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Sen. Susan Collins [R-ME]
U.S. Senator, Maine

Photo of Collins
State:Maine [map]
Party:Republican
Birthday:Dec 7, 1952 / 56 years old

To contact Susan Collins, visit her official website. (Read our tips for communicating with Congress.) See the Project Vote Smart page for Collins for more biographical and issue information.

Collins’s latest tweet:Video: Senator Collins honors Coast Guard personnel for Acadia surf rescues.. http://tinyurl.com/ylet82y #mepolitics.(Nov 16, 2009)
Official YouTube Feed
“Senator Collins- Hearing on Fort Hood attack” - Nov 19, 2009 10:55 PM. Watch Video.
On the Floor
Latest Floor Video from MetaVid

Congressional Service

Below are the past and present terms in the Senate, House, and White House held by Susan Collins:

WhenRoleRepresenting
1997-2014U.S. SenatorMaine(Most Recent Term Began in 2009)
(was preceeded by William Cohen)

Sponsorship Analysis

"Ideometer"Collins is a moderate Republican according to GovTrack's own analysis of bill sponsorship.

These labels come from the Political Spectrum statistical analysis that we have carried out. The statistical analysis puts members of Congress on a scale based on patterns of bill sponsorship, and is blind to party affiliation and the content of bills. From there, we have somewhat arbitrarily divided the Members of Congress into far-left/right, rank-and-file, and moderate (i.e. centrist). For each party, the most extreme 23% of Members of Congress are labeled far-left or -right. The most centrist 30% (i.e. those closest to the other party) are labeled moderate. The remaining 47% are labeled as rank-and-file.

"Leader-Follower Score"
Collins is somewhere between a leader and a follower. Collins sponsors others’ bills and other Members of Congress cosponsor Collins’s bills. For more, see congressional statistics.

To compute the leader-follower score for Collins, we make a table that lists all other Members of Congress. Each row has the number bills sponsored by Collins and cosponsored by the other Member of Congress divided by the number of bills sponsored by the other Member of Congress and cosponsored by Collins.

This is a measure of who is following who. The higher the number, the more times others are cosponsoring Collins's bills without Collins returning the favor. We then take the mean of (the logorithms of) these ratios. Thanks to Joe Barillari for the idea.

Voting Record

Voting RecordSusan Collins missed 0 (0%) of 4242 votes since Jan 22, 1997. The graph to the left shows the number of missed votes over time. Click for a larger chart and a list of recent votes.

Money & Influence

The top campaign contribution to Collins in 2007-2008 was $52,750 from employees of General Dynamics. Susan Collins’s net worth was between $145,005 and $350,000 in 2007, according to Collins’s mandated financial disclosure statements. For more information, see the Center for Responsive Politics’ page for Collins.

Committee Membership

Susan Collins sits on the following committees:

Member, Senate Committee on Armed Services
Member, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
Member, Subcommittee on Personnel
Member, Subcommittee on SeaPower

Bill Sponsorship & Cosponsorship

Susan Collins has sponsored 258 bills since Jan 21, 1997 of which 196 haven't made it out of committee and 17 were successfully enacted. Collins has co-sponsored 1584 bills during the same time period. (The count of enacted bills considers only bills actually sponsored by Collins and companion bills identified by CRS that were themselves enacted, but not if they were incorporated into other bills, as that information is not readily available.)

Some of Collins’s most recently sponsored bills include...

S. 1722: A bill to extend the temporary suspension of duty on certain rayon staple fibers.
S. 1666: A bill to require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to satisfy certain conditions before issuing to producers of mid-level ethanol blends a waiver from certain requirements under the Clean Air Act, and for other purposes.
S. 1667: Abrupt Climate Change Research Act of 2009
S. 2191: A bill to extend the temporary suspension of duty on certain rayon staple fibers.
S. 2129: National Women's History Museum Act of 2009

View All... (including bills from previous years)

Photo from the Congressional Pictorial Directory.