obama by this point in his presidency.
Does Collins think the actions of all of these presidents were "inconsistent with our Constitutional system"? Where was Collins's outrage during the last administration?
Or could it be that Collins, in a bid to woo a skeptical Maine GOP base, is parroting a right wing talk radio narrative that lacks any factual or historical foundation?
Susan Collins refuses to say whether or not she supports the freedom to marry.
Now, the [Mainers United for Marriage] coalition very much wanted her support during the campaign. We reached out multiple times to ask her to come out in favor of the freedom to marry. She did not do so then. She still has not done so, even though the voters of Maine have spoken.
And I think that this shows a lack of courage because presumably in 2012 she either voted yes or no. Presumably she didn't leave the question blank.
Interesting.
I would just point out that--at least as far as I can recollect--there's been no public suggestion by Collins or her team that the senior senator did actually vote one way or the other on the referendum.
I'm also not aware of any Maine reporter having asked Collins the kind of direct question that would have teased out that information.
Unemployment insurance is critical to those who lost their jobs through no fault of their own and are diligently searching for work but are unable to find it. That is why I recently voted to proceed to debate a bill that would extend federal emergency unemployment compensation benefits for three months, as the president requested.
When it became clear that this proposal would not have enough support, I worked, in good faith, with a group of colleagues on a proposal that could pass both the Senate and the House with bipartisan support.
Oh, right. It's that she voted against the very policy she's working overtime to insinuate that she supported.
It's not the first time Collins has tried to occupy both sides of the fence simultaneously. (Or the second. Or the third.) But it's another glaring example of the kind of duplicity that's bound to crop up when a powerful pol operates without any real accountability.
Commentary worth reading on the Forty Hours is Full Time Act, which Sen. Susan Collins has proposed as a partial Obamacare "fix":
The kicker is the Collins-Donnelly proposal would put millions more workers at risk. Overall, we estimate that 6.5 million employees would be immediately vulnerable to hour reductions under their proposal, nearly three times the number under current law. That's because the cost of cutting hours from 40 to 39 hours a week would be negligible for the vast majority of employers and many more employees work 40 hours a week or more compared to those who work close to 30.
By effectively eliminating the employer penalty, this proposal would also result in more people losing job-based coverage. In July, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the one-year delay in the employer penalty would mean one million fewer Americans with job-based coverage. Half would shift into subsidized coverage through a state or federal marketplace or onto Medicaid. The other half would become uninsured.
The Collins-Donnelly plan also has important implications for the federal budget. The CBO estimates that the employer penalty will bring in $140 billion in revenue between 2014 and 2023. Little if any of this revenue will be collected if the 40-hour change is made. Meanwhile, the additional federal cost of health care for those workers suddenly without coverage through their job would add to the fiscal pain.
The President’s decision that the metadata collection should continue but that the data should not be held by the government requires considerable scrutiny. Having the telephone companies or other non-governmental entities responsible for holding this information might well make it far less private and secure than it is currently.
On January 3, Sen. Susan Collins spoke with WCSH6's Pat Callaghan:
CALLAGHAN: I think 1.3 million Americans lost their [unemployment] benefits at the end of the year. Millions more may if action is not taken. So your, your approach is, is what?
COLLINS: My approach is that we should extend the program for three months. That would help us find funds to pay for it.
Today Collins voted to filibuster a bill which would have extended the program for three months on the grounds that, um, well, er...
When we waste government resources in locking nonviolent offenders up and more resources on spying on ordinary Americans, then that is reducing resources available to really focus on those people who would do us real harm.
Impressive numbers from Shenna Bellows, and equally impressive is the breakdown:
Shenna Bellows, the Democratic candidate attempting to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, has only been fundraising for a few months, but her campaign will soon be touting more than $332,000 in donations.
[...]
According to the Bellows campaign, 81.7 percent of the 1,771 contributions were $100 or less, while over 80 percent of her donations came from Mainers.
"Our fundraising represents our values," she said in a statement. "The majority of our contributors are Mainers giving $100 or less. One of the biggest threats to our democracy is big money in politics, so it is refreshing to see that grassroots giving can triumph over special interests from out-of-state."
She added, "That is what a US Senate campaign should look like: local, grassroots-funded and representative of the entire state."
