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On this point Americans agree: the Supreme Court confirmation process is a mess

Senator Susan Collins slams the Supreme Court confirmation process. She became very frustrated that the Judge Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process was so partisan. But is she without blame?

PORTLAND, Maine — Maine Senator Susan Collins took to the Senate floor on Friday and spent 45 minutes explaining why she would vote to elevate Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She had not finished her first paragraph when she observed that the “confirmation process has become so dysfunctional, it looks more like a caricature of a gutter-level political campaign than a solemn occasion.”

On that point the American people would broadly agree. “I think the confirmation process was simply awful,” Marilyn Blinkhorn of Portland told us today. Jennifer Sittason, visiting Maine from Alabama, concurred. “I thought the process was embarrassing for our country,” she said. “I thought it was not the American way.”

NEWS CENTER Maine Democratic political analyst John Richardson believes that Collins, who noted in her speech that the confirmation process has been in steady decline for at least thirty years, is not without blame. “There are people that have sat in these [Senate] offices, including Susan Collins, for that long period of time. She could have done something about it. And we’re at this point now and she shares as much blame—and she should be including herself as much as she’s including her peers on the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Phil Harriman, NEWS CENTER Maine’s Republican political analyst, has a different perspective. “I think Senator Collins’ finest moment in her speech,” he said, “was pointing out that the way the Judiciary Committee handled this confirmation was a disgrace to America and certainly an insult to the two people whose lives have been turned inside out.”

The take-no-prisoners battle over Kavanaugh almost certainly deepened the divisions that already existed in America. Charlie Katz-Leavy of Falmouth, however, is not giving in to gloom. “We’re in a down cycle,” he told us. “I won’t guess when we hit the bottom. But I’m optimistic. Let’s put it this way: I’m bullish on the United States.”

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