Susan Collins

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Jody Telfair of Bristol has a Ph.D. in clinical counseling and has spent 45 years in private practice.

Sen. Susan Collins has served in the U.S. Senate for 30 years. When her constituents voted her out of office last week, one would expect her to give a gracious speech thanking Mainers for giving her the opportunity to serve them for 30 years. Instead, she gave an angry interview with the New York Times berating those constituents for being too angry.

So it’s all right for her to be angry at us, but we have no right to be angry at her?

Sen. Collins is showing her true colors in defeat. I witnessed a shocking level of control and entitlement back in the early 2000s when myself and three friends scheduled an appointment to meet with her. We were told by a staff person that we could only speak with her about two issues and asked to express no emotion.

Susan Collins does not engage with constituents except under very controlled circumstances. She has not held a town hall for at least 25 years. She seems to feel that she was entitled to reelection because she works hard and had brought money and various projects to Maine. But that is what she was elected to do.

Engaging with the people of Maine and listening to their concerns and issues, even when she disagrees, is also part of her job, and Collins failed at that aspect of serving the people of Maine.

Even though I am angry at Collins, I abhor attacks and threats on her or any other elected official. I voted for Troy Jackson, not because I am angry with Collins, but because his policies and values, such as universal healthcare, ending the war in Iran, standing up to Donald Trump and working to bring down prices for working people align with my own.

In her interview with the New York Times, Collins sounds like she feels betrayed. Well, many of us Mainers have felt betrayed by her for years — her vote for Brett Kavanaugh (and others) and taking no responsibility for the overturn of Roe v. Wade; the way she has fallen in line with Trump; voting to cut Medicaid and health subsidies in the so-called “big, beautiful bill” while giving huge tax benefits to the wealthy; voting for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services; Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security and Pam Bondi as attorney general.

And she has voted to support the war in Iran. In the debates with Jackson, Collins was unable to point out a single time she voted against Trump when her vote mattered. Finally, I was appalled at the elitist comment from one of her leading supporters, Bill Green, calling Jackson a “bumpkin.”

Sen. Collins seems to have forgotten in her 30-year run as a senator that she serves thepeople of Maine at our pleasure. We owe her respect, but not our vote.

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