Something strange and revealing happens at the tail end of Pat Callaghan's two-part, 18-minute Friday interview of Sen. Susan Collins.
At 12:01 the following exchange unfolds:
CALLAGHAN: Some people get concerned about who's influencing Congress. Your husband is, runs a lobbying firm or is a partner in it. Is that...?
SENATOR COLLINS: No.
CALLAGHAN: Oh okay.
SENATOR COLLINS: It's, he is the COO [Chief Operating Officer] of a small consulting firm. He does no lobbying--
CALLAGHAN: Okay.
SENATOR COLLINS:--whatsoever.
CALLAGHAN: So he's not twisting your arm.
SENATOR COLLINS: Does no lobbying whatsoever.
CALLAGHAN: No conflict of interest here?
SENATOR COLLINS: None. Zero.
It all seems pretty straightforward: Collins, disabusing her interlocutor of a mistaken impression, corrects the record and Callaghan hustles the conversation onto another topic.
Except that Collins's denial that her husband Tom Daffron runs a lobbying firm is utterly--and blatantly--false.
Is Collins really in the dark about the fact that her spouse, who she's known since she first came to Washington DC in the 1970s, is a former registered lobbyist? That his K Street firm Jefferson Consulting Group has done plenty of lobbying over the years? That it lists "lobbying" as one of three practice areas on its corporate website? And that Daffron's COO responsibilities include "oversee[ing] Jefferson's administrative and financial functions as well as the day-to-day operations of the firm"?
In short, is she really unaware that, given the firm's profile and Daffron's role, Callaghan's formulation is perfectly accurate?
It seems implausible. And so the denial of easily verifiable facts comes across as reckless and even bizarre: How does a savvy, seasoned politician manage to blurt out such a transparently dishonest reply to such a basic question?
There's no simple answer. But the context of Collins's decades-long Washington journey from fresh face to veteran pol, taken together with the Maine media's extreme skittishness about scrutinizing the state's senior senator in general or the Collins-Daffron relationship in particular, probably sheds some light.
For starters, it's no accident that Collins's denial recalls in its terseness and peevishness former President George W. Bush's performance at 2004's first presidential debate or, more recently, Director of National intelligence James Clapper's testimony before Congress: Collins, after spending the better part of the last 40 years inside the bubble of power worship and status deference that is the Washington DC beltway, has clearly grown unaccustomed to being challenged directly on sensitive subjects.
It's within that same bubble that she's transitioned from squeaky clean freshman lawmaker--refusing to attend a 1997 fundraiser because donors were promised a chat with her--to ethically flexible beltway fixture, so inured to the amoral DC culture that she let corporate lobbyists throw her a birthday-bash-slash-fundraiser at a corporate-owned townhouse that stands as a monument, almost literally, to the abuse of campaign finance rules.
And it's inside the same corrosive power-and-privilege-fueled feedback loop that she "evolved" from pledging to serve no more than two terms to campaigning, unapologetically, for a fourth.
Put simply, when you're used to making up your own rules--and then revising them when they no longer serve your ends--it makes sense that you might bristle at a query about ethics and integrity from a lowly news anchor.
You might even feel justified blowing off his insolent question, facts be damned.
Of course, that Collins has become acclimated to the imperial treatment--and being insulated from anything that falls short of it--is no defense for dishonesty. Nor is the history of Maine press deference, which is to say silence, on the subject of her husband's career any excuse: You don't get to mislead viewers and deceive your constituents just because you've been asked a question you didn't see coming and would prefer not to answer.
If anything, Collins's uneasiness about the question underscores its importance, and the many legitimate concerns that stand behind it. Just for openers:
--Do any of Daffron's corporate clients have business before Congress in the coming term?
--How does Collins handle the potential confluence with and/or conflict between the oversight responsibility of the Intelligence Committee on which she sits and Daffron's firm's role as a consultant to the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI? Or between her role as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development and his firm's consulting work for the Department of Housing and Urban Development?
--What about Jefferson's work for CGI Federal, the company behind the botched Healthcare.gov rollout? Or Halliburton? Or Apple?
These are obvious, public interest-minded questions that constituents deserve a response to.
