Centrist Independent Voter endorses Senator Jon Ossoff for reelection to the United States Senate from Georgia.
Ossoff is a Democrat, and we do not agree with him on every issue. But during his first term he has established a substantial record of bipartisan legislation, attention to Georgia’s interests and respect for the institutional responsibilities of the Senate.
He has worked with Republicans on criminal justice, veterans, public safety and government accountability. His bipartisan Federal Prison Oversight Act, developed with Republican Senator Mike Braun and others after bipartisan investigations of corruption and abuse in federal prisons, became law in 2024. See: Federal Prison Oversight Act
But this endorsement ultimately rests on something larger than a collection of individual legislative accomplishments.
Foreign Policy and Ukraine
Foreign policy provides an important contrast with Republican nominee Mike Collins.
Ossoff supported the 2024 national-security package providing assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Collins was among the 112 House Republicans who voted against the Ukraine assistance package, while 101 Republicans joined Democrats to pass it. See: Official House vote on Ukraine assistance
Centrist Independent Voter believes continued resistance to Russian aggression is important not merely to Ukraine. If the United States and its allies abandon a democratic country invaded by a much larger authoritarian neighbor, the consequences will be noticed in Moscow, Beijing and everywhere else governments contemplate changing borders by force.
The Larger Issue: Constitutional Government
Ordinarily, Centrist Independent Voter evaluates candidates primarily on economic policy, foreign affairs, social questions and their willingness to work across party lines.
The second Trump administration requires us to add another consideration: will members of Congress defend the constitutional institutions they themselves serve?
The Trump administration has repeatedly blurred distinctions that previous administrations generally recognized between presidential authority, partisan political interest and the personal interests of the president.
The Justice Department provides one of the most disturbing examples. Trump publicly demanded action against political adversaries including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. After U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert failed to move against them as Trump wished, Trump replaced him with Lindsey Halligan, a former personal attorney with no previous prosecutorial experience. Former federal prosecutors warned that the sequence threatened the tradition that criminal prosecution should be insulated from presidential retaliation against political opponents. See: Reuters examination of the Justice Department episode
That does not mean every investigation of a Trump opponent is illegitimate or that anyone is immune from prosecution because he or she is politically prominent. It means that presidents should not direct the criminal-justice system against people because they are political enemies. The distinction is fundamental to the rule of law.
The administration has also weakened mechanisms designed to detect misconduct inside government. Days after returning to office, Trump fired approximately 17 inspectors general at federal agencies without providing Congress the notice required by law. A federal judge later concluded that the dismissals violated the Inspector General Act, although she declined to order the watchdogs reinstated. See: Court ruling on the inspector-general firings
Inspectors general are not bureaucratic decoration. They exist to uncover fraud, waste, corruption and abuse inside administrations of either party. Removing them en masse weakens one of the principal internal guardrails on executive power.
The boundary between public policy and the Trump family’s private financial interests has become similarly difficult to discern. Trump reported more than $1.4 billion in income from family cryptocurrency ventures in 2025, at the same time his administration was pursuing policies favorable to the cryptocurrency industry. See: Reuters analysis of Trump’s cryptocurrency income
That does not by itself establish criminal conduct, and Centrist Independent Voter does not allege it. But financial arrangements of this magnitude create conflicts between public responsibility and private interest that presidents of either party should avoid.
Democrats are not innocent of institutional abuses. Democratic presidents have stretched executive authority, Democratic legislators have sometimes excused conduct they would condemn under a Republican president, and partisans of both parties have demonstrated an impressive capacity to rediscover constitutional principles when the other party controls the White House.
Those failures deserve criticism.
But acknowledging them does not require pretending that every abuse is equivalent. The cumulative pattern during Trump’s second term—political pressure on federal law enforcement, removal of independent watchdogs, extraordinary conflicts between presidential responsibilities and family financial interests, and repeated assertions of powers properly belonging to Congress—is of a different magnitude. A reflexive “both sides do it” response is inadequate.
And the responsibility does not belong to Trump alone.
Much of Congress has allowed it to happen.
