Collins Spreads Spoils of Her Power Around With Tough Race Ahead

The fire station in Dixmont, Maine, population 1,200, doesn’t have running water when a nearby spring dries up over the summer. Employees have to go home to use the bathroom.

In Maine’s brutal winters, the 1970s-era metal building doesn’t retain much heat, Fire Chief Ryan Hopkins said. And the town about 20 miles southwest of Bangor doesn’t have the tax base to afford a new building.

So when Hopkins heard early this year that Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the newly selected chair of the money-steering Appropriations Committee, was touring a fire station in nearby Plymouth, he made his pitch.

“I ...