Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff took all he could take during a debate of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and slammed his Republican colleague, Susan Collins of Maine, accusing her of being a hypocrite when it comes to what she says versus what she does when it’s time to move legislation forward.
On Wednesday evening, shortly before Collins joined her GOP colleagues to keep a filibuster in place that prevented voting rights legislation from moving forward, Ossoff stood and excoriated Collins for voting to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 2006 but now shirking her responsibility to the memory of John Lewis:
“Abraham Lincoln must be turning in his grave to hear the senators from the Grand Old Party, the party of abolition and emancipation and reconstruction, echoing the states’ rights rhetoric of Dixiecrat segregationists to oppose federal voting rights legislation.
“I speak for the state of Georgia when I say do not invoke Congressman Lewis’ name to signal your virtue while you work to erode his legacy and defy his will.”
It quickly became clear that Ossoff had struck a nerve, as Collins suggested the Georgian might have violated a rule that bans senators from imputing “to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”
Collins also tried to suggest that the length of the John Lewis Act makes her unable to support it, which begs the question: Is Sen. Collins, at age 69, unable to read more than a page or two without dozing off?
Here’s what Collins said on the matter:
“I’m not sure that the senator from Georgia was even born in 1965. I voted enthusiastically and I did say that about the Voting Rights Reauthorization in 2006, and surely my colleague is not confusing that bill, which was five pages long … with the bill that is before the Senate tonight, which is 735 pages long.”
What a pathetic excuse for wimping out. But it shouldn’t surprise anyone because this is the very same Susan Collins who believed Brett Kavanaugh when he assured her would protect a woman’s right to choose. Now Kavanaugh and his five right-wing extremist buddies on the Supreme Court are preparing to render Roe v. Wade a thing of the past, leaving women unable to make their own reproductive choices.
So spare us the whining and outrage, Sen. Collins. You sold what was left of your soul a long time ago.