The Senate’s Failure of Independence
The Senate has a constitutional obligation to exercise independent judgment over presidential appointments. Advice and consent is not supposed to mean automatic approval of anyone nominated by a president of the senator’s own party.
During Trump’s second term, too many Republican senators treated it that way.
Ossoff voted against Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, Kash Patel for FBI director and Pam Bondi for attorney general. These nominees presented, in differing combinations, serious questions involving qualifications, relevant experience, judgment or independence from the president.
The official Senate roll calls document Ossoff’s votes: See: Hegseth, Kennedy, Gabbard, Patel and Bondi.
When Trump later nominated Walter “Jay” Clayton to replace Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, Ossoff again voted no. See: Official Senate vote on Clayton
Clayton’s confirmation hearing illustrated why this matters. Ossoff repeatedly asked him a remarkably simple factual question: who won the 2020 presidential election? Clayton would acknowledge that Joe Biden had been certified president but repeatedly refused to say plainly that Biden had won. See: Associated Press account of the Clayton hearing
In intelligence work, the product is of little value if pleasing the president’s ego is more important than telling the truth.
Congress Cannot Surrender Its Own Powers
The same institutional failure extends beyond appointments.
The Constitution gives Congress enormous authority over both foreign commerce and war. Yet Republican majorities have repeatedly permitted Trump to exercise those powers with remarkably little congressional restraint.
Ossoff voted for a bipartisan Senate resolution terminating the national emergency Trump used to impose sweeping global tariffs. It passed 51–47, with several Republicans joining Democrats. See: Official Senate vote on Trump’s global-tariff emergency
When Trump took the United States into war with Iran without prior congressional authorization, Ossoff opposed the action and called for Congress to convene immediately and pass a War Powers Resolution asserting its constitutional authority over war and peace. See: Ossoff statement on Iran and congressional war powers
A Congress unwilling to say no to a president is not performing its constitutional function.
Collins Has Had Opportunities to Show Independence
Mike Collins was not a senator when Hegseth, Kennedy, Gabbard, Patel, Bondi and Clayton came before the Senate. It would therefore be unfair to blame him for confirmation votes he never had the opportunity to cast.
But Collins has served in the House throughout Trump’s second term. Voters do not have to speculate about how he responds when congressional authority conflicts with presidential wishes.
They can examine his record.
When the House considered resolutions directing Trump to remove American forces from unauthorized hostilities with Iran, Collins repeatedly voted no. He opposed such resolutions in April, May, June and July 2026. The July resolution ultimately passed because four Republicans joined Democrats in asserting Congress’s war-powers authority. Collins was not among them. See: April vote May vote June vote July vote
Congress also had an opportunity to challenge Trump’s unilateral tariff authority. In February 2026, six House Republicans joined Democrats to terminate the national emergency being used to impose tariffs on Canada. Collins voted no. See: Official House vote on the Canada tariff emergency
And, as already noted, Collins voted against assistance to Ukraine.
These votes are consistent with the political identity Collins himself advertises. His own campaign calls him an “America First fighter,” says House leadership appointed him to the Whip Team to ensure that “President Trump’s agenda moved through Congress,” and boasts that he campaigned to elect an “America First Congress” that would “have President Trump’s back.” See: Mike Collins campaign biography
Those are his words, not ours.
Collins deserves credit for genuine bipartisan accomplishments. His TRANQ Research Act became law during the Biden administration, and he sponsored the Laken Riley Act. Those achievements demonstrate that Collins can work constructively across party lines.
What his record does not demonstrate is a willingness to tell Donald Trump no when presidential power, congressional responsibility or an important American alliance is at stake.
For a candidate seeking elevation from the House to the Senate, that is a serious deficiency.
Ossoff Has Also Said No to His Own Party
The test of independence cannot apply only to Republicans.
Ossoff remains a generally reliable Democratic senator, and Centrist Independent Voter disagrees with important parts of the Democratic agenda. But his record provides meaningful evidence that he is capable of departing from his party when he believes it is wrong.
