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Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell
Updated: April 29, 2019
Politics & Government
Collins and King continue Maine's legacy of moderate voices in Washington
Screenshot / C-Span
Susan Collins during the 1994 Maine gubernatorial debate. Although Collins lost that race, she has become one of a long line of Maine U.S. senators who became national leaders.
Photo / OFFICE OF U.S. SEN. ANGUS KING
Angus King, who served as governor for two terms, was elected to a second Senate term in 2018.
When the first issue of Mainebiz came out in December 1994, Angus King had just been elected Maine’s governor after running as an independent.
He won a four-way race against opponents that included Republican Susan Collins, then Maine’s commissioner of professional and financial regulation under then-Gov. John McKernan and a relatively unknown protégé of U.S. Sen. William Cohen.
Today, King and Collins represent Maine in the U.S. Senate, the latest in a long line of moderate lawmakers helping the Pine Tree State punch above its weight in the corridors of power in Washington, D.C.
The template was set by Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman to serve in both the House and the Senate and the first to represent Maine in either. A moderate Republican from Skowhegan, she made a speech in June 1950 that amounted to a rebellion against McCarthyism. Known as the “Declaration of Conscience,” she said the basic principles of being an American included the right to criticize and hold unpopular beliefs, and the right to protest. Democrat Edmund Muskie was also a major figure, serving as Maine's U.S. senator from 1959 to 1980, playing a leading role in the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972. Upon his retirement, he became the 58th U.S. Secretary of State and negotiated the release of 52 American hostages, ending the Iran hostage crisis.
Then came George Mitchell, a Waterville Democrat who served as U.S. senator from 1980 to 1995. During his time as Senate majority leader from 1989 to 1995, the Senate approved the North American Free Trade Agreement and passed landmark legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act.
After retiring from the Senate, Mitchell remained in the political spotlight as the main architect of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland and as U.S. special envoy for Middle East Peace under President Barack Obama. Mitchell later led a 20-month investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs by Major League Baseball players. It ended with a 400-page study, informally known as the Mitchell Report, naming 89 players alleged to have used steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs.
From Olympia Snowe to modern times
Olympia Snowe, a Republican senator from 1995 to 2013, was known for her strong sense of bipartisanship and in 2006 was named one of America’s best senators by Time magazine, which called her “The Caretaker.”
Since leaving the Senate in 2013, Snowe has gone on to speak nationally about the need for bipartisanship and has committed to helping nurture future generations of young women through the Olympia Snowe Women’s Leadership Institute. On April 3, Collins presented Snowe with the Women Making History Award in Washington, D.C., and lauded Snowe’s outstanding reputation as an informed and effective legislator. Collins was first elected to the Senate in 1996.
During the Trump presidency, King and Collins have developed national followings, as attested to by their frequent appearances on network and cable television current-affairs shows.
King is having an easier time politically, having been reelected to another six-year Senate term in 2018. For Collins, the last Republican senator in New England, the fight for a fifth term in 2020 is just getting under way. Democrats sense an opportunity to oust her, accusing Collins of betraying her moderate principles by voting for Trump’s tax cuts and to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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