And while the curt and sweeping nature of Collins's brush-off strongly suggests that she has no intention of answering them, it hints as something else as well: That she hasn't actually thought through the implications of being married to someone who heads a firm that makes money from the government; from companies that want to do business with the government; and from still other companies that want to sway the government in one direction or another.
That's a problem because, contrary to Collins's flat denial, a close personal relationship between a sitting senator and the head of a firm in the "government relations" racket is a significant and inherent conflict.
That's not to say that the conflict can't be managed and mitigated. But you can't manage a conflict that you're trying to pretend doesn't exist.
If her performance with Callaghan is any guide, Collins simply isn't ready to face up that reality. It will be interesting to see in the coming weeks and months whether that's a tenable position.
[Sen. Susan] Collins' perceived independence is largely a matter of public relations. But it's excellent public relations that allows her to say one thing and vote in the opposite direction, to speak disparagingly of special interests while her husband runs a lobbying firm, to leverage contrasting procedural votes to allow her to claim to have backed whatever side is most politically advantageous at the moment.
Somebody in the GOP who's not suffering from congenital wacko syndrome should be taking Collins to task for her ambiguous record and adroit maneuvering around any position that might conflict with her moderate image.
If Wall Street was really smart, they'd start getting the less crazy Republicans, like Mark Kirk and Susan Collins, to switch parties, reinforcing the ranks of Wall Street Dems in Congress and giving the corporatists a functional governing majority. And if that happened, it would be our turn for a good ol' civil war, just like the one the GOP is currently waging.
Q: Some are concerned that Social Security will be targeted in the next round of budget talks. There are concerns that a change to the so-called chained CPI will erode benefits.
A: Well, I think we have to be very careful as we take a look at the Social Security and Medicare programs. If we change the consumer price index, we could not do so without increasing the minimum benefit for Social Security.
Collins doesn't reject switching Social Security to a chained CPI model, which would slash benefits. She's just saying that the switch should be coupled with an increase to the minimum amount given out by the program.
That might help make up some of the difference for some of the three Maine seniors out of every five who count on Social Security for more than half their income.
But in a state where one in five residents receives Social Security and where the median elderly househould relies on Social Security for 74% (!) of its income, Collins's minor caveat shouldn't provide much solace.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins won't be unopposed on the primary ballot.
The head of a group that opposed same-sex marriage in Maine says he'll offer a conservative voice in the GOP primary. Erick Bennett, director of the Maine Equal Rights Center, said he’s filing his paperwork Monday.
Predictably, there's already been more focus on Bennett's quirks--particularly from Maine journalists--than there's been on his policy positions, his standing with Maine Republican voters or his high profile activism.
Which is not to say reporters are wrong to paint Bennett as something other than a mainstream figure.
But of course the GOP isn't a mainstream party. And its primary electorate is even further to the right than its leadership.
So no one really knows for sure how this will turn out.
Granted: Collins may beat Bennett in a rout. She certainly ought to given the size of her war chest, the disparity in campaign experience and the amount of time she's had to prepare for exactly this challenge.
But if she wipes the floor with him, it will likely be because she ran a smart campaign--painting herself as inevitable, discrediting Bennett via whispers, playing the Maine media like a fiddle--rather than because she's closer to Republican primary voters on the issues than he is.
The worst (well, a bad bit anyway) part of American politics is the fetishization of bipartisanship. Outside of naming post offices or declaring that puppies are cute, bipartisanship is bad. Politics is a competition. Politicians and political parties offer competing ideas and visions to the public, and this allows voters to make a semi-informed choice about who to vote for.
Bipartisanship is just another way of saying "let elites sort this stuff behind closed doors, don't you worry your pretty little heads about these things." Also, too, the Chamber of Commerce rocks!
"I think that there are too many filibusters in the Senate," [Sen. Susan] Collins said. "We need to move forward on bills and on nominations and let the Senate work its will." (Emphasis added.)
It's a shame and a disaster that the Maine press seems constitutionally incapable of fulfilling its fourth estate obligations when it comes to Sen. Susan Collins--and is instead bent on assuming a stenographic, deferential posture toward her at almost every turn.
But it isn't just embarrassing and corrosive. It also represents a squandered journalistic opportunity of the first order. Because Maine's senior senator has been up to some pretty interesting--and frankly rather skeevy--things in recent years. And she hasn't been terribly worried about hiding her tracks.
