We should be more focused on the quality of Sen. Collins’ votes than the quantity | Opinion

**Mary Ann Larson** _lives in Bangor._ There’s been a lot of press lately about [Sen. Susan Collins’ 10,000th vote](https://www.pressherald.com/2026/06/04/susan-collins-casts-10000th-straight-senate-vote-2/), yet little commentary about the consequences of many of those votes. From her vote in 2018 to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, to her more recent votes to confirm most of Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees and Justice Gorsuch to the highest court, Sen. Collins has co-authored fundamental changes that have weakened our democracy and made all of us less safe and more unequal.   Kavanaugh cast a vote to take away women’s reproductive rights, even though Collins assured us that he would honor past precedent and leave _Roe v. Wade_ in place. The MAGA justices on the high court, all but Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas confirmed with a vote by Collins, have drastically weakened the 1965 Voting Rights Act with their [_Shelby County v. Holder_ decision](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/effects-shelby-county-v-holder-voting-rights-act) in 2013 that ended the pre-clearance requirement for states with a history of voting rights discrimination, and their more recent _[Louisiana v. Callais](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/finishing-voting-rights-act-supreme-court-declares-racism-over-again)_ [decision](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/finishing-voting-rights-act-supreme-court-declares-racism-over-again) that gave the green light to racially-based gerrymandering. More recently, Sen. Collins has voted to confirm most of Trump’s Cabinet nominees. Her vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Health and Human Services has resulted in rollbacks in funding for critical medical research, dismantled the CDC’s ability to track disease outbreaks and undermined the near perfect record of vaccine efficacy. Cuts in funding to the National Institutes of Health weakened the response to the recent Ebola outbreak in Africa.  Collins voted to confirm Pam Bondi as attorney general. Bondi transformed the Department of Justice into an instrument of Trump’s revenge. Collins also voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, in spite of Gabbard’s praise for dictators like Putin. And she voted to confirm Homeland Security Director, Kristi Noem, who spent more than $200 million of our money [to buy two luxurious jets](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/10/18/noem-jets-dhs-purchase/) for her travel needs.  Advertisement Yet perhaps the most anti-democratic Cabinet vote the senator made was to confirm Russell Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Vought served during Trump’s first term as acting director and then as director of OMB. The OMB oversees federal agencies and evaluates their policies and programs against established guidelines. Vought was a central figure in attempting to implement schedule “F” to dismantle the federal government’s merit-based civil service system, enabling Trump to fill positions with unqualified party loyalists. Vought was in favor of bypassing the Senate’s “Advice and Consent” rule and invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against American citizens.   Regarding Vought’s nomination, [the Union of Concerned Scientists stated](https://blog.ucs.org/rachel-cleetus/russell-vought-is-a-dangerous-choice-to-head-omb-congress-should-vote-no-on-his-nomination/), “It’s hard to imagine a more unsuitable candidate than the lead architect of the Project 2025 manifesto.” Vought is a Christian nationalist who believes the U.S. is a Christian nation and that Christian values should drive public policy.   Vought believed that the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which mandates that monies appropriated by Congress can’t be withheld by the president, was unconstitutional. By February 2025, with Vought in place at OMB, the regime had instituted an illegal federal funding freeze. Thousands of talented, experienced federal employees have been fired, forced out or resigned, leaving behind agencies less able to serve our needs as citizens, to regulate our vast economy and to prevent and respond to catastrophes. What Russell Vought stood for was no secret.  Can we trust Susan Collins to make sound decisions based on what’s best for the country? On many critical votes she’s taken in recent years, Sen. Collins has proven that she either isn’t capable of weighing the facts or that she values party loyalty above all else. The challenges we face call for much better from a senator.      Copy the Story Link Tagged: [columns](https://www.pressherald.com/tag/columns/)