Last updated on February 16th, 2019 at 02:34 pm
GOP Sen. Susan Collins may claim – still – to be a pro-choice moderate who will vote to protect women’s rights, but MSNBC host Ari Melber destroyed that myth on Wednesday.
According to Melber, Collins’ vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court was the final straw that sealed her legacy as an anti-abortion right winger.
“She still claims, even now, that she’s doing her part to keep the court pro-choice against all this evidence,” the MSNBC host said, adding that Collins can claim she’s pro-choice all she wants, but “facts matter.”
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Video:
Ari Melber delivers a strong takedown of Republican Sen. Susan Collins. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/38Dn2lHh8h
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) February 14, 2019
Melber said:
Note that Sen. Collins has some experience with a pattern here. We’re going to show it to you. Because she backed Trump and voted to confirm Gorsuch as well as Kavanaugh, just like she voted to confirm Alito. As for Thomas, the fourth vote, well she wasn’t even in office yet. Now, there are potential legitimate arguments for that kind of voting record. For pro-life candidates, their answer is, yeah, these are the pro-life judges they want. And for some traditionalists, to be fair, the answer is yeah, but the Senate vets judges and shouldn’t try to pre-engineer their future votes on the court. That’s a different defense. Sen. Collins claims neither of those defenses. She still claims, even now, that she’s doing her part to keep the court pro-choice against all this evidence. Responding to Kavanaugh‘s new opinion, she cites this as a, quote, very careful dissent, as proof the idea he would still repeal Roe is, quote, absurd. Is it? We asked Sen. Collins’ office whether point blank she views Kavanaugh‘s ruling as a limitation on abortion access, which it is, and a narrowing of Roe‘s protection or not. She did not reply to those questions today. But if last fall anyone was unclear how then-Judge Kavanaugh would approach abortion laws on the Supreme Court, the answer is now clear. Facts matter.
Susan Collins’ anti-choice record pre-dates her Kavanaugh vote
It’s not just Collins’ vote to confirm the anti-choice Kavanaugh that makes her a fraud. Her record was clear well before she sold out and confirmed him to the Supreme Court last year.
As Ari Melber pointed out, Collins also voted in favor of Trump-appointed Neil Gorsuch and George W. Bush-appointed Samuel Alito.
Both of those Supreme Court justices joined Kavanaugh last week in voting to restrict a key abortion protection. Luckily, Bush-appointed Justice John Roberts sided with the majority of the court and blocked the restrictive law from taking effect.
Ultimately, one thing is clear: Sen. Collins is neither moderate nor pro-choice. If the Supreme Court justices she voted to confirm had their way, they would overturn abortion rights in a heartbeat.
In 2020, the voters of Maine have a chance to replace Susan Collins with a Senator that will mean it when they say they’ll protect women’s rights.
Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