One area where she's seemed emboldened lately--and not in a good way--is fundraising:
Lobbyists for Verizon Communications, which is refusing comment on a now-confirmed report that the telecommunications giant turned millions of its customers' records over to the National Security Agency, have thrown fundraisers for members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, records compiled by the Sunlight Foundation show.
According to the Political Party Time database, which tracks candidate fundraising events, lobbyists for Verizon Communications have hosted at least five fundraising events for Sens. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Susan Collins, R-Maine. Louis Dupart, of the lobbying firm The Normandy Group, hosted at least three events, two for Mikulski and one for Collins, while Wayne Berman hosted two more for Collins, including a birthday reception in 2010. Both senators voted in 2008 in favor of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which shielded telecom companies, including Verizon, from lawsuits related to an earlier wiretapping controversy.
That lobbyist-drenched birthday party was held at the Fed Ex Townhouse. And if that strikes you as an odd name for a Capitol Hill mansion...you're onto something:
In the past decade, 18 lobbying firms, corporations and labor unions have purchased town houses or leased office space near the Capitol, joining more than a dozen others that had operated there for years, according to real estate records.
Despite a strict new ban on gifts to lawmakers, lobbyists routinely use these prime locations to legally wine and dine members of Congress while helping them to raise money, campaign records show. The lawmakers get a venue that is often free or low-cost, a short jaunt from the Capitol. The lobbyists get precious uninterrupted moments with lawmakers--the sort of money-fueled proximity the new lobbying law was designed to curtail. The public seldom learns what happens there because the law doesn't always require fundraising details to be reported.
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Under federal election rules, groups can provide lawmakers free food, drink and a fundraising venue if they disclose that spending as contributions, usually through their political action committees. Those count against the limits of $10,000 per two-year election cycle for PACs and $4,600 for individuals.
Or they can charge the lawmaker, in which case the expense should show up in election records if it exceeds $200.
In theory, this should mean nearly all events are disclosed, allowing the public to learn which special interests have hosted fundraisers for which legislators. In practice, a list of exemptions prevents that.
The FEC allows lobbyists to give their space to federal candidates, or charge a nominal fee, if they also make it available at little or no cost to charities and civic groups.
FedEx provides its town house free to members of Congress and charities, spokesman Maury Lane said, so there is no public record of the fundraisers. Lane said he didn't know how many events were held.
Offering pay-to-play access to DC lobbyists? Check. Corporate-funded parties that stretch campaign finance rules beyond recognition? Check.
Taking big dollars from folks trying to influence legislation? Check check check.
And in truth, there's plenty more where that came from. But to see it you have to be willing to quit looking the other way.
At some point, even the most cynical of politicians has to understand that this issue is not abstract. It affects your own sons and daughters, brothers and sisters...
What you're seeing here is the Republican elite's hypocrisy finally being called out--in the most public way possible...The ability to pretend that you can do one thing in public and another in private is becoming more attenuated by the day.
Sen. Susan Collins has been on the record as an enthusiastic supporter of the NSA's bulk data collection program for some time. But Intelligence Committee records indicate that she's now backed up her rhetoric with votes:
While the committee billed the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Improvements Act of 2013 as a means to increase "privacy protections and public transparency of the National Security Agency call-records program," the 15-member panel narrowly defeated a series of amendments senators offered proposing stricter reforms.
One of the reforms--a three-year cap on the retention of telephone records in the main database--went down, 7-8, even though it had the support of Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) The amendment failed in a party line vote where Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, joined the GOP to kill the amendment. (Emphasis added.)
Susan Collins has a 14 point lead over Democratic challenger Shenna Bellows...with Democrats. Overall Collins leads 59-20, including a 38 point advantage with independents. Collins continues to be among the 5 most popular Senators in the country with a 61% approval rating to only 27% of voters who disapprove of her.
No doubt about it, Shenna Bellows has a task of Wellstonian proportions ahead of her.
Senate Republicans blocked the nomination of Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C. to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency to oversee mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at a critical time for the industry.
Democrats fell three votes shy of the 60 required to advance his nomination.
President Obama nominated the North Carolina Democrat in May to replace acting FHFA director Edward DeMarco. Thursday's filibuster marked the first time since the Civil War that a sitting member of Congress was denied a presidential nomination by the Senate.
