Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Collins skips governor run, stays in Senate
WASHINGTON — Maine Sen. Susan Collins, one of the key Republican votes that blocked the party’s effort to repeal Obamacare, announced Friday that she will forgo a race for the state’s governorship, remaining in the Senate at least until her term expires in 2020.
“I am a congenital optimist and I continue to believe that Congress can and will be more productive,” Collins told an audience in Rockport, Maine, at the end of a speech on health care reform.
“I want to continue to play a key role in advancing policies that strengthen our nation, help our hard-working families, improve our health care system and bring peace and stability to a troubled and violent world, and I have concluded that the best way I can contribute to these priorities is to remain as a member of the United States Senate.”
Collins, who was reelected in 2014, indicated for months that she was conflicted about the decision.
She won her Senate seat for the first time in 1996, two years after she lost an earlier race for governor. The winner was independent Angus King, who since 2013 has served with Collins in the Senate.
Collins criticized both the partisan passage of the Affordable Care Act and the recent Republican efforts to repeal it.
“We need to understand the consequences of what we’re doing, not vote on bills in the middle of the night that have had no substantial hearings and little analysis,” she said.
Collins was one of three Republicans to vote against the final GOP health care bill voted on by the Senate, alongside Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Collins cited in particular its impact on women, because the measure would have stripped funding from Planned Parenthood.
When Republicans tried to push through a second measure, the Graham-Cassidy bill, she objected to that as well on the grounds that it would have allowed states “to weaken protections for people with pre-existing conditions, such as asthma, cancer, heart disease, arthritis and diabetes."