March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Maine’s polite Sen. Collins emerges as strong player

WASHINGTON — In conversations on the intricately tiled and somewhat slippery floors of the Capitol, many of her colleagues agreed that Susan M. Collins, the freshman Republican senator from Maine, was a nice lady.

She was polite — unfailingly so. She was pleasant — never pushy. She had short brown hair cut sensibly. She was trim and tidy in careful plain suits.

She was not, most said, a player. After all, Collins was ranked 91st out of 100 senators.

But the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton has created a new demi-star, however unassuming. It is her face and voice — with its New England accent flattening the vowels and sometimes the acrimony of the proceedings — that are suddenly in demand on television talk shows. (Collins will be on NBC’s “Meet the Press” 9-10 a.m. Sunday.) It is her thinking — bipartisan, undecided and conflicted — that captures the hoped-for, if not actual, Zeitgeist of the impeachment trial.

And it is her proposal — which she first mentioned to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., three days after Christmas over the telephone — that is being studied by the Republican leadership as a possible compromise to end the trial.

In essence, the proposal would allow the Senate to adopt “findings of fact” detailing the president’s alleged misconduct in the Monica S. Lewinsky affair before a final vote on the two articles of impeachment.

This approach would allow some senators who don’t believe the president should be removed from office to nonetheless register their disapproval of his conduct in the Monica S. Lewinsky affair. Because it no longer appears possible that Clinton will be convicted, adoption of the resolution would also deny Clinton the opportunity of claiming exoneration.

The White House hates the idea, Democrats say it is unfair and constitutional scholars have raised concerns. But Collins thinks it would go a long way toward reassuring colleagues: “A lot of us are concerned about the message a straight acquittal would send to the White House and to the American people.”

At 46, Collins is only two years into her first elected office. But she is by no means a nunnish novice to Washington. More mentored than mentoring, she has spent most of her career as a behind-the-scenes adviser, including 12 years as a congressional staffer to now-Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen.

Her history so far is that of a not overly confident, but still overachieving woman — who, despite her drive and ambition, remains schooled in compromise, fond of consensus. She is a child of politics: Her father was a state senator, her mother a mayor of her small hometown in the farthest reaches of Maine.

“You’d have to go back to her roots in Caribou, see her family, see how public-minded they are, how open to ideas, how intellectually engaged, to understand just how open-minded, tough-minded and fair-minded she is,” Cohen said in an interview this week. “She has a very orderly mind and she is extremely smart and well-organized. She has a unique blend of capabilities. She has a real keen grasp of substance combined with a sophisticated appreciation of the political process.”

It is those habits of mind that have led Collins to become a healing force in a Senate trying to fight off the disease of crippling partisanship, in a proceeding all concerned know will be examined by history. In the last three weeks, as she has read the remarks, letters, and records of statesmen who have considered impeachment before her; she has been aware of others, years hence, reading of her. “I want them to be able to read about what the Senate did, how we conducted ourselves, and why we did what we did, and find it ennobling,” she said.

She has kept a diary of the trial. In it, “the president is the classic Greek tragic hero, with these enormous strengths and these tragic flaws that overcome him.” As she has studied — about the impeachment of a judge for drunkenness, of another who was insane — she has come to understand the humility and the gravitas required when weighing “the tragic flaws of powerful men.”

After the House voted to impeach Clinton on Dec. 19, Collins realized that she would have to judge Clinton. As she often does when confronted with a decision, she began to read. Her current endgame plan came from those early days of study — not, she stressed, because she knew there were not enough votes in the Senate to convict the president.

“This grew out of my own personal concern about what would happen if I found that the facts of the articles were true, but I did not find that they rose to the level of impeachable offenses,” Collins said.

“Impeachment and Presidential Immunity from Judicial Process,” by University of Chicago Law School tax professor Joseph Isenbergh, came her way from a former legislative director who was also a Chicago alumnus. “We have very different political philosophies,” Collins said of Isenbergh, whom she has not actually contacted. From its 40 rambling pages, Collins extracted one thought, only briefly touched upon by Isenbergh, about other impeachment trials in which the vote was split. It was this idea that she shared with Lott over the Christmas break.

When the trial began, Collins kept talking about Isenbergh. Her staff helped her come up with what they referred to internally as “Son of Isenbergh,” a plan to substitute “findings of fact” for conviction. This idea grew out of two observations. First, in Congress it is common after lengthy hearings for a report to be issued that includes findings of fact. Second, in civil lawsuits, both parties often agree to certain facts after the discovery of evidence is concluded, just before trial.

“When she first brought it up, people said, `What are you crazy?”‘ said her chief of staff, Steven Abbott. “Then senators began coming up to her and saying, `That makes a lot of sense.”‘

Not everybody. “Findings of fact smacks in the face of the Constitution, which says the only punishment we should consider for the president is removal from office,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. “It denies the president due process.”

Still, one signal that Collins’ ideas might be gaining credence came last Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” when Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, said: “She’s been one of the leaders in helping to try and resolve this. And I think she’s done a very good job in our caucuses.” Hatch and Collins are not exactly soulmates. She is a moderate and for abortion rights; he is conservative and anti-abortion.

The next day, Monday, was a crazy day. On the television in Collins’ Senate office, CNN was broadcasting the endgame proposal of the moment, one promoted by Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D.

Collins was still sequestered in a Republican caucus, but Daschle had emerged from a Democratic meeting around 11:30 a.m. to say that his party would withdraw a motion to dismiss the case, if Republicans would withdraw their motion to call witnesses. Collins felt strongly witnesses were needed. This effort at compromise simply compromised too much.

In Collins’ Senate office, the feeling among staffers was that her idea was still alive. At 12:05 p.m., the phone rang. It was Collins. The Republican caucus had just rejected the Daschle plan. “There were as many views in the caucus on how to proceed as there were senators,” Abbott related. “She’s going to try to make her pitch again.”


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