Collins, who won a competitive re-election last year in a state that President Joe Biden carried, escapes censorship because some of his Republican colleagues in Congress have faced reactions at home, including censorship from their state parties, for upsetting the former president.
The committee’s final vote was 19 to 41 to censor Collins, his office said in a statement, which the Republican Party of Maine also confirmed to CNN.
“The party leadership considers this issue resolved now and the team is preparing to win the elections in 2022,” Jason Savage, executive director of the Maine GOP, told CNN on Saturday.
In a statement on Saturday, Collins called the committee’s vote “a testament to the Republican Party’s ‘big tent’ philosophy that respects different points of view but unites around central principles.”
“We strongly disagree with your vote on this issue and condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” wrote some members of the committee – including the president and vice president of the state party – in a letter to Collins at the time. Some members thought that Trump’s second impeachment trial was politically motivated and unconstitutional, considering that Trump was no longer in office.
They added that they heard from Mainers across the state that they were “almost universally outraged by this action and demanded that we take action in response”.
But committee members also said they “want to continue to work” with Collins “to help expand that electoral success and replicate it in other contests in Maine and throughout New England.”
Collins, the only New England Republican remaining in Congress, was elected to a fifth term in November. She cannot be re-elected until 2026.
The moderate Republican senator defended her vote. In a speech on February 13 to the Senate floor, she said that “Trump’s actions to interfere with the peaceful transition of power – the hallmark of our Constitution and our American democracy – have been an abuse of power and constitute the basis for condemnation” .