It's not true that the conduct of foreign policy should be guided by the principle of "reward your friends and punish your enemies." The priority should always be to secure the country's just interests first, and that may sometimes require reaching agreements with antagonistic states and being at odds with allies and clients on certain issues. It is tempting but misguided to think of international relationships in terms of friendship. States can have productive and cooperative relations, and they can even be allies for many decades, but they aren’t ever really "friends."
After vigorously defending bulk snooping on the private communications of innocent Americans--and other controversial National Security Agency practices detailed in the documents leaked by Edward Snowden--Sen. Susan Collins has apparently drawn the line at spying on leaders of allied foreign governments:
"The reports are very disturbing. Friends don't spy on friends," Collins said before entering a closed Senate Intelligence Committee meeting on Capitol Hill. "I think that is totally inappropriate. There's absolutely no justification for our country to be collecting intelligence information on the leaders of some of our closest allies."
How does Collins reconcile her support for the indiscriminate tracking of her fellow citizens with outrage about snooping on powerful foreign officials?
Augusta resident Carol Linker in a Portland Press Herald "Another View" column, October 24, 2013:
As a registered Democrat and usual supporter of Bill Nemitz's perspective, it seems to me that he was way off base in his column titled
"LePage, Collins' behavior beyond baffling" (Oct. 11).
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There is a reason Sen. Collins wins elections in such a convincing manner: She does what is right, despite unwarranted attacks from the fringe extremes of present-day politics!
Carol William Linker is a financial professional currently employed by LPl Financial LLC in Augusta, Maine with over 26 years of experience. Carol is registered as a Broker-Dealer Agent and is able to buy/sell securities.
As the financial regulatory reform bill enters its home stretch in conference committee, I can't help but wonder if the top executives at firms like Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and even LPL Financial are secretly relieved that we have a horrific undersea oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico?
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Behind the scenes product peddling financial firms with large salesforces have been lobbying hard to make sure that the fiduciary rule, which would require your stock broker to act [in] your best interest and disclose conflicts, is either watered down or eliminated from the final legislation...Maine's Republican Senator Susan Collins had mysteriously flip flopped on her commitment to keeping the fiduciary standard in the bill...
It's no surprise then that [big brokerage and insurance firms] have hired lobbyists to fight the fiduciary standard provision...
Most surprising was the about face that Susan Collins, a Republican Senator from Maine, did recently when she amended her support for fiduciary standard...I have no idea what changed Collin's [sic] view on broker regulation, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with lobbyists...
Here is what Barbara Roper, director of Investor Protection for the Consumer Federation of America, had to say about Senator Collin’s [sic] retreat on the fiduciary issue: "The Amendment paints a target on the backs of senior Americans who are most likely to be targeted with abusive variable annuity sales practices."
Washington has spent the past three-plus years in terror of a debt crisis that keeps not happening, and, in fact, can’t happen to a country like the United States, which has its own currency and borrows in that currency.
A mature and responsible political party would do more than prevent a government default; it would offer serious solutions to the nation's most pressing problems instead of running from them.
And it is there that Republicans--whether adults or Tea Party members--continue to let the public down.
At a time when the economy is desperate for federal help and 11.3 million people are still unemployed, the party--and not just its far-right wing--is still pretending that cutting spending and lowering the deficit remain the country's most urgent priorities. Republicans won't acknowledge that tax increases, along with spending cuts they have forced on the country, have already driven the deficit down to 4 percent of the aggregate economy, from 10 percent in 2009.
Bradygirl2 in a BDN website comment responding to a column from Sen. Susan Collins's spokesman that smeared--without rebutting--Chris Busby's recent critique of the senior senator:
"Chris Busby's recent rant, 'Susan Collins masquerades as moderate,' is so full of factual errors and hostility that it actually makes responding difficult."
Well, you could at least try.
Could you let us know which factual "errors" in this "rant" you find troublesome? The dismissive "tisk, tisk to anyone who does not see my boss as anything other than completely above the fray," tone of this message is typical for those who have been in power for too long. Sir, while Ms. Collins has been in Congress, it has morphed into the most partisan, dysfunctional iteration of itself we have seen in at least a century.
