Let me take you back, dear readers, to 1994, when eight candidates were seeking the Republican nomination for governor of Maine. I was a very junior copy editor helping out in the Editorial Department at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, and was thus in the room taking notes when the paper invited all eight candidates in for a roundtable interview.

There was no clear front-runner at that moment, so a lot depended on how well these people, some of them fairly obscure, managed to impress the editors in the room. Some made impassioned speeches on behalf of pet issues, some fumbled to answer questions and one stood out by being quiet and saying, “I think we should listen to the voters.”

That one was Susan Collins, and the Telegram’s endorsement helped win her the nomination.

“Listen to the voters.” Does Sen. Collins remember that? Where is that spirit now, when the voters clamor for her to reject Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court?

As a disabled small-business owner who relies on the Affordable Care Act, as a woman who likes making my own health care decisions and as a human being who prefers the Supreme Court to be peopled with jurists of dignity and integrity, I cannot urge her strongly enough to vote “no.”

Patricia J. Washburn

Portland