As Senator Collins Weighs Vote, Maine Women Size Up Blasey and Kavanaugh

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/us/politics/blasey-kavanaugh-collins-maine.html

Version 0 of 1.

BANGOR, Me. — Darcey Fraser, a farmer who opposes abortion rights, suspected a partisan motive. Andrea Irwin, a survivor of sexual abuse, was an ardent champion. And Katrina Petersen, who has registered with neither party, purposely avoided cable news before the hearing to keep an open mind.

But when Christine Blasey Ford began testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee around 10:30 a.m. Thursday, the women all listened in transfixed silence to her story of alleged sexual assault that has not only divided the country but forced their senator, Susan Collins, into a tough decision on whether to support the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

And when Judge Kavanaugh furiously, tearfully denied Dr. Blasey’s accusation, the women fell silent again, trying to sort through which diametrically different version of reality persuaded them.

“I came into this thinking that she was a complete liar, a big hoax, that this was a political stance,” Ms. Fraser said after Dr. Blasey testified. “Now I don’t know.” Then, after Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony: “He does not to me sound like he’s lying, and neither did she. It’s one of those really hard things.

“I don’t know.”

By the end of Thursday’s testimony, the women gathered in a co-working office space in downtown Bangor were about evenly divided on whether Senator Collins should vote yes or no on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination. Whatever the senator decides will be crucial: She is one of a handful of Republicans whose vote on Judge Kavanaugh is an open question and will determine his fate.

Last month, Senator Collins signaled that Judge Kavanaugh had convinced her that he saw Roe v. Wade as settled law, and she appeared to be leaning toward supporting him. But after Dr. Blasey came forward, she pushed to delay the hearings to allow her to testify, but remained noncommittal about her vote. She has come under intense pressure from constituents on both sides, with protesters appearing at her office in Washington and at local events in Maine.

While Senator Collins’s conclusions about Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh remained unclear Thursday night, several of the 15 women — who came and went through the daylong testimony — were visibly torn.

Some of the women nodded when Dr. Blasey spoke; some grimaced or flinched during Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony. They sighed loudly at times, exasperated at what they saw as political grandstanding by senators at the expense of fact-finding.

And polite sparring among some of the women soon gave way to an intense, personal exchange about experiences with sexual assault. There was a palpable sense of whiplash, a mix of sorrow, empathy, anger and bewilderment in the room. As the emotions and accusations flew back and forth on television, the women strained to keep talking to each other across the gulf of politics.

Ms. Petersen, by the end, knew what she believed. “I think that the man he is now is not the person he was in high school and college,” she said. “I believe he’s not that guy now. I believe that he did it, he doesn’t remember it. I feel terrible that his wife and his children are being subjected to this.”

Katelynn Ronan, 24, who has just become an attorney, came down on the other side. After Dr. Blasey testified, she said, “There are parts of her story, her opening statement when she was crying, you want to believe she’s telling the truth.” But by the end, she backed Judge Kavanaugh: “Listening to the judge’s opening statements gave me chills. I do believe something happened to her. I do believe Judge Kavanaugh has been through the wringer. I do look forward to his confirmation.”

For many, listening to the hearings meant wrestling with conscience, pitting personal convictions against what they heard and watched.

“Someone is not telling the truth, but we don’t know which party it is,” said Mary Regan Brakey, 65, a retired associate professor of nursing at the University of Maine who opposes abortion rights. “I’m trying to separate out my political beliefs. It’s very difficult.”

They debated whether there should be an F.B.I. investigation. They questioned why more witnesses were not called. Some women were put off by his display of anger; others saw a man understandably emotional in his own defense.

“I was taken with the amount of emotion and unraveling,” said Pamela Rogoski, a retired project manager who now splits her year between Maine and Arizona. “I feel for him. The amount of venom when he talks about Democrats and the other side, to me is a disqualification right there.”

Looking at one another, the women marveled at how unusual it was from them to be in a room of people with strong and clashing political views, and yet stay civil even when they disagreed.

Jean Barry, a high school science teacher who opposes abortion rights but said the Supreme Court nomination should be about more than one issue, said of Dr. Blasey: “It’s unfortunate that she didn’t come forward right after it happened.”

Ms. Irwin shot back, “It’s unfortunate that it happened.”

Ms. Barry nonetheless marveled at finding herself in the company of women like Ms. Irwin, who serves as the executive director of the Mabel Wadsworth Center, which offers prenatal and abortion services. “We are pro-life activists, the three of us, and over here is Mabel Wadsworth. To have all of us in a room, that’s pretty awesome,” she said.

Ms. Irwin said she was appalled at the politicization of issues that haunt sexual abuse survivors.

“It was a disservice,” she said. “I was disappointed at all the politicization. I don’t doubt that he’s a good person, a great dad. But I’m sad knowing that there are a lot of survivors listening to this today. It really breaks my heart.”

The conversation turned, as it often has over the past two weeks, to the experiences of sexual abuse and harassment. Sarah Sullivan, who is working to build her own business, said she had to drop a client because of an incident. “I was never a feminist,” she said. “I was kind of conservative. I’m really tired of the boys will be boys thing.”

The women were eager to hear facts, not political score-settling. At one point, when Senator Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat, was speaking, Abigail Despres, a sophomore at the University of Maine who was sympathetic to Dr. Blasey and formerly interned at Planned Parenthood, broke in, “That’s just for show!”

And when Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, attacked Democrats for partisanship, Ms. Irwin burst out: “What about Merrick Garland?”

“I just want to puke,” said Ms. Petersen, who used to work for large banks and is now an entrepreneur. “Half of what we’ve watched is them politicizing everything.”

Some of the women, Democrat and Republican, said the accusations had already cast a shadow over Judge Kavanaugh and the court. Emily McLaughlin, a college sophomore and former treasurer for the University of Maine College Republicans, said she ended up torn, believing both Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh’s emotional denials. But she wondered if there were alternatives. “Especially from the Republican Party, is this the best we can do? There was a short list.”

As divided as the women were about Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh, they were united on one point: when Rachel Mitchell, the prosecutor who questioned Dr. Blasey for Republicans, noted that asking questions in five-minute increments was not the state of the art for questioning sexual abuse, the room burst into peals of laughter.

“Finally, the truth,” one said.