Collins and Murkowski on the defensive after leaked Roe draft opinion

Collins’s vote secured Kavanaugh’s confirmation in 2018 amid a firestorm of controversy that was largely focused on the allegations of a high school sexual assault leveled by Christine Blasey Ford that Kavanaugh denied. In a lengthy speech laying out her decision to confirm Kavanaugh, Collins explained her conclusion that the assault allegation ought to be set aside because of the competing claims and lack of firm evidence, and she also set forth her belief that he would not vote to overturn Roe or the other landmark case on abortion, Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Kavanaugh, she said, “explained that precedent provides stability, predictability, reliance and fairness” and that “a long-established precedent is not something to be trimmed, narrowed, discarded or overlooked.”

Collins offered a similar rationale in 2017 when voting to confirm Gorsuch: “I asked him if it would be sufficient to overturn a long-established precedent if five current justices believed that a previous decision was wrongly decided,” she said in a floor speech before voting to confirm him. “He responded: ‘Emphatically no.’ And that, to me, is the right approach. He said a good judge always starts with precedent and presumes that the precedent is correct.”