Sen. Susan Collins passed up an opportunity Thursday to try to rein in President Donald Trump’s ability to rescind federal funding for programs that have been approved by a supermajority of Congress.

Collins, who leads the Senate Appropriations Committee, voted against a Democratic proposal to require that rescissions go through the appropriations process — which would give lawmakers more influence over the final outcome — rather than heading to the Senate floor, where options for amendments are limited.

A spokesperson for the senator explained that her main objection to the proposal was on jurisdictional grounds.

During Thursday’s meeting, which came only hours after a $9 billion rescission bill passed, Collins — who was one of only two Republicans to vote against that bill — seemed to seek a return to normal procedures.

“Today we continue our work to advance bipartisan appropriations bills that reflect the priorities of members on both sides of the aisle and the constituents they represent,” Collins said of a military infrastructure and veterans bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune “has indicated to me that he has every intention of bringing to the Senate floor the bills that we report.”

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who co-chairs the committee, said in her opening statement that she needed to address the “elephant in the room,” referring to the Republican-led rescissions bill. She said the vote set a “dangerous new precedent” that will make bipartisan budget agreements “a whole lot harder.”

“And it poses some hard questions my colleagues across the aisle need to start answering, because Russ Vought has not been subtle,” Murray said of Trump’s budget director. “Round two of these partisan cuts are on their way soon.”

Committee Republicans opposed the proposed amendment to send rescission requests through the normal appropriations process largely on procedural grounds. Collins agreed and joined her colleagues in opposing the amendment, even though she suggested to reporters that she believes all rescissions should go through her committee process.

“The far better way to handle rescissions is through the appropriations process,” she told reporters in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. “We include rescissions in virtually every bill that we report, because needs change, and money should be put to the best use. An example is the continuing resolution, which had 70 rescissions included in it. That’s what we are operating under right now.”

Thursday’s meeting came only hours after the Senate voted to rescind $9 billion in federal funding for global health programs and public broadcasting. The rescission was a mostly party-line vote, with Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, opposed.

Democrats warned that approving the rescission would render useless the appropriations process, which Collins leads. That’s because appropriations bills need 60 votes to be enacted, which requires compromises with the minority party. And those compromises would be more difficult to reach if Republicans later turn around and remove Democratic priorities through a rescission process that requires only a majority vote. 

According to Politico, Vought told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast Thursday morning that he is looking to “change the paradigm” of the appropriations process, saying the process “has to be less bipartisan.” Vought also said the White House would not commit to implementing other bipartisan budget deals.

“There is no voter in the country that went to the polls and said, ‘I’m voting for a bipartisan appropriations process,’” he said. “We are willing to send up additional rescissions. I think if this continues to pass, we’re likely to send up another rescissions package that would come soon, and we’ll be working on that to try to get that across the finish line.”

Comments like that put Collins is a difficult position, especially as she expects to seek reelection.

She voted to confirm Vought as budget director, despite his publicly stated views that a president does not have to spend funding appropriated by Congress, which critics, including Collins, argued would violate federal law.

On Thursday, Collins rejected Vought’s calls for a more partisan process.

“Mr. Vought’s lack of respect and apparent lack of understanding of how Congress works is baffling because he served in government before,” she said.

Committee Democrats, clearly smarting from the rescission vote, urged Republican committee members to adopt their amendment as a way of reclaiming the committee’s authority.

“This is a pretty significant vote, not about how funds are spent, but who decides who has the power of the purse,” Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said. “This is an opportunity for this committee to assert itself.”

Ossoff also lamented the political dynamics making it difficult for Republicans to vote their conscience and offer amendments.

“As we saw last night, with the political pressure cooker that we’re in, even senators who have policy convictions that would lead them to oppose provisions of those rescission packages are unwilling to offer amendments or support amendments consistent with their views,” he said.

That could have been a veiled reference to Collins, who drafted an amendment to reduced the proposed cuts to $6.5 billion. She did not offer that amendment because she worried it would doom the revised rescission bill, which removed a $400 million global AIDs program that she supported.

“It appeared to me that it was a political stunt by the Democrats, because what I found was that they intended to vote no at the end, even after it was accepted, and that did not make sense to me,” Collins told reporters in Washington on Thursday. “Second, it became evident that the House had absolutely no interest in the substitute amendment.”