The clearest recent example is immigration. Ossoff was one of only twelve Democratic senators who voted for final passage of the Laken Riley Act in January 2025. The legislation passed 64–35 over the opposition of most Senate Democrats. See: Senate record of the Laken Riley Act vote
He has also rejected several proposals associated with his party’s left wing. During his 2020 campaign, Ossoff opposed Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, supported retaining private health insurance, rejected abolishing ICE and opposed defunding the police. See: PolitiFact review of Ossoff’s positions He also opposed expanding the Supreme Court simply because Democrats disagreed with its ideological composition. See: Report on Ossoff’s opposition to Supreme Court expansion
His record is plainly not that of a DSA-aligned senator.
His approach to Israel provides another example of independent judgment rather than factional loyalty. In July 2025, Ossoff supported blocking a shipment of rifles that he believed might be distributed to police controlled by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. On the same evening, however, he opposed an effort to block air-to-ground munitions because he believed Israel continued to need an effective air force to defend its population against attacks originating in Iran, Lebanon and Yemen. He sharply criticized Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of the war while simultaneously condemning Hamas and defending Israel’s legitimate security needs. See: Ossoff’s statement explaining the two Israel votes
These examples should not be exaggerated. Ossoff is not a senator who routinely rebels against his caucus, nor would Centrist Independent Voter characterize him as a centrist on every issue.
But there is an important difference between occasionally departing from your party when circumstances require it and repeatedly subordinating the institution in which you serve to the leader of your party.
Ossoff has shown some capacity for the former. Collins’s record during Trump’s second term too often demonstrates the latter.
A Misleading Tax Attack
Voters should also be skeptical of some of the advertising now being directed at Ossoff.
The Republican-aligned One Nation organization portrays Ossoff’s vote against Trump’s 2025 reconciliation law as evidence that he voted against tax relief for working and middle-income families. One Nation has described his vote as opposition to the child tax credit, tax relief on tips and other provisions benefiting working families. See: One Nation’s own description of its campaign against Ossoff
There is a kernel of truth wrapped inside a misleading conclusion.
The legislation really did contain substantial tax reductions. But it was not a standalone middle-class tax bill. It was an enormous tax-and-spending package containing major changes to Medicaid, SNAP, health policy, energy policy and federal spending.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the law will increase resources for households in most middle- and upper-income groups while reducing resources for households in the bottom two income deciles, principally because reductions in programs such as Medicaid and SNAP outweigh their tax benefits. CBO estimates an average gain across all households of about $2,105 per year—but that average conceals very different effects at different income levels. See: CBO distributional analysis of the 2025 reconciliation law
Ossoff explained that he opposed the legislation because of reductions affecting Medicaid, hospitals and nursing homes, higher health-insurance costs and consequences for Georgia’s rapidly growing clean-energy manufacturing industry. See: Ossoff’s explanation of his vote
Reasonable people can disagree with that judgment. Centrist Independent Voter itself would almost certainly have disagreed with significant portions of both parties’ preferred versions of the legislation.
But voting against a sprawling tax-and-spending package containing some desirable tax provisions is not equivalent to voting separately to raise middle-class taxes. Advertising that converts the estimated average benefit of the entire legislation into a tax increase supposedly imposed by Ossoff is not a fair account of what happened.
The Choice
Jon Ossoff is not a centrist on every issue. Centrist Independent Voter has disagreed with him before and undoubtedly will again.
That is not the only test for public office.
Ossoff has demonstrated that he can work with Republicans, produce legislation, support American alliances and exercise the independent judgment expected of a United States senator. He has also shown that independence is not reserved for opposing Republicans: when he believes his own party is wrong, he has sometimes been willing to say so.
Mike Collins has worthwhile legislative accomplishments and deserves credit for them. But his opposition to Ukraine assistance, his repeated votes against congressional war-powers restraints, his support for Trump’s unilateral tariff authority and his deliberate identification with a Congress whose mission is to “have President Trump’s back” point in the opposite direction.
The United States does not need a Congress whose primary function is to facilitate the wishes of whichever president controls the White House. It needs legislators willing to defend their own institution, demand competent and independent administration of the executive branch, protect American alliances and tell presidents—and their own political parties—when they have gone too far.
At this moment, that consideration outweighs many of the ordinary policy disagreements separating the candidates.
Centrist Independent Voter endorses Jon Ossoff for reelection to the United States Senate from Georgia.