Shortly after Susan Collins entered the Senate in January 1997 as a Republican from Maine, some of her more jaded senior colleagues offered her a bit of professional advice: Make sure to miss at least one roll-call vote to avoid getting trapped in an unbroken streak.
“More experienced senators said, ‘Miss one early; remove the pressure,’” Ms. Collins recalled. “I just wasn’t comfortable with that.”
Twenty-nine years later, now a powerful committee chairwoman in a tough re-election fight, she is still not comfortable with the prospect of being recorded as not voting. Ms. Collins has not missed a single roll call in her Senate service, and on Thursday night, she became the first senator in history to reach 10,000 consecutive votes cast without an absence. The record came as she crossed party lines to support an unsuccessful Democratic bid to send her party’s immigration bill back to committee to add a requirement that the government investigate losses and denials of Medicaid benefits.
Reaching the Senate milestone has not always been easy, and it came at an opportune time for Ms. Collins, who is facing stiff political headwinds as she seeks a sixth term.
As Ms. Collins was celebrating her record on Thursday night to applause and accolades even from the Senate minority leader, a Democrat seeking to challenge her, Graham Platner, was dealing with the fallout from new reporting in The New York Times. In the account, women described volatile and “toxic” relationships with him in the past that were unsettling and at times emotionally wrenching.
For Ms. Collins, who is campaigning as the familiar and experienced contrast to a political newcomer who has acknowledged a checkered past, shattering the voting record underscored her current pitch to voters. But Ms. Collins has nurtured an almost obsessive determination to display a sterling roll-call record for decades, reflecting her dogged and perfectionistic approach.
The senator suffered a chipped bone in her ankle racing to avoid one particularly perilous near miss nearly two decades ago and had to rush back from the airport for another when a surprise vote was called. Luckily, the aircraft door had not closed.
She has spent plenty of Sunday evenings in Washington to make sure she would be on hand for Monday votes given the vagaries of the weather and the airline schedules.
“Most members come back on Monday, and they miss a lot of votes,” Ms. Collins said in an interview in the office of the Appropriations Committee she now leads. “The plane will be delayed, there will be a storm, something happens and they don’t get here. So I almost always come back on Sunday. That means I’ve missed Sundays at home. I was figuring that it is probably like 1,000 Sundays I’ve missed over the years.”
Ms. Collins, who was a Senate staff member and Small Business Administration official before her election, did not initially intend to compile an unblemished voting record. She was aware, though, that her political idol and Senate predecessor from Maine, Margaret Chase Smith, cast nearly 3,000 consecutive votes over 13 years before hip surgery ended her streak. (Ms. Collins surpassed Ms. Chase Smith in November 2005.)
“At the end of the first Congress, I had not missed any votes, and so we put that out,” she said. “The response was tremendous from my constituents because they show up for work every day. Maine has a very strong work ethic.”
Perhaps her closest brush with a missed vote came in 2008, an election year, when she heard rumblings that majority Democrats who controlled the floor were interested in tripping her up and costing her a campaign talking point.
A vote was called while she was attending a session of the Homeland Security Committee in a nearby Senate office building, but she was assured she had time to keep working before it was gaveled to a close. She began to grow anxious, though, and told her close friend and fellow committee member, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, of her concern.
“I whispered to Joe, ‘I just don’t trust Harry Reid,’” she said, referring to the cagey Nevada Democrat who, as majority leader, controlled how long votes could be prolonged past the standard 15-minute limit. “He said, ‘Go, go,’ so I ran out. I had very high heels on that day, and I turned my ankle.”
As she exited the bank of elevators outside the Senate chamber, Republican staff members urged her to hurry.
“So I’m running on this very painful ankle, and I got to the Senate floor just as the presiding officer is saying, ‘Is there anyone else in the chamber who wishes to change their vote or cast a vote and I say, ‘Aye!’” Ms. Collins recalled.
She later injured the same ankle — over a Christmas recess, so no votes were missed — and learned that she had chipped the bone that day in her rush to the Senate floor to outsmart Mr. Reid, who later came to rely on Ms. Collins for important support during the days of the Obama administration.
She credits general good health with contributing to her record, though when she has been ill with anything potentially contagious, she has worn a mask and darted on and off the floor to cast her vote.
Others have cast more votes overall than Ms. Collins, including her Republican colleague, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, 92, who had his own streak before it was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. William Proxmire, the former Wisconsin senator, recorded more consecutive votes between 1966 and 1988, though he had missed some earlier in his career.
Ms. Collins has not, a feat that colleagues on both sides of the aisle recognized as remarkably impressive given their own scheduling experiences in making and missing votes.
“For nearly 30 years, nothing — and I mean nothing — has stopped Senator Susan Collins from coming to this floor and casting her vote on behalf of the good people of Maine,” said Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, the Republican whip. “As the Senate majority whip, it is my job to count the votes. No matter the topic, I can count on this: Susan will be here.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and minority leader who has long worked to oust Ms. Collins, crossed the aisle Thursday night to shake her hand after a speech hailing her record.
“Senator Collins and I belong to different parties and do not always see eye to eye, but 10,000 consecutive roll-call votes is an extraordinary streak by any measure, and I congratulate her on reaching it,” he said.
In the interview, Ms. Collins said the roots of her streak dated back to age 10, when schoolchildren in Aroostook County in northern Maine were given three weeks off in the fall to pick potatoes for local farmers. Her mother reminded her of the need to fulfill her commitment to farmers eager to get their crop in.
“It was really hard work, backbreaking work,” Ms. Collins said. “And that taught me a lot about working hard, keeping your commitments and showing up every day.”
Annie Karni contributed reporting.
