WASHINGTON — Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, a moderate whose vote could prove decisive in filling the Supreme Court’s vacant seat, said Sunday that she would not vote for a nominee who showed “hostility’’ toward Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion.
“A candidate for this important position who would overturn Roe v. Wade would not be acceptable to me, because that would indicate an activist agenda that I don’t want to see a judge have,’’ Collins said on ABC’s “This Week.’’
In another interview, on CNN’s “State of the Union,’’ the senator said such a decision “would mean to me their judicial philosophy did not include a respect for established decisions, established law.’’
“And I believe that that is the very important fundamental tenet of our judicial system, which, as Chief Justice Roberts says, helps to promote stability and even handedness,’’ she added, referring to John G. Roberts Jr., the court’s chief justice.
The remarks appeared to edge beyond the position that Collins staked out in conversations with reporters last week, when she made clear that she saw Roe v. Wade as precedent that should not be overturned. She had not said explicitly that the view could sway her vote.
A longtime target for conservatives, abortion rights and the court’s liberal decision in Roe v. Wade have emerged as one of the major flash points in the fight over filling the seat left by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy when he retires this summer.
Collins, among the few remaining voices of centrism in the Republican Party, is one of two Republican senators who have supported abortion rights and, in the past, have shown themselves willing to break with their party.
The other is Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska. Because Republicans have only the narrowest of majorities in the Senate, their votes could sink or elevate whomever President Trump nominates to fill the seat.
Murkowski, for her part, has said she will consider a nominee’s views on the abortion rights case, but that it alone would not be a litmus test for her choice.
Republicans hold a narrow 51 to 49 majority in the Senate, and it’s even closer because of the absence of ailing Senator John McCain of Arizona.
Even though majority Leader Mitch McConnell changed Senate rules last year to allow confirmation by simple majority, if Democrats hold together, he cannot afford defections. Vice President Mike Pence can be called on to break a tie.
Both Collins and Murkowski were among a small group of moderate Republicans and Democrats who met with Trump to discuss the pick at the White House last week.
Collins said Sunday that she could not support some of the names on a list of 25 highly conservative jurists from which Trump has said he will choose. She said she urged the president to broaden his list.
“I think the president should not feel bound by that list and instead should seek out recommendations to ensure that he gets the best possible person,’’ she said on ABC.
Trump told reporters Friday that he had reduced that list to around five candidates, including two women.
In an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,’’ Trump reiterated that he was advised not to ask candidates for the open seat about their position on overturning the abortion rights case.
But the president has said previously that he would seek to appoint judges that would roll back abortion rights. And the candidates included on his broader list were vetted by the conservative Federalist Society, suggesting that all the nominees are, at a minimum, not supportive of abortion rights.
He also hailed Justice Neil Gorsuch, his first Supreme Court appointee, who sided with the conservative majority on several major closely decided cases this term.
“If the Democrats would have won the election . . . you would have had a lot different. If you look at the last four decisions in the Supreme Court at 5 to 4, they would have all been reversed,’’ he said.
Collins said she believes that neither Roberts nor Gorsuch, whom she voted to confirm to the court last year, would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Collins said Gorsuch, who wrote a book on judicial precedents, “understands how important a principle that is in our judicial system.’’
Pressed to account for the court’s recent decisions overturning precedent in other cases, Collins said she viewed the abortion rights case as long-settled law not subject to the same revision.
Liberals leading the charge against Trump’s potential picks quickly dismissed Collins’s remarks, suggesting that the senator was either being hoodwinked or knowingly obfuscating her position.
They pointed to court decisions as recently as last week — when the justices overturned a four-decade-old precedent in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees to deal a blow to organized labor — in which it reversed earlier rulings.
Senator Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, said Collins and Murkowski should be highly skeptical of assurances about precedent, particularly in the confirmation process, when nominees frequently decline to speculate on potential rulings.
“Justice Gorsuch told her that he would respect precedent, and yet he has voted against precedent just this week with the Janus case,’’ Duckworth said on “State of the Union.’’
