Susan Collins on Cabinet Confirmations: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Homeland Security and Pentagon Leaders, and What Their Agencies Did to Maine

On February 13, 2025, Susan Collins voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, 52-48. Kennedy's department ended federal public-health contracts with the Maine CDC, and the federal CDC lost 30%, or more than 3,800 employees. Collins also voted to confirm Kristi Noem and Markwayne Mullin at Homeland Security, whose department held nearly 70,000 people in ICE detention by March 2026, and the Pentagon leaders who ran the war with Iran.

Before her vote, Collins said Kennedy assured her that he believes the polio vaccine works; four months later he fired the government's vaccine advisers.

The Officials Susan Collins Voted to Confirm and What Their Agencies Did

• Collins Voted to Confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Whose Department Cut the CDC and Rewrote Vaccine Policy. On February 13, 2025, Susan Collins voted to confirm Kennedy as secretary of health and human services, 52-48. The CDC lost 30%, or more than 3,800 employees, between March 2025 and May 2026. In June 2025 Kennedy fired and replaced all the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and the U.S. has reported nearly 3,887 confirmed cases of measles as of October 1, more than in any year since 1991, KFF reported in 2026.
• Collins Voted to Confirm the Homeland Security Leaders Under Whom Detention and Deaths Rose. Collins voted to confirm Kristi Noem as secretary of homeland security on January 25, 2025, Rodney Scott as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection on June 18, 2025, and Markwayne Mullin as Noem's successor on March 23, 2026. Nearly 70,000 people were in ICE detention by March 2026, and ICE recorded 31 detainee deaths, a two-decade high, in 2025. In Minneapolis in January 2026, an ICE officer killed Renee Good and Border Patrol agents killed Alex Pretti, a VA intensive care nurse, and the county medical examiner ruled Good's death a homicide, and no criminal charges had been filed as of October 2026.
• Collins Voted to Confirm Mehmet Oz, Whose Agency Projects 2.3 Million Fewer People on Medicaid. On April 3, 2025, Collins voted to confirm Mehmet Oz as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 53-45. In June 2026 his agency issued the rule carrying out the Medicaid work requirement, projecting that "enrollment would be reduced by 2.3 million individuals in FY 2027".
• Collins Voted to Confirm the Pentagon's Second-Ranking Official and the Military's Top Officer, Who Helped Lead the Iran War. On March 14, 2025, Collins voted to confirm Stephen Feinberg as deputy secretary of defense, and on April 11, 2025 she voted to confirm General Dan Caine as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Both have helped lead the war with Iran that began February 28, 2026, in which at least 21 U.S. service members have died and 865 have been wounded, at a Pentagon-estimated cost of $43.6 billion.
• Collins Voted to Confirm Russell Vought, Who Directed Federal Layoffs and Canceled Funds Congress Approved. On February 6, 2025, Collins voted to confirm Vought as budget director, 53-47. His office directed agencies to plan large layoffs, and by August 2026 the government workforce was 264,000 employees smaller, a decrease of about 12%. His office also used a pocket rescission to claw back $4.9 billion in funding in August 2025, a method the Government Accountability Office says is not allowed: "The President may not force the expiration of budget authority Congress has already enacted and did not rescind."
• Collins Voted to Confirm Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche to Run the Justice Department. Collins voted to confirm Bondi as attorney general on February 4, 2025 and Blanche as deputy attorney general on March 5, 2025. Their department's January 2026 release of the Epstein files had thousands of redaction failures on behalf of nearly 100 individual survivors, ABC News reported, and it terminated crime-prevention and victim-services grants initially valued at about $820 million, according to the Council on Criminal Justice.
• Collins Voted to Confirm Marco Rubio, Who Ran USAID as It Was Shut Down. On January 20, 2025, Collins voted to confirm Rubio as secretary of state, 99-0. As acting head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Rubio oversaw its shutdown on July 1, 2025, after cancelling 83% of its programs, and a Lancet study projected that 14 million lives could be lost as a result of the cuts.
• Collins Voted to Confirm the Commerce Secretary and Trade Representative Behind the Tariffs Still in Force. Collins voted to confirm Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary on February 18, 2025 and Jamieson Greer as trade representative on February 26, 2025. Their agencies' tariffs still in force include steel and aluminum duties raised to 50 percent and Greer's July 2026 tariffs on 60 economies, and the Yale Budget Lab estimated in August 2026 that tariffs under current law cost households about $1,100 a year.
