2007 Muskie Award: Senator Susan Collins

The 2007 Edmund S. Muskie Distinguished Public Service Award Address by Senator Susan Collins

June 19, 2007

MR. JOHN FRIEDENRICH: I want to take just a moment to thank Tim and Peter and the rest of the staff at the Center for the hard work they do every day responding to the challenges facing our country. I also want to thank them for all of the work they have done in terms of putting this dinner on and the event on. We have one staff. During the day they work on issues and at night they do events, so thank you all very much for the superb work for the Center.

Ed Muskie was a lot of things, but first and foremost he was the son of the great state of Maine and, as Tim mentioned, Ed Muskie served the people of Maine his whole life, first as a lawyer, then as an elected member of the Maine House of Representatives, and then as governor, and finally as the United States senator.

Senator Susan Collins continues that great Maine tradition of distinguished public service. In fact, I think public service is in her blood. Both of the senator’s parents have served as mayor of their hometown of Caribou, Maine, and her father served as a state senator. Her parents gave her a deep commitment to America’s small businesses through the Collins family lumber business established – if you can believe this – back in 1844. These are the things that have defined Senator Collins’ distinguished career.

After graduating with honors, she first answered the call of public service spending 12 years in the office of Senator William Cohen – of Maine, of course. And in 1987, she returned to Bangor to join the administration of Governor John McKernan as commissioner of professional and financial regulation. And after five years in that post, she turned her attention to America’s small businesses, becoming the New England administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration – the SBA. And I want you to know, Senator, that I am the beneficiary of your work at the SBA as I was an early licensee of the SBA’s brand new participating securities program, and I am grateful to you and your colleagues at SBA for this new and creative approach to venture capital.

But two years into her tenure at the SBA, Senator Collins threw her hat into ring for elective office – a rain hat I guess I should say, for Maine – threw her hat into the ring for elective office, winning the Republican nomination for governor. And though she lost this first campaign, she was ready to step forward two years later when her mentor, Senator Cohen, was tapped by President Clinton to become secretary of defense, and Susan Collins ran for this open seat and never looked back. Elected in 1996 for her first term, she was reelected in 2002.

There must be something in the water up there in the north woods of Maine, for when the nation was confronted with the greatest attack on American soil on 9/11, Senator Collins stepped up and, like Senator Muskie and Senator Cohen before her, took responsibility for the security of the nation. As chair of the Governmental Affairs Committee, she listened to those brave 9/11 families here in front of us tonight in the front row. She heard them when they asked: how can we be assured that this will never happen again?

And like those brave families, Senator Collins got to work. She led her colleagues by the hand sponsoring the Collins-Lieberman intelligence reform legislation. And because of her leadership, Americans can take comfort knowing we are safer than we were on 9/11. As Tim Roemer can attest, taking on those reforms was no easy task. Reforming laws it is one thing, but reforming how the government is structured by creating an entire new department – the Department of Homeland Security – and reforming the leadership of the intelligence community is an extraordinary challenge. Senator Collins forged ahead and worked closely with Senator Joe Lieberman and his colleagues on both sides of the aisle with the administration to make sure that the Department of Homeland Security and the director of national intelligence was not simply an exercise in shuffling bureaucratic boxes.

And that’s why we’re honoring her tonight at the 2007 Edmund Muskie Distinguished Public Service Award, for it is easy to stand up to one’s opponents; what is more courageous is to stand up to one’s friends in the name of principle, and in so doing place the common good above all other concerns.

Please join me in honoring Senator Susan Collins from the great state of Maine.

(Applause.)

SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): Thank you. Thank you very much, John, for such a generous, generous introduction. I don’t know who the brilliant person was tonight who thought of having Maine lobster – (laughter) – with San Francisco sourdough, but that was pretty good, I must say. (Laughter.)

I am deeply grateful for this recognition, and it is indeed an honor to share this evening with a history-making public servant, Speaker Pelosi. I know the speaker has left. I know it wasn’t because I was coming up next. (Laughter.) It was because she’s joining her grandchildren at the White House picnic tonight, but I do so want to congratulate her. Who among us will ever forget that wonderful picture of Speaker Pelosi with all the children gathered around her as she was sworn in as our speaker?

Now, you don’t have to be from Maine to appreciate the significance of the Edmund S. Muskie Award, but it certainly helps. (Laughter.) In fact, when Speaker Pelosi at first got the middle initial wrong, I wondered how many people in this room know what the S stands for? Tim Roemer, do you? (Laughter.) I think it’s something like Sixtus. Am I wrong about that? You all have to check. (Applause.) All right. I’m right. (Laughs.)

