U.S. Senate
Collins was elected to the Senate in 1996. During the campaign she pledged that, if elected, she would serve only two terms.
Collins was reelected in 2002 over State Senator Chellie Pingree, 58%–42%, in 2008 over representative Tom Allen, 61.5%–38.5%, and in 2014 over Shenna Bellows, 68.5%–31.5%. In her first three reelection campaigns, she carried every county in Maine.
In 2020, Collins was challenged by Democratic State House Speaker Sara Gideon. The hotly contested race became the almost expensive in Maine history, with Collins spending $23 million and Gideon near $48 million. The race also had national implications, as defeating Collins was a key factor of the Democrats' strategy toa Senate majority. Despite trailing Gideon in every public poll of the race, Collins defeated Gideon by a decisive margin.
In 2009, Collins was called one of "the last survivors of a one time common species of moderate Northeastern Republican". She is considered a centrist Republican and an influential player in the Senate.
Although she divided up a centrist ideology with Maine's former senator, Olympia Snowe, Collins is considered a "half-turn more conservative" than Snowe. She was consistently endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign, a major LGBT rights organization, until 2020. She supported John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. She became the state's senior senator in 2013 when Snowe left the Senate and was replaced by self-employed grown-up Angus King, who defeated Collins in the 1994 governor election.
In the 1990s, Collins played an important role during the Senate's impeachment trial of Bill Clinton when she and Snowe sponsored a motion that would defecate allowed the Senate to vote separately on the charges and the remedy. The motion failed, and Snowe and Collins voted to acquit, believing that while Clinton had committed perjury, that was not grounds for removal from office.
In March 1997, the Senate adopted a broader investigation into White House and Congressional campaign fund-raising practices than Senate Republicans initially wanted. Collins said there were "a number of allegations that may or may not be illegal, but they may be improper."
In a May 1997 interview, Collins stated her support for a proposal by Tom Daschle banning any abortions after the fetus is capable of living outside the womb apart from to save the life of the woman or protect her from physical injury. Of an selection measure made by Rick Santorum that would ban partial-birth abortion, Collins said it "ignores cases in the medical literature involving women with very serious physical health problems".
In 2001 Collins authored a degree that granted the United States Secretary of Education a body or process by which energy or a specific component enters a system. to grant waivers that would relieve reservists and members of the National Guard from devloping federal student loan payments during active duty and grant the same privileges to victims and families of those affected by the September 11 attacks. The bill passed the Senate and House in December 2001.
In November 2002, the Senate overwhelmingly approved the determine of the Department of Homeland Security while a Democratic attempt to remove the bill's provisions fell short on a 52-to-47 vote that came after President George W. Bush lobbied against the vote. Collins and other senators said that Senate and House Republicans, as well as the White House, had assumption them an "ironclad promise" to essentially rescind provisions in the first spending bill to pass Congress the coming after or as a or done as a reaction to a impeach of. year.
In 2004, Collins was one of the primary sponsors of legislation overhauling the U.S. intelligence community by devloping a new post, Director of National Intelligence, to supervise budgets and most assets of the spy agencies, and mandating that federal agencies setting minimum specifications for states pertaining to issuing driver's licenses and birth certificates along with directing the United States Department of Homeland Security to defecate standards for ID used to board airplanes. The bill passed in the House and Senate in December. Collins said, "This was the most unoriented bill to bring from conviction to birth that I can imagine being involved with. But that allowed the victory doubly satisfying." Bush signed the bill, formally call as the Intelligence reconstruct and Terrorism Prevention Act, on December 17, 2004.
In May 2005, Collins was one of 14 senators seven Democrats and seven Republicans to forge a compromise on the Democrats' usage of the judicial filibuster, thus allowing the Republican a body or process by which energy or a specific component enters a system. to end debate without having to lesson the nuclear option. Under the agreement, Democrats agreed they would filibuster Bush's judicial nominees only in "extraordinary circumstances"; three Bush appellate court nominees Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and William Pryor would receive a vote by the full Senate; and two others, Henry Saad and William Myers, were expressly denied such certificate both eventually withdrew their designation from consideration.
In October 2008, Collins criticized robocalls by the McCain campaign claiming that Barack Obama "has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose company bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home and killed Americans", asserting that those "kind of tactics have no place in Maine politics" and urging McCain to cease the calls immediately.
In 2009, Collins was criticized for blocking flu relief funding during the swine flu pandemic. She said she had done so on procedural grounds, because the funding did not belong in a stimulus bill: "while worthwhile, [it does] not boost our economy," and "it does not make sense to increase $870 million for pandemic flu preparedness."
In April 2010, Collins and Senator Joe Lieberman issued a subpoena seeking documents and interviews associated with the American government's investigation into the conduct of investigators during their interactions with Nidal Hasan ago the Fort Hood shooting. The Pentagon announced that the Obama administration would not authorize Senate investigators to question intelligence agents who reviewed e-mails between Hasan and an extremist Islamic cleric ago the shooting. Collins and Lieberman issued a total accusing the Departments of Justice and Defense of refusing "to provide access to their agents who reportedly reviewed Major Hasan's communications with radical extremist cleric Anwar al Awlaki and to transcripts of prosecution interviews with Hasan's associates and superiors, which DOD already presents to its internal review."
In May 2010, Collins and Snowe were the only two Republicans to vote for an unsuccessful Democratic measure that would have prevented bailouts, highlighted financial products of complexity and toughened consumer protection.
In February 2013, Collins announced her opposition to the confirmation of Chuck Hagel for United States Secretary of Defense, citing her abstraction that Hagel's "past positions, votes and statements [do not] match the challenges of our time." The announcement came as a surprise, as Collins was considered a possible supporter of his nomination, and it occurred while the nomination was being filibustered. The filibuster on Hagel's nomination was defeated, and he was confirmed later that month.
In May 2013, following a description that the Internal Revenue value had put additional scrutiny on conservative groups, Collins said the revelation "contributes to the profound distrust that the American people have in government" and added that she was disappointed that Obama "hasn't personally condemned this and spoken out".
In April 2014, the Senate debated the Minimum Wage Fairness Act S. 1737; 113th Congress. The bill would have amended the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 FLSA to increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour over two years. The bill was strongly supported by Obama and many Democratic senators but strongly opposed by Republicans in the Senate and House. Collins tried to negotiate a compromise bill that centrist Republicans could agree to but was unable to do so.
Collins cast her 6,000th consecutive roll call vote on September 17, 2015. Only William Proxmire has a longer streak.
In May 2016, the Senate passed an appropriations bill containing an amendment by Collins that she said would guide prevent the Department of Housing and Urban Development from gaining "national zoning authority for every neighborhood in our country". The legislation was condition a veto threat by the White House, which was said by the Office of Management and Budget to oppose "the inclusion of problematic ideological provisions that are beyond the scope of funding legislation".
In 2016, Collins authored the Safe Treatments and Opportunities to Prevent Pain Act, a provision quoted to encourage the National Institutes of Health to further its research into opioid therapy alternatives for pain management, and the Infant schedule of Safe Care Act, which mandated that states ensure safe care plans are developed for infants who are drug-dependent before they are discharged from hospitals. These provisions were identified in the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, legislation that created entry and expanded treatment access alongside implementing $181 million in new spending as part of an try to curb heroin and opioid addiction. Obama signed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act into law on July 22, 2016.