• Collins Voted to Confirm the Leaders of the VA and Social Security as Both Lost Thousands of Staff. Collins voted to confirm Doug Collins as veterans affairs secretary on February 4, 2025 and Frank Bisignano as Social Security commissioner on May 6, 2025. The VA was "on pace to reduce total VA staff by nearly 30,000 employees" in 2025, and Social Security cut roughly 7,500 employees (13 percent) from January 2025 to January 2026, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
• Collins Voted to Confirm the Agriculture, Education and Housing Secretaries Who Cut Their Departments. Collins voted to confirm Brooke Rollins at Agriculture on February 13, 2025, Scott Turner at Housing and Urban Development on February 5, 2025 and Linda McMahon at Education on March 3, 2025. USDA cut its staff by about 20 percent in 2025, Civil Eats reported; HUD went down to roughly 6,300 workers; and the Education Department's workforce fell from 4,133 employees to 2,183, the Hechinger Report found.
• Collins Voted to Confirm the EPA Administrator Who Terminated Solar Aid for Low-Income Households and Repealed Vehicle Emission Standards. Collins voted to confirm Lee Zeldin at the EPA on January 29, 2025. In August 2025 Zeldin's EPA terminated the $7 billion Solar for All program, intended to bring solar power to nearly one million low-income households across the country, and a federal judge vacated the termination on September 18, 2026, ruling that the EPA had acted illegally. Zeldin's EPA also finalized its repeal of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for cars and trucks.
• Collins Voted to Confirm the Civil Rights Chief Who Shrank Voting-Rights Enforcement. On April 3, 2025, Collins voted to confirm Harmeet Dhillon to lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. The staff of its voting section dwindled from approximately 30 lawyers down to about 6, the Brennan Center found, and the division moved to dismiss lawsuits against the Louisville, Kentucky and Minneapolis police departments.
• Collins Voted to Confirm Kelly Loeffler, Who Cut the Small Business Administration's Staff by 43 Percent. On February 19, 2025, Collins voted to confirm Loeffler to lead the Small Business Administration. A month later the agency said "the agency will reduce its workforce by 43%", leaving fewer staff to process small-business and disaster loans.
• Collins Said Kennedy Had Assured Her About the Polio Vaccine; His Department Fired the Vaccine Advisers. Before voting for him, Collins said Kennedy assured her that he believes the polio vaccine is effective, Maine Public reported on February 11, 2025. Kennedy's handpicked vaccine committee later voted to end the 34-year-old recommendation that all newborns receive the hepatitis B vaccine, and in Maine, eligible residents who wanted a COVID-19 shot at a pharmacy in 2025 will need a prescription, Maine Public reported.
• Collins Did Not Say Whether Kristi Noem Should Stay After the Minneapolis Killings. On January 27, 2026, NOTUS reported that Collins did not respond to direct questions on whether Noem should remain as DHS secretary. Noem remained in charge until Markwayne Mullin replaced her, confirmed with Collins's vote on March 23, 2026.
• Collins Did Not Respond on the EPA Repeal of the Endangerment Finding. In March 2026 advocates faulted Collins for not publicly opposing the EPA's repeal of the endangerment finding, and Inside Climate News, in a story published by Maine Morning Star, wrote that "Multiple attempts to reach Collins's office for this article were unsuccessful". The repeal removed the legal basis for federal greenhouse gas limits; EPA finalized its repeal of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for vehicles.

What the Agencies Run by Officials Susan Collins Confirmed Have Done in Maine

• Public health. Under Kennedy, $91 million in federal U.S. public health contracts to the state ended on March 24, 2025, and at least 40 subcontracted Maine CDC workers lost their jobs, WABI reported. Maine joined the states' lawsuit against the cuts, and in blue states, nearly 80% of the CDC grant cuts have been restored, KFF Health News reported in August 2025; the Maine CDC layoffs had already taken effect.
• Immigration arrests. During ICE's January 2026 operation in Maine, immigration lawyers said "it's mostly people without criminal records who are being arrested", NPR reported.
• Veterans care. VA Maine designated 73 occupations as severe staffing shortages in fiscal 2026, according to the VA inspector general's table for the VA Maine Healthcare System in Augusta.
• Medicaid. Maine's Department of Health and Human Services expects 31,000+ disenrollments in year 1 of the Medicaid work requirement that Oz's agency is carrying out.

Frequently Asked Questions About Susan Collins on Cabinet confirmations

Last updated: 2026-10-25

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