Susan Collins Does Exactly What Susan Collins Always Does

Thomas Farr, a former lawyer for the repugnant segregationist North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms, is up for lifetime appointment as a federal judge. Naturally, he has the full support of Sen. Susan Collins.

Less than two weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell filed for cloture on a pair of judicial nominations, including Farr’s nomination to become a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina. According to NBC’s Frank Thorp, Collins—one of the most partisan members of the Senate—will provide McConnell with her vote on Farr’s confirmation, bringing the total to 50-50, with all 49 Democrats opposed and Republican Sen. Jeff Flake remaining a “No” vote thanks to his half-hearted stance on the Mueller investigation before he leaves office next month.

Should the vote totals hold for the official tally, it seems likely that Vice President Mike Pence will step in for what would be the 10th time and break the tie.

This is the fourth time Farr has made his way through the nomination process, the earliest coming back in 2006 under George W. Bush. Farr rose through the uber-conservative ranks as a campaign lawyer for Helms, and has since used his time and power to lobby for every racist voter suppression tactic the North Carolina GOP could cook up, including a set of redistricting maps that a judge found “targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision.”

He is Bad, to say the least, and the absolute last person that should sit on a court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, a district in which African-Americans make up 30 percent of the population. “His nomination is a travesty,” the NAACP said in a statement earlier this month. “His confirmation would be heresy.”

Collins will vote for a man with this record because she lives to hew to the party line. This is not new, surprising, or shocking. It’s just a confirmation that you’d need to suspend disbelief in order to think she’d ever act any other way.