ICYMI: “Susan Collins Confirms Yet Another Anti-Abortion Judge to Lifetime Seat” [Jezebel]

Augusta, Maine - In case you missed it, Susan Collins recently voted to confirm "yet another anti-abortion judge to lifetime seat" - part of her long history of threatening reproductive rights. The latest Morning Consult poll found Collins 20 points underwater and "facing abysmal polling numbers ahead of a tough re-election battle next year."

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Jezebel: Allegedly Pro-Choice Susan Collins Confirms Yet Another Anti-Abortion Judge to Lifetime Seat
By Susan Rinkunas
October 21, 2025

• Maine Senator Susan Collins voted to confirm an anti-abortion lawyer to become a judge on a powerful appeals court. Collins [...] is facing abysmal polling numbers ahead of a tough re-election battle next year-though she hasn't actually declared that she's running.

• On October 9, Collins provided the 50th vote to confirm Jennifer Mascott to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears disputes from courts in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The Senate confirmed Mascott 50 to 47[...] The confirmation cemented a conservative majority on the 14-member court, with eight judges appointed by Republicans, including six nominated by Trump. (One of those six is Trump henchman Emil Bove.)

• Mascott, a former law professor at Catholic University, is deeply conservative, having clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and for then-appeals court judge Brett Kavanaugh. During Trump's first term, she worked for the Justice Department and assisted the White House with the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. She also joined Trump 2.0 earlier this year by taking a job in the White House Counsel's office. Mascott has praised the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, after saying that Roe belonged in "the dustbin of history." In late 2021, while speaking at a Senate hearing, she also defended the court's decision not to strike down the Texas bounty hunter abortion ban that nullified Roe.

• Most recently, in 2024, she filed an amicus brief supporting anti-abortion doctors who sought to challenge the FDA approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. She also refused to say whether, under the Supreme Court's 2024 decision on presidential immunity, Donald Trump could order the military to assassinate his political opponents.

• Collins voted for this woman even though she is ostensibly seeking re-election in a state that Vice President Kamala Harris won by seven points. Previously, Collins voted to confirm two of the justices who overturned Roe: Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and, of course, Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, who was confirmed because she cast the deciding vote. While she voted against Amy Coney Barrett, her no vote came just days before Collins faced voters in 2020, and only after it was clear that Barrett would be confirmed regardless. When the court overturned Roe in 2022, Collins claimed she was duped by both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, whom she thought would uphold the precedent.

• Polling suggests that voters are very mad at Collins. A Morning Consult survey released in April found that 51% of Maine voters disapprove of Collins, compared to 42% who approve. The latest data, updated quarterly, shows that 56% of voters disapprove of her, with just 36% approving, meaning she is now 20 points underwater.

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