Senator Susan Collins (R., Maine) announced on Friday that she will vote in favor of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
“I will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh,” Collins said on the Senate floor on Friday afternoon. ”By any objective measure Judge Kavanuagh is clearly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court.”
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual-assault accusation against Kavanaugh did not meet the minimum standard of “more likely than not,” Collins said, and even though the confirmation process is not a trial, “the presumption of innocence and fairness do bear on my thinking and I cannot abandon them.”
The moderate Republican added that the confirmation process has become “so dysfunctional it looks more like a caricature of a gutter-level political campaign than a solemn occasion,” and said, “One can only hope that the Kavanaugh nomination is where the process has hit rock bottom.”
As a rare pro-choice Republican, she also said she was satisfied with Kavanaugh’s answers about presidential power and his stance on Roe v. Wade.
“Protecting this right is important to me,” she said of abortion, before adding that she is confident the nominee believes precedent is “a constitutional tenet that has to be followed” except in the most extraordinary circumstances.