Recently the Maine Democratic Party chairwoman staged a press conference in Bangor to criticize the tireless efforts of our two U.S. senators and their response to the senseless and cowardly attacks of Sept. 11. In simply untrue press statements – intended only to mislead the public and distract the senators – these few activists argued that Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have failed newly unemployed Maine workers.

Nothing could be more false. In fact, Sen. Collins was the first to introduce the only bipartisan bill to provide extended (by 13 weeks) unemployment benefits to displaced workers. More recently, of course, both senators have led a centrist and bipartisan coalition to introduce legislation that will bridge the gap between all of the competing interests on Capitol Hill. The senators’ bill provides desperately needed assistance with the cost of health insurance coverage and it contains the same 13-week extension of unemployment benefits to Maine’s jobless.

It was hardly a month ago that Sen. Collins announced that she had persuaded the U.S. Department of Labor to provide funding for an assistance center in Dexter for former Dexter Shoe employees. Now, Sen. Collins is leading again – as has become her custom – to forge consensus where none has existed in the past several weeks.

The few misinformed activists responsible for the Bangor press conference apparently prefer to have the Congress idled by partisan bickering – which has been mercifully absent since Sept. 11. I think Maine’s working men and women, and their families, deserve better. Apparently, Maine’s two U.S. senators do also.

James O. Donnelly

Brewer