To claim that your boss is totally blameless in this transformation is either a sign of your disingenuousness, or her ineffectiveness.
In her first appearance as a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, Shenna Bellows on Wednesday morning listed civil rights, campaign finance reform, the environment and the economy as issues she hopes to address if she gets elected to Congress...
With her background with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, where she served as executive director for eight years until last month, civil liberties are expected to figure prominently into Bellows’ campaign platform. On Wednesday, she said that passage in recent years of the Patriot Act, Real ID Act, the NSA electronic monitoring program, and the National Defense Authorization Act represent a "constitutional crisis" in Washington that have infringed on the rights of citizens.
"Politicians in Washington have trampled on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,” Bellows told her supporters. "Those [acts] threaten our democracy and if elected I will work to repeal those pieces of legislation and improve on our privacy."
Roughly one-third of this caucus thinks hitting the debt ceiling and shutting down the government are great strategies to try to stop Obamacare. The other two-thirds of the party has realized all along that this strategy sucks, but they could not find any way to stop their party from implementing it — even though these "reasonable" Republicans outnumber the crazies.
Quick reminder that you don't have to be a dirty hippie (or a Kenyan socialist) to think that the entire DC-based Republican party--not just its right flank--is engaged in extortion:
Sen. Angus King: "This is an attempt to rewrite a major piece of substantive law through holding the government hostage, which is a result that cannot be achieved through the normal democratic and constitutional processes. That's the core of this current situation. That's what's bothering me about it," Senator King said.
"I don't mind negotiating budgets. I do think we shouldn't use the threat of a government shutdown--or, now the reality of a government shutdown, to obtain legislative and policy benefits that we can't otherwise attain through the normal constitutional process."
"I think it is a huge mistake to link the defunding of Obamacare to a government shutdown," Collins said. "We have an obligation to govern in Washington, and it would create chaos if government were to shut down," she added, citing the government shutdowns of the mid-1990s...
"Shutting down does not get us any closer to a fiscal plan to deal with that debt."
Friday's House vote to keep government offices open while defunding Obamacare was another move in a high-stakes political chess match that could end with a government shutdown...An email blast late Friday afternoon targeting Maine Sen. Susan Collins illustrates the pressure being applied on Senate Republicans by some conservative groups ahead of the vote.
"What is abundantly clear is that the American people do not want dysfunction in Washington to lead to another government shutdown," Collins said. "A shutdown will only further damage our struggling economy and reverse an already slow climb out of recession."
Portland Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz, October 2:
Along with every other Republican senator, Collins voted against stripping the Obamacare provisions out of the bill.
Later Monday evening, with the government shutdown only hours away, the House sent the resolution back with a new set of Obamacare conditions attached.
Same result: Collins, who was already on record calling it flawed strategy that endangered the entire U.S. economy, fell in line and once again voted to keep those conditions intact.
Headline of Sen. Collins Youtube upload of her floor speech, October 5:
Senator Susan Collins: "It is time for this shutdown to end."
Before last week it'd been years since Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz had said much of anything about Sen. Susan Collins. But now he seems to be making up for lost time:
The point here is not the notorious thinness of the senator’s skin or her remarkable ability to appease the extreme elements of the Republican Party while clinging to her image as Maine’s matriarch of moderation.
Rather, it's Collins' startling inability (or refusal) to separate this week's top Republican talking point ("Deadline? What deadline?") from the inescapable truth about the world's already skittish financial markets: Fast-spreading fear, not the precise proximity of the lightning bolt, is what starts a stampede.
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Collins, meanwhile, struggles to placate the right-wing extremists in the House of Representatives while presenting herself as the voice of compromise and reason--all as her campaign for a fourth term (remember she vowed she'd serve only two?) looms just around the corner.
Sen. Susan Collins...is circulating a rough plan to reopen the government, repeal the medical device tax and provide agencies with greater flexibility in implementing the sequester. (Emphasis added.)
Susan Collins isn't up for re-election again for another four years, but she's already swimming deep in lobbyist money. While most Americans will have to make do attending holiday parties with a few home-made cookies, Senator Collins is getting ready to party with some of Washington D.C.'s top lobbyists, who are providing her with big wads of cash as special gifts. It's going to be her birthday soon, after all.
