Mar. 3—A former engineer with SpaceX who is running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins said the Republican lawmaker is not doing enough to hold Elon Musk accountable for the indiscriminate way he is cutting government agencies and federal spending.
“What I’m most concerned about is there has been zero oversight from the Senate committee, specifically from Susan Collins, and they almost seem paralyzed or afraid to protect their constituents and that has me really concerned,” said Phillip Rench, a 37-year-old Waterboro resident who has registered as an independent candidate for Collins’ U.S. Senate seat.
Rench, who worked for Musk’s space technology company, said he believes reducing federal spending should be done “with a scalpel, not a chainsaw.” Rench criticized his former boss’ approach to slashing government spending and the lack of oversight and accountability from Congress — especially Collins, the 72-year-old chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.
“She has the ability to subpoena people and ask questions — on live television if she wants to,” Rench said. “She has a lot more power, but she’s afraid to use it. What’s the point of having a powerful state senator if she’s not actually doing everything she can to protect her constituents?”
Collins was asked Thursday by the Press Herald whether she would bring in Musk or other members of his team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to testify before the appropriations committee. Collins replied that she hadn’t considered doing so.
However, she said she plans to ask all department heads to come before the appropriations committee, and one of the lines of questioning would be how DOGE is impacting their departments and whether DOGE is interfering with how they want to run them.
Collins spokesperson Blake Kernan responded to Rench’s criticisms Friday by saying Collins is providing meaningful oversight through communications with Trump officials, pointing to her efforts to fight the administration’s cuts to federal grants for medical research, cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and tariffs on Canadian products.
“Mr. Rench seems focused only on oversight through ‘live television’ and completely ignores the actual work that the Senate does,” Kernan said. “Oversight doesn’t mean just sending press releases and doing cable television interviews. It includes direct contact and questioning of decision-makers.”
“Senator Collins has advocated on many issues directly with the vice president and the president’s chief of staff, as well as many Cabinet secretaries and nominees,” she continued. “Hearings are an important part of the oversight function. The Senate Appropriations Committee will soon begin a series of subcommittee hearings to evaluate spending requests and reductions as well as to assess compliance with congressional intent and enacted laws.”
In an interview with the Press Herald on Friday, Rench talked about his background and his concerns before launching a campaign website and social media page for his long-shot bid to unseat Collins in 2026.
He was a college student living in Orlando, Florida, when he saw an animated video of a rocket landing on earth. He knew right then that he wanted to join the team at SpaceX, a private company owned and operated by Musk, the billionaire who is now leading President Donald Trump’s controversial charge to slash the federal government and spending.
Rench said he has seen “both sides of (Musk) — the good and bad.” He’s proud of SpaceX, saying working there was “the best, most crazy time” of his life, but he declined to elaborate about his personal interactions with the man who is upending the federal government.
“It’s not about him,” he said. “It’s about the people of Maine.”
A former Democrat who grew up in southern Maine, Rench said he decided to run because he doesn’t trust Collins to defend a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions and because his work as a control system engineer has given him unique talents to solve complex problems by breaking them down and looking at things differently.
Rench knows he’s running an uphill battle in trying to unseat Collins, especially without the financial and organizational support of a major political party. However, he believes it’s important to get big money out of politics, pointing to Musk’s role in the Trump administration after spending more than $270 million to help get Trump elected last fall.
“I want to prove that a person like me, who has good intentions, who is a good person, who is decently well known in the community, can run a formidable campaign without a lot of money if they make the right decisions,” he said. “I think we need to show that to the American people. You don’t need big money to win an election. I know that may be a hill that I die on. However, I think it’s an important hill that we at least need to test.”
So far, only one other candidate besides Rench has filed papers to challenge Collins in 2026.
Natasha Alcala, a Madawaska Democrat, is the first person in her party to file paperwork. Both Alcala and Rench still need to collect signatures before becoming eligible to appear on the ballot.
Alcala also filed papers to challenge Sen. Angus King last year but never qualified for the ballot.
Staff Writer Joe Lawlor contributed to this report.
Copy the Story Link
Read the full article here