Maine GOP to consider censuring Collins over vote to convict Trump

The Maine Republican Party plans to discuss and consider censuring Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) over her vote to convict former President Trump during the Senate impeachment trial.

County Republican chairs are scheduled to meet on Monday to deliberate on how to “respond” to Collins’s Saturday vote to side with Democrats and six other Republicans to convict the former president, according to local news reports. 

Maine Republican Party Executive Director Jason Savage confirmed to News Center Maine that county GOP chairs would meet Monday but said any comment will wait until “after matters are discussed by the county chairs.”

A vote from the state GOP could come before the end of February, Bangor Daily News reported.   

Helen Tutwiler, the chair for the Kennebec County Republican Committee, told News Center Maine that she knows “a lot of people” are “asking the GOP to do something,” adding, “What exactly that is, I’m not sure.”

Maine GOP Chair Demi Kouzounas told members in a Saturday email obtained by Bangor Daily News that “many of you are upset after what happened today as are we” and “to be prepared for an emergency state committee meeting in the near future” to discuss Collins’s vote.

Representatives for Collins did not immediately return a request for comment. 

The senator had listened to county Republicans’ thoughts on impeachment last week ahead of her vote, Waldo County GOP Chair Katrina Smith told Bangor Daily News, noting that the county leaders were “100 percent against impeachment.”

Collins was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict the former president on the impeachment article alleging he incited the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6. 

“My vote in this trial stems from my own duty to defend the Constitution of the United States,” she said in a floor speech defending her vote. “The abuse of power and betrayal of his oath by President Trump meet the constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors.”

She is not the only Republican senator facing possible retribution, as the Louisiana Republican Party censured Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) over the weekend and several county-level GOP parties have censured Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). 

The North Carolina GOP planned to vote on a censure against Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) on Monday due to his vote to convict Trump.