Portland Press Herald Op-Ed: Susan Collins says she supports women. We saw otherwise.

Augusta, ME – In a powerful new op-ed in the Portland Press Herald, Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, the lawyers who represented Dr. Christine Blasey Ford during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, blasted Susan Collins for pledging “fealty to President Trump in casting the deciding vote.” According to the authors, “where Dr. Ford demonstrated tremendous courage, Sen. Collins has demonstrated that she will always place politics over principle.”

Read more here:

Portland Press Herald: Susan Collins says she supports women. We saw otherwise.

By Debra Katz and Lisa Banks

October 7, 2026

• In September 2018, we sat beside Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as she courageously testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a packed room with more than 20 million people watching live on television, Dr. Ford raised her right hand — now an iconic image — and painstakingly recounted the sexual assault she endured by then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when she was 15.

• Dr. Ford came forward at enormous personal and professional cost, facing such extreme threats to her safety that she and her family were forced to leave their home and retain 24-hour security services. She did so because she believed that U.S. senators, like Sen. Susan Collins, should know the character of a man who was up for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

• Ultimately, Sen. Collins did not care, and pledged fealty to President Trump in casting the deciding vote in favor of Kavanaugh’s confirmation. She voted this way despite Dr. Ford’s testimony, which Collins described as “sincere, painful, and compelling,” and despite her own avowed support of survivors of sexual assault and the importance of reproductive rights.

• Collins justified her vote by explaining that she had met privately with Kavanaugh, who, in addition to denying the assault, assured her that he would honor precedent, including Roe v. Wade. She subsequently also told CNN that with regard to Dr. Ford’s sexual assault, “I do not believe that Brett Kavanaugh was her assailant. I do believe that she was assaulted. I don’t know by whom, and I’m not certain when, but I do not believe he was the assailant.”

• This preposterous explanation, while politically expedient, was offensive not only to Dr. Ford but to survivors everywhere. Conveniently forgotten by Collins was Dr. Ford’s sworn testimony that she was “one hundred percent” certain that it was Kavanaugh who had assaulted her. Also ignored was the important fact that Dr. Ford had named Kavanaugh as her assailant to her friends, therapist and husband years before his nomination.

• At best, Susan Collins was duped by Kavanaugh and President Trump. At worst, her actions were duplicitous, born of a desire to assure her constituents she was a moderate and supporter of women, even if her voting record says otherwise.

• Beyond Kavanaugh, Collins’ voting record includes a long history of votes for extreme judicial nominees who hold regressive positions on a shocking array of rights.

• Sen. Collins voted for Joshua Dunlap, who now sits on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, where Maine’s federal appellate matters are heard, despite the fact that he opposed marriage equality and has a history of opposition to pro-choice laws. Collins also voted to confirm Eric Tung to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, even though he too does not believe in a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. And even though Joshua Divine, now a federal judge in Missouri, once lumped homosexuality together with bestiality, she voted to confirm him too.

• In total, Susan Collins has voted for 52 out of 55 of Donald Trump’s second-term judges, while voting “no” on many of the pro-choice, pro-worker Biden nominees that she claims to find common cause with.

• Collins may claim to be a moderate, but she does not vote like one. And where Dr. Ford demonstrated tremendous courage, Sen. Collins has demonstrated that she will always place politics over principle.

• We hope that when Mainers go to the ballot box this November, they remember that Collins’ lack of principle has led directly to the appointment of Justice Kavanaugh, the overturning of Roe v. Wade and to President Trump stocking the federal courts with extreme jurists intent on undermining our nation’s civil rights.