As my state’s governor and senator and as our nation’s secretary of state, Edmund S. Muskie stood for the highest ideals of public service. We Mainers are so proud of him and of his legacy, and all Americans are indebted to him. He made a difference in my life. When I was a senior in high school, I came to Washington for the first time. I had never been to Washington. I had never been on an airplane. And I met my two United States senators. Well, imagine that my senators – this was back in 1971 – were Ed Muskie and Margaret Chase Smith. Could any high school student do better than that?

The significance of this award is also enhanced by the organization bestowing it. For 26 years, the Center for National Policy has brought our nation’s leaders together to seek practical, nonpartisan solutions to global security challenges. Against the profound challenges of the 21st Century, this approach – and I will emphasize the bipartisan, indeed nonpartisan approach – is more necessary than ever before. And this organization is blessed to the leader that the times require. As a member of Congress, Tim Roemer was dedicated to strengthening national security. After the attacks of September 11th, he authored the legislation to establish the 9/11 Commission. His service on that commission was invaluable. It was informed, determined, and nonpartisan.

The great challenge that our nation faces in combating terrorism surely has to transcend party lines. The success that the Senate Homeland Security Committee has achieved in helping to strengthen our homeland security is the result of the nonpartisan spirit that guides our work. And this spirit exists in large measure due to the partnership that I have with the now chairman, Senator Joe Lieberman. From the very start of our work together in 2004 on the intelligence reform based on the 9/11 Commission recommendations to our accomplishments last year in rebuilding our nation’s emergency management structure after Hurricane Katrina, and in better safeguarding our seaports and our chemical facilities, this spirit has prevailed.

I am truly so happy to see the families who are here tonight – the 9/11 families. They were so critical to our success in 2004, but I want to digress from my speech tonight to tell you a story of how we got that legislation through. In July, 2004, after the 9/11 Commission completed its tremendous work, I got a call late at night from Bill Frist. He told me that Tom Daschle and he had decided that our committee, which was then called the Governmental Affairs Committee, was the only committee that could manage to get the legislation through in what was the final six months of the highly contentious and bitter presidential election year. And so Joe Lieberman and I took on that challenge, and the very next day I went to see Joe. There was no staff in the room. There was no press in the room. It was just Joe and me. And we talked about the challenge before us, and we decided that the only way we could accomplish the goal of translating the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission into law was if we worked out any disagreements that we might have on policy or procedure between us and always presented a united front to our committee members, to our caucus, to the full Senate, to the House of Representatives, to the White House, to the press, and that is what we vowed to do.

And when I look back on it, I believe that that decision was the key to our success. And without that agreement, I believe that bill never would have seen the light of day, much less become law. And that’s what we did, and as the result and with the strong backing of the 9/11 families, we had more than 300 amendments filed to that bill, but we did not have a single vote that fell along party lines – not one.

Now, I want to tell you how remarkable that was because in the final month of that presidential election campaign, nothing significant was passing. Nothing that mattered could get past the partisan gridlock, but we decided that it was too important to not accomplish this goal. And I remember that we had so many setbacks and it was so difficult, particularly dealing with the House, I will say. (Laughter.) But there were so many turf battles, both within Congress and within the executive branch. And every time Joe and I thought we just can’t do it, it was the words of Mary Fetchet that echoed in our heads, because Mary told us that if we passed this bill, it would be a measure of comfort to her and her husband, her family who had lost their son Brad on 9/11, and all the 9/11 families who had lost loved ones. And every time I felt that this couldn’t be done, that we should just give up, it was Mary’s words that echoed in my mind, and I knew we could not give up. And so we didn’t, and we persevered and we pushed, and as a result we passed and got signed into law the most sweeping reforms in our intelligence community in more than 50 years.

(Applause.)

And last summer, when the plot was revealed against our country, and Secretary Chertoff called me, tracked me down in rural Maine in August to tell me about the plot and that it had been thwarted and that it would become public the following day, he told me that but for the reforms that we’d passed, which encouraged information sharing across the federal government and with other countries, that he believes that the dots would not have been connected, and that al Qaeda plot against our country would have been carried off. And it’s due to the families here tonight that that plot was detected and thwarted. So I thank you.

(Applause.)

So, my friends, what we do does make a difference, and that is what I feel so strongly about. We need a bipartisan approach to the grave challenges facing our country, and that includes the challenge in Iraq. We cannot afford to have such divisive debates in this city – debates that many score political points, but do not solve the problem. And so my message tonight is that I hope working with the Center, working with others who care about the outcome, who care about the country, that we can put aside the partisan differences that so divide us and work for what is best for America.

Thank you so much for honoring me with this award. Thank you.

(Applause.)

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