'Oh Shut Up': Maine's Last Senate Debate Exposed a Broken Pledge and a Court Fight

The last debate in one of the most important Senate races in the country ended Thursday night with a Democrat telling a sitting senator to "shut up," admitting billionaires are funding his campaign and leaving the door open to adding seats to the Supreme Court.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democrat Troy Jackson met at the Gracie Theater at Husson University in Bangor for the fourth and final time before the Nov. 3 election, the Portland Press Herald reported. The race could help decide which party controls the Senate. Collins, 73, is a five-term incumbent in blue-leaning Maine. Jackson, 58, is a former logger and former state Senate president who became the Democratic nominee after Graham Platner dropped out, The Hill reported.

"Oh shut up"

It was the only debate with a live audience, and about 15 minutes in, a young man stood up and started shouting about data centers. Security removed him.

"That's obviously one of Troy's supporters," Collins quipped.

"Oh shut up," Jackson shot back. "I don't even know that kid."

The protester had shown a Bowdoin Orient press badge to get in. The student paper's executive editor told the Press Herald the Orient had not sent anyone and the credential must have been fabricated.

Collins' jab was a cheap shot at a man who said he had never met the protester. Jackson's answer was worse. Telling a five-term senator to shut up on a debate stage is not plain-spoken. It is rude, and voters notice how candidates treat opponents when the cameras are on.

The billionaire problem

The sharpest exchange came when Collins used her question to press Jackson on his pledge not to take money from billionaires and corporate PACs. She noted that his campaign has been running joint ads with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which she said took money from 28 billionaires and 190 corporate PACs. The Press Herald reported Jackson seemed caught off guard and at first confused the joint ads with independent super PACs.

Then he conceded the point. "As far as billionaires that I might have on my campaign, that is accurate, but I haven't made any deals like Sen. Collins has with those billionaires," he said. "I'm going to tax those billionaires when I get the U.S. Senate." Earlier Thursday he announced he would give away $15,000 from oil and pharmaceutical lobbyists.

Big money in politics is a fair concern, and Dock Line has raised it about donors on the right too, including Elon Musk's record spending this cycle. But a candidate who makes a pledge the centerpiece of his campaign should keep it, or not make it. "Let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay" (Matthew 5:37).

The Supreme Court

On the court, the difference was clear. Jackson said he supports term limits and enforceable ethics rules and is open to adding justices, saying the court is working for Trump and "the billionaire class." "We have the best court that money can buy right now," he said.

Collins said expanding the court would go "completely against the vision of those who wrote the Constitution." When a moderator pointed out that the number nine is not in the Constitution, she held her ground. "It's inconsistent with the whole idea of the Supreme Court being insulated from politics," she said. "That would make it a totally political body."

She is right. Packing the court whenever a party dislikes its rulings would turn the court into one more prize to be won at the ballot box, and the next majority would simply pack it back.

Trump, guns and the record

Jackson spent much of the night tying Collins to President Trump. "The reality is that 100 percent of the time, when Donald Trump needs her, Susan Collins is going to be there," he said, according to The Hill. Collins said she has sided with the president 72% of the time and pointed to her votes to confirm three Supreme Court justices nominated by Democratic presidents. Asked to name a time she changed an outcome by voting against Trump, she cited her effort to block Pete Hegseth's confirmation as defense secretary, which fell short.

On guns, the answers surprised. Collins said she supported the 1990s assault weapons ban, backs "reasonable limits" on magazine capacity and would be open to raising the age to buy an assault weapon. Jackson opposed raising the age, but said he would not oppose an assault weapons ban, only taking guns away from people who already have them, the Press Herald reported. "I don't see a good reason for assault weapons," he said.

Conservatives have plenty of disagreements with Collins. But on the court she defended the Constitution's design, and on the money question she caught her opponent breaking his own promise. Maine voters will decide Nov. 3.

Hero photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.