Senator Collins has helped Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump transform the federal judiciary by packing it with right wing judges who put Mainers at risk. This week, Maine Democrats will highlight a few of the extreme right-wing nominees that Senator Collins has helped confirm to lifetime seats on the federal bench.

 

In 2019, Senator Susan Collins voted to confirm Allison Jones Rushing to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, despite vehement objections from LGBTQ+ and civil rights advocacy groups.

 

Jones Rushing had a long and clear history of extreme right wing views before Collins voted to install her in a lifetime seat on the federal bench. She had previously worked at the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group due to its advocacy for the “recriminalization of homsexuality” and “sterilization of trans people.” Jones Rushing was also a staunch defender of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage as one man and one woman, and said that marriage equality for LGBTQ+ Americans would not “comport with Judeo-Christian values.” 

 

Jones Rushing was just one of the litany of Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell’s far right judicial nominees which Senator Collins has voted to confirm who put Mainers;’ rights at risk. She has voted to confirm a total of 181 Trump nominated judges since he took office, including every single one of the judicial nominees in the first two years of his term. To this day, she has never cast a deciding vote against a Trump judge, proving herself an indispensable team player for McConnell and Trump’s effort to reshape the federal judiciary in their image and install judges who threaten Mainers’ health care and rights.

 

“Senator Collins voted to confirm Allison Jones Rushing despite knowing full well her hateful views and history of extremism that could put Mainers in danger,” said Maine Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Marra. “As Trump and McConnell have plotted to stack the courts with right wing judge after right wing judge, Susan Collins has been there every step of the way. Mainers deserve a Senator who isn’t a willing participant in Trump and McConnell’s right wing schemes.”

 

###