By Michael Shepherd - May 4, 2022
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Good morning from Augusta.

What we're watching today

The Maine senator at the center of abortion debate hit two high-court justices in a wary response to a major leak. The leak of a draft Supreme Court ruling that would end abortion rights put U.S. Sen. Susan Collins on the defensive after she repeatedly defended her 2018 vote for Justice Brett Kavanaugh by predicting the court would not overturn Roe v. Wade or a later high-court decision that cemented abortion rights.

Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch, both appointees of former President Donald Trump whom Collins voted for, are now poised to do that. The Republican's Tuesday response to the leak was measured. She issued a statement calling the two justices' reported stance "completely inconsistent" with what they said in meetings with her and in their confirmation hearings. She told CNN in Washington that her statement "speaks for itself."

In normal times, a senator saying they were misled by Supreme Court justices would be extraordinary. Collins was not the only one who went there. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a pro-abortion rights Republican who backed Gorsuch but not Kavanaugh, said this was "not the direction that I believed that the court would take" and if it holds, it would shake her confidence in the court.

There were reasons to believe this was a likely outcome. Much was made about Collins' comments about Kavanaugh during and after his confirmation process, which ended with Democrats using her vote for the justice to launch a massive campaign against the Maine senator in 2020. Former House Speaker Sara Gideon fell short in that $200 million race.

Notably, Collins said Kavanaugh assured her privately that Roe was "settled law." She went further in 2018, telling CBS News' "60 Minutes" that he was the first justice to ever tell her "he views precedent not just as a legal doctrine, but as rooted in our Constitution." She built her case for Kavanaugh around that, saying she would not support a judge who was hostile to Roe.

But Trump had been saying since his 2016 campaign that overturning the decision was his goal in appointing justices. NPR also has a helpful guide to what Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in confirmation hearings. Nominees are famously circumspect when asked about certain decisions. Both nodded to Roe as precedent entitled to some respect, but Kavanaugh stopped short of saying it was settled law in that setting, acknowledging precedents can be revisited.

There were contemporaneous warnings from the Democratic side. For example, Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, cited Kavanaugh's record as a reason why he thought the justice may overturn Roe. King also flagged Gorsuch's reluctance to discuss Roe compared with other precedents. Collins' disagreement on this front is why she is front and center again.

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What we're reading

— Maine conservatives are teasing a "long-term" path toward rolling back abortion rights if they win control of Augusta in a post-Roe America. Nodding to public opinion in a pro-abortion rights state, they said new limits would likely not come at once. Former Gov. Paul LePage, who is vehemently anti-abortion, is not saying what new restrictions he would support while running to oust Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in 2022.

— Both Collins and King support different ways of codifying Roe, but they do not support eliminating the 60-vote filibuster to do it.

— Former gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler possessed thousands of child sexual abuse videos prior to his March arrest, according to a charging document released on Tuesday, the same day Cutler's bail conditions were amended to allow him limited access to the internet.

— Mills extended her fundraising advantage over LePage in their race in early 2022. She has brought in more than $2.7 million to the former governor's $1.3 million in the early stages of their campaign to be decided in November.

— Collins was nudged from her top spot on an index of the most bipartisan senators, with Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire replacing her on the Lugar Center and Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy’s Bipartisan Index. After an eight-year run, Collins is now No. 2. Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat from the 2nd District, surged from 77th to seventh on the House side.

— This chart shows how a typical home purchase benefits the Maine economy.

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News and notes

— Mills emerges from COVID-19 isolation today to swear in new Maine Supreme Judicial Court Justice Rick Lawrence at 1 p.m. in the governor's office suite. The longtime district court judge will be the first Black justice on the state's high court. The governor has tested negative for COVID-19 since beginning a five-day isolation period on Thursday and will work in the State House while wearing a mask for the next five days, her office said.

— The University of Maine School of Law will hold a groundbreaking ceremony at 4 p.m. to begin major renovations on the Old Port building that will be its new home. The building should be used by students and faculty by year's end.

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📷 Lead photo: Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, left, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, talk during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in Washington on June 17, 2021. (Caroline Brehman pool photo via AP)

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