President Donald Trump will announce his latest nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States in a few hours, a nominee who will need 51 votes to be confirmed by the Senate.
Those concerned that abortion rights will be overturned by the new court have been focused on two Republican senators who say they support reproductive rights: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Maine’s own Susan Collins.
Collins’ position on Roe and the confirmation process has been consistent, but easily misunderstood for to those who don’t follow her and the court closely. It’s central tenant: she will judge the nominee based on their fidelity to precedent, with the assertion that this will protect Roe v Wade because it’s “settled law.”
In this week’s Maine Sunday Telegram, I asked several of the country’s leading legal scholars what they thought of this reasoning. Most were unimpressed. Find the details here.
For more on Collins’ position on this issue, start here.
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and award-winning journalist. He is the author of seven books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at Maine's Portland Press Herald, he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.