Sen. Susan Collins is a centrist and a moderate. She is our senator from Maine, a moderate and centrist state, which is why she wins with 68 percent of the vote, as opposed to Gov. LePage, who won with 38 percent of the vote (in 2010) and 48 percent (in 2014).

If she were a judge, she would not be on the list compiled for the president by the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. Those think tanks are not moderate or centrist. They are extreme. Extreme on the Second Amendment, extreme on Roe v. Wade, extreme on upholding corporate interests over the people’s interest and extreme on health care availability under the Affordable Care Act.

This vote, to confirm the nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, to the Supreme Court will resound and rebound for decades. Collins cannot treat this vote the same as previous ones. Too much is on the line: the ACA, a woman’s right to make decisions about her health issues and, maybe most importantly, the role of the executive and the rights of a president, who should never be above the law.

However, this nominee thinks a president shouldn’t be burdened by subpoena, lawsuits, indictments or even laws he doesn’t like. This nominee has the most expansive view of executive power, which, given our president’s penchant for self-dealing, lack of transparency and constant lying, is a very scary view!

For those reasons, it is obvious why the president picked this man. But that is not our senator’s concern. Her concern must be the 68 percent of Mainers who voted for a moderate and centrist Republican in 2014, and the 31 percent who voted for Shenna Bellows because she represents them, too.

So Sen. Collins must vote for us and vote as the moderate, centrist and pro-choice senator that she is. She must reject extremism and unbridled executive power. She must reject Brett Kavanaugh.

Jessica D. Simpson

Cape Elizabeth

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