A top American Civil Liberties Union leader may challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine,
The Bangor Daily News reports.
Shenna Bellows, the ACLU executive director in Maine since 2005, is expected to announce soon that she'll run for the Democratic Senate nomination to challenge Collins, multiple Democratic sources told Daily News political columnist Rebekah Metzler.
Bellows, a liberal, has fought to legalize gay marriage, rallied against voter ID requirement efforts, and has lobbied Maine lawmakers on numerous civil liberties issues.
Collins, a three-term moderate Republican, is the favorite to win re-election next year and is expected to have a substantially larger campaign war chest than Bellows.
"The match-up would prove interesting if the two ever ended up on a debate stage together," Metzler wrote Thursday.
"Bellows would likely hammer Collins over her support for the Patriot Act, the sweeping measure passed in the wake of 9/11 that granted law enforcement broad surveillance capabilities, that opponents – like Bellows – decried for infringing on citizens’ civil liberties."
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