For the second week in a row, Mainers gathered in a public library to pose questions to Maine’s senior senator on a variety of issues, including her response to the state’s opioid crisis, her role in the Trump administration’s record-pace court packing and her inaction against their escalating deportation policies.
And for the second week in a row, Senator Susan Collins declined to attend a town hall of which she was again the focus.
Earlier this week, Collins’ team, in online digital ads, dismissed the public forums organized last week in Portland and Thursday in Bangor by the progressive 16 Counties Coalition and the national Town Hall Project as “staged town halls.”
“If by ‘staging a town hall’ she means reserving a room in a library, inviting the public and telling them they can ask whatever question they want, we are guilty of that,” said 16 Counties director Willy Ritch, a former communications director for Rep. Chellie Pingree.
Still, a full room of Mainers put questions to the absent senator, which were instead fielded by a panel of local healthcare, reproductive rights and harm reduction advocates.
Ending the ‘War on Drugs’
“Growing up in Maine, especially on a reservation, you see the high rates of drug addiction,” said Lokotah Sanborn, an organizer with the Maine People’s Alliance (of which Beacon is a project). “In countries like Portugal, where they decriminalized drugs, what they found is that the number of overdoses dramatically decreased, the amount of relapses dramatically decreased, and the crime rate dramatically decreased. I wondered if this would be something that would be beneficial for the state of Maine?”
Maddy Magnuson, a harm reduction coordinator with the Maine Health Equity Alliance, which runs four of the seven safe syringe exchanges in the state, and has advocated for supervised overdose prevention sites, said, “We see right now there’s a lot of focus on MAT expansion, that’s medication-assisted treatment, and expansion of things like Naloxone, which is super important. We should be doing all those things.”
They continued, “But who has access to our healthcare system right now? It’s not the people who are most impacted. So, we have to pair that with ending the ‘War on Drugs,’ and that includes things like decriminalizing drugs.”
Collins has not backed decriminalization efforts.
Collins has backed federal spending packages aimed at prevention, treatment and recovery programs, such as in 2018’s “SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act.” However, she has voted against a measure that would have created accountability for companies that illegally market or distribute opioids.
Beacon previously reported that Collins has also taken thousands of dollars in political contributions from companies and individuals that have profited from the manufacture and distribution of prescription opioids.
‘It’s not just the Supreme Court that we need to be concerned about’
Since 2017, 146 federal judges nominated by President Donald Trump have sped through Senate confirmations. This is an unprecedented pace. Currently, nearly a quarter of all federal judges in appellate courts have been seated by President Trump and Senate Republicans. Many of them are young and were vetted by the conservative Federalist Society, whose executive vice-president, Leonard Leo, has contributed to and held a fundraiser for Collins.
Collins has supported over 90 percent of those nominations — 32 of them having indicated opposition to abortion rights in their past, according to an assessment by NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Democratic PAC American Bridge.
“Why are you voting for these judges, lower court judges, with their records of supporting the routing of Roe v. Wade, eroding environmental laws which you say you support?” asked a Bangor resident named Catherine.
Andrea Irwin, the director of Mabel Wadworth, a reproductive rights advocacy and direct service center in Bangor, said, “She voted for Chief Justice [John] Roberts. She voted for Justice [Samuel] Alito, despite very clear records of being against abortion, being against access to healthcare.”
“But I think it’s a really important reminder that it’s not just the Supreme Court that we need to be concerned about. It’s all federal judges,” Irwin said.
‘The cruelty is the point’
On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services had eliminated its “deferred action” program, which bars immigrants from being deported while they or family members seek medical treatment.
“The cruelty is the point,” said Orono resident Sofia Wilder. “I’d like to know from her, does she support this? And if she doesn’t, and she stays silent, is she not complicit?”
She added, “I don’t even bother to call anymore, because it’s just worthless.”
Collins’ inaccessibility to voters was a frequent refrain among attendees at both the Bangor and Portland forums. Several of those who spoke said they had either called or visited her office in the lead up to her votes for the 2017 GOP tax overhaul and confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
And since returning to Maine during the Senate’s August recess, Collins has not attended any public events, including a parade in Buxton on Aug. 10, that were publicized in advance by press releases or social media.
(Top photo: Town hall attendees at the Bangor Public Library. | Beacon staff)
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