Susan Collins has been the senator from Maine for twenty-nine years, during which time she’s received scrutiny for her coziness with corporate donors, her record on war with Iran, and her votes against lowering prescription drug prices, among other things. But one of the most impactful measures on Maine workers that she took happened well before she first went to Washington.

In an episode that’s little remembered today, in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Collins led the way on a set of reforms to Maine’s workers’ compensation system that saw the state government shut down for the first time in its history and led to major cuts to injured workers’ benefits. Appointed to the task by an insurance-industry-friendly Republican governor, Collins — then a state official who had never held elected office — ardently pursued the changes, openly appealing to the insurance industry to help push them through, and pushing for far-reaching cuts that were only prevented because Republicans lacked the numbers in the state legislature.

Collins has carved out a reputation as a moderate in the Senate, a reputation at odds with her tendency to vote in alignment with Donald Trump’s position more than 90 percent of the time. But as her early role in cutting benefits for injured Maine workers recalls, Collins has also had a long history as an ideologically driven servant of the business sector.