Hosting the lobbyist party for Collins on December 7 is Senator Thad Cochran. He's joined by the following lobbyists who have given especially large amounts of money in order to gain the special attention of Senator Collins:
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Michael Bopp, who was once once Associate Director at the Office of Management and Budget, but now works as a lobbyist at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher for clients including General Electric, Goldman Sachs, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Roundtable.
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Vicki Hart of Hart Health Strategies, who lobbies for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, Chemed, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Johnson and Johnson, and the Alliance of Specialty Medicine, among others.
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The list goes on. There are 22 lobbyists listed as hosts with special access to Susan Collins at her lobbyist birthday party. Other lobbyists and representatives of political action committees who aren’t listed at the level of hosts may also be in attendance. (Emphasis added.)
Collins, who spoke out in May, recently voted against the continuing resolution that included Obamacare funding. Now she’s made a proposal on medical device taxes that would blow a $30 billion hole in the federal budget and is but another version of attempting to force concessions under threat. Her approach ultimately supports the broader Republican strategy.
I reached out to some Maine political players today to ask for reaction to Shenna Bellows's entry into the 2014 race. Responses have started to trickle in. I may update as I hear from others. In no particular order:
Mike Tipping, communications director of the Maine People's Alliance:
Shenna is smart, capable and knows what it means to be the underdog. I'm confident she's going to make the most of this campaign.
Eliza Townsend, executive director of the Maine Women's Lobby:
Shenna is a very knowledgeable, focused, articulate woman. Should she enter the race for U.S. Senate, Mainers can be assured of a campaign in which the issues get fully addressed. That's healthy for our democracy.
I think it will make for an interesting match-up. It is possible, of course, to argue that progressive libertarian is a nonsense [phrase]. (Just like libertarian socialists cannot exist.) I am not sure her party will let her be more libertarian than social democrat (aka progressive). I suspect she will have a hard time attracting libertarians running as a Democrat considering the poor record the Democrats have of protecting our individual rights and liberties (esp. under Obama). Collins, of course, has a terrible record on that front as well. When it comes to liberty and freedom they are really the same. Needless to say I shall not be voting for either.
Check it out: Pat Callaghan comes about as close to grilling Sen. Susan Collins as any Maine reporter has in recent months--or longer.
Faced with a serious question, the senior senator works to explain away the yawning gap between her votes and rhetoric on the government shutdown...without quite succeeding.
[T]he new stop-Obamacare plan now entails filibustering the defunders’ own bill. They can do this with just 41 votes in the Senate, if they can get them.
But consider how terrible this situation is for the Republicans. If they fail, it will be because a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats to break the filibuster, betraying the defunders. This means the full force of the defund-Obamacare movement – which is itself very well funded by rabid grassroots conservatives eager to save the country from the final socialistic blow of Obamacare — will come down on the handful of Senate Republicans who hold its fate in their hands.
The old plan at least let angry conservatives blame Democrats for blocking their goal of defunding Obamacare. Now the defunders can turn their rage against fellow Republicans, creating a fratricidal, revolution-eats-its-own bloodletting.
MPBN buried the lede, but this is actually a pretty big deal:
In a weekly GOP address last month, Collins warned that the Affordable Care Act's definition of 30 hours would result in reduced employee hours and fewer jobs, and she cited the Bangor School Department as a prime example.
"A school system in my state of Maine is already preparing to track and cap the number of hours that substitute teachers can work to ensure that they don't work more than 29 hours a week," Collins said. "Fewer hours means less money in the teachers' paychecks, and more disruption for their students."
But the Bangor School Department's director of business services, Alan Kochis, says that in reality, not that many employees in the school ssytem [sic] would be affected.
"We have tutors and substitute teachers who fall into this class, and there aren't a lot now that are working over 30 hours," Kochis says, "and if they are, it's not on a permanent basis."
So Collins gives a national address outlining a supposed Obamacare flaw and trots out a Maine-based example to make her case.
But even that hand-picked example falls apart when you actually look into the details: Bangor just doesn't have a platoon of permanent 30-40 hour substitute teachers on the payroll. (And why would it?)
I actually have no idea whether it makes sense for Obamacare to draw the line at 30 hours or 40 hours for part time work. But Collins's willingness to cut factual corners makes you think twice about what her motives are in proposing a "fix."
