The Senate narrowly advanced the White House’s $9 billion rescissions package late Tuesday night, with Vice President JD Vance forced to break a 50-50 tie on the first two procedural votes.
Senate Republican leaders expect to pass the measure by Thursday, with a vote-a-rama set to begin this afternoon. Then the legislation will be sent to the House for final approval. Congress has to approve the rescissions package by Friday or the White House must spend the funds as they were originally appropriated.
Yet the bigger story inside the Senate may be who opposed last night’s procedural votes and why. Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), along with Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — also senior appropriators — voted against moving forward with the GOP-only effort.
For Collins, it’s the second time in recent weeks that the Appropriations Committee chair went against her friend and ally Senate Majority Leader John Thune on a major issue.
More importantly, Collins has found herself opposing President Donald Trump’s top legislative priorities. This comes after voting no on some high-profile Trump nominees, including Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary and Kash Patel for FBI director. Collins — like Murkowski — voted to convict Trump in 2021 following the Senate trial over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
Things will only get tougher for the veteran Maine Republican. Collins will be at the center of the government-funding fight in September and what could be a bruising reelection campaign in next year’s midterm elections. Yet it would be a major blow to Thune and Senate Republicans if the 72-year-old Collins decides not to run again.
Opposing the “One Big Beautiful Bill” and the proposed rescissions package, in fact, may help Collins back home. Thune knows that Collins — the lone New England Republican in the Senate — is the only GOP candidate who can win statewide in Maine. Former VP Kamala Harris carried the Pine Tree State by a solid margin back in November.
“Everybody cuts her a lot of slack. She represents a very blue state,” Thune told us. “She sees the world through a different lens. She’s always very up-front about what she’s going to do.”
Thune acknowledged that supporting the rescissions package — which includes cuts to foreign aid while also slashing $1 billion-plus of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports NPR and PBS — is “a tough issue if you’re an appropriator.” Thune added, however, “We got the result we needed.”
“Susan Collins is one of the most respected senators. Susan is one who votes on principle and she also understands she represents Maine,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), a close Thune ally who chaired the NRSC last cycle.
Thune has to be careful that Collins isn’t being discouraged from running in 2026 as he continues to push Trump’s agenda. Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has been floated as a potential challenger, although at age 77, this may be a stretch. Democratic Rep. Jared Golden has already said he won’t run for Senate.
In the coming months, Collins will have to manage an appropriations process that’s hanging by a thread as Republicans push this party-line rescissions package. Democrats have warned that a successful rescissions effort may doom a bipartisan funding deal.
“It makes it really challenging for us to have any kind of trust, to have any kind of compromise going forward,” Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the Appropriations Committee’s top Democrat, said before the Tuesday votes.
Collins issued a lengthy statement on her no votes, complaining that the Trump administration officials haven’t been specific about what they’re trying to cut using the rescissions process, which avoids any Senate Democratic filibuster.
“The rescissions package has a big problem — nobody really knows what program reductions are in it,” Collins said.
Earlier in the day, we asked Collins whether she was worried about any fallout from Trump or Senate Republicans for voting against OBBB and the rescissions measure.
“I’m not gonna discuss the factors that are going into my decision-making,” Collins said. “I am pleased that PEPFAR funding — which has been restored — is in the bill.” Senate GOP leaders restored $400 million in funding for the global HIV/AIDS prevention program following complaints from Collins and other Republicans.
The new ‘three amigos’? Collins has been on an island lately, something that’s become especially evident during closed-door Senate GOP Conference meetings, according to GOP senators. Collins has been speaking out against the rescissions effort for weeks now, particularly the PEPFAR cuts.
Yet Collins’ other warnings — chiefly that OMB refused to provide a detailed breakdown of how the proposed cuts will be implemented — fell on mostly deaf ears in the Senate Republican Conference.
“OMB is the problem,” McConnell told reporters on his no vote. “They won’t tell us how they’re going to apply the cuts.”
McConnell, the longtime Senate GOP leader who is retiring after this Congress, disputed the notion that it’s problematic that Collins, as the Appropriations Committee chair, so prominently voted against her leadership on two major bills.
And Murkowski told us she’s not worried about any blowback from fellow GOP senators over her own “no“ votes:
“Do I calculate how my colleagues are going to think about an individual vote? These are all matters that we have to determine, we all have an election certificate. And I respect others’ election certificates. And I hope they respect mine.”
