Susan Margaret Collins (born December 7, 1952) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Maine. A member of the Republican Party, she has held her seat since 1997 and is Maine's longest-serving member of congress. Born in Caribou, Maine, Collins is a graduate of St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. Beginning her career as a staff assistant for Senator William Cohen in 1975, she became staff director of the Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee of the Committee on Governmental Affairs (which later became the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs) in 1981. Governor John R. McKernan Jr. then appointed her commissioner of the Maine Department of Professional and Financial Regulation in 1987. In 1992 President George H. W. Bush appointed her director of the Small Business Administration's regional office in Boston. Collins became a deputy state treasurer in the office of the Treasurer and Receiver-General of Massachusetts in 1993. After moving back to Maine in 1994, she became the Republican nominee for governor of Maine in the 1994 general election. She was the first female major-party nominee for the post, finishing third in a four-way race with 23% of the vote. After her bid for governor in 1994, she became the founding director of the Center for Family Business at Husson University in Bangor, Maine. Collins was first elected to the Senate in 1996. She was reelected in 2002, in 2008, in 2014, and in 2020. She chaired the Senate Special Committee on Aging from 2015 to 2021 and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs from 2003 to 2007. Collins is a senior Republican woman in the Senate, the dean of Maine's congressional delegation, and the only New England Republican in the 116th, 117th, and 118th Congresses. As of the 118th Congress, Collins is the only Republican to represent a Northeastern state in the Senate. She has been called a moderate Republican, and is often a pivotal vote in the Senate. To date, Collins is the longest-serving Republican woman in the Senate.Collins, who has described herself as a pro-choice Republican, attracted controversy for her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She attributed her vote to her belief that Kavanaugh would not support overturning Roe v. Wade; in June 2022, Kavanaugh joined the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe. During the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, Collins was one of 10 Republican senators to vote to acquit him on the first charge and one of five to vote to acquit on the second, and during the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Collins joined all Senate Republicans but one in voting to acquit him on the first charge, and all Republicans to acquit on the second. She was the only Republican senator to vote against confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in 2020. On February 13, 2021, she was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump of incitement of insurrection in his second impeachment trial.