A veteran Republican lawmaker just bungled the numbers on a key issue her opponent has weaponized against her in the battle for her seat in the November midterms.
Sen. Susan Collins, 73, has come under fire from Democratic candidate Graham Platner, 41, for casting the deciding vote to confirm conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Kavanaugh later voted in favor of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision to overturn abortion rights under Roe v. Wade.
Collins, arguably the closest thing the Senate Republican caucus has to a moderate holdout, tried to defend her backing for Kavanaugh during a Fox News appearance on Monday. “Let me be clear that I disagreed with the Supreme Court’s 6-to-3 decision overturning Roe v. Wade,” she said. “But the fact is that whether Justice Kavanaugh were confirmed or not, Roe v. Wade would have been overturned, given the 6-to-3 vote.”
That is incorrect. The Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 ruling, which established a constitutional right to abortion up to the point of fetal viability, by 5 justices to 4, with Kavanaugh’s vote one of the five votes without which Roe v. Wade could have survived.
CNN’s Erin Burnett was quick to seize on the Maine senator’s blunder in a segment about her interview with Fox News earlier in the day. “The part of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe was actually 5-to-4, with Chief Justice Roberts joining liberal justices,” Burnett said.
She then asked network political commentator Karen Finney whether Platner, who has faced allegations over his past treatment of women, is necessarily the best voice to challenge Collins on the issue.
“Well, here’s one other problem, though, with what she’s saying,” Finney remarked. “She also opposed the Women’s Health Protection Act, which many of us saw as a way to protect against what happened with the Dobbs decision.”
The Women’s Health Protection Act would have codified abortion rights in federal law, blunting the impact of Dobbs nationwide. It failed in the Senate in 2022, with Collins voting against it on the grounds that it swept further than Roe v. Wade.
“She’s got some fact-checking of her own to do there,” Finney said. She then added of Platner, “Look, if people believe that he could be a vote in support of women’s right to reproductive freedom, then when voters go to the polls, they’ll make the decision whether or not they trust him ultimately to be that champion.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Collins’ office for comment on this story.
