Maine Senator Susan Collins is seeking re-election to a third U.S. Senate term in 2008. She was re-elected to a second term in 2002 with strong WISH support.
Only the 15th woman in history to win election to the Senate in her own right, Collins is Ranking Member and former Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security and is the Senate’s chief oversight committee. She also is a member of the Armed Services Committee and the Special Committee on Aging. She also was the first freshman Senator ever to lead the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Senator Collins’ efforts in the U.S. Senate have focused on maintaining a strong national defense, strengthening our homeland security, improving our national response to natural disasters and helping small businesses create more jobs. She also has pushed for increased efforts to prevent attacks on American ports and on chemical facilities throughout the country. She coauthored the intelligence reform bill, signed into law in December 2004, which represented the most sweeping change in the U.S. intelligence community in five decades and implemented many of the 9-11 Commission’s recommendations.
Senator Collins also has worked to improve health care; she led the fight to restore millions of dollars to the Medicare program so that senior citizens could receive in-home care. She is one of the authors of the landmark “Leave No Child Behind” education reform bill, and she has pushed for funds for early reading initiatives and increased student aid for higher education.