Why Sen. Susan Collins Got a Red Rose on the Senate Floor

— -- No, it wasn’t the Congressional version of “The Bachelor.”

It was to honor the senior Maine senator for casting her 6,000 consecutive vote, a perfect record since she took office in January 1997 -- making her the longest-serving member of the current Senate to have never missed one.

This was not an easy feat for Collins.

There was the time she was sitting on a plane about to depart Washington D.C., when she got the call that the Senate was holding a last-minute vote.

“Luckily, the plane hadn’t pulled away from the gate, and they took me off the plane and I raced back in,” she told reporters after a Senate floor ceremony honoring her.

Then there was the time in 2008 when she actually injured herself racing in high heels to get to the Senate Chamber, running from a committee hearing to the floor.

“I twisted my ankle on the way -- and it turns out that I broke it and didn’t know it until when I re-broke it last December!” she said.

And that other time she managed a Homeland Security bill with a 102-degree fever.

"I gave my flu to Joe Lieberman. He’s since forgiven me, I hasten to say,” she quipped.

Collins said her perfect record isn’t just for show -- she said she believes voting is the most essential job of a member of Congress.

“I take the honor of representing Maine very seriously, and it’s a way for me to demonstrate to my constituents how much it matters to me that I serve them in every way that I can,” she said.

Collins departs from Bangor, Maine on Sunday nights to make sure she doesn’t miss votes because of flight delays. Most other members fly back on Monday morning.

To pass the time on Sunday evenings, she said she goes grocery shopping, prepares her work for the week ahead, and takes walks with her husband around a Capitol Hill park.

Collins’ single rose, presented to her by her fellow Maine senator Angus King during the ceremony, has a symbolic meaning. One of her predecessors, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, known as the “conscience of the Senate,” always wore a red rose on the floor.

“I want to present her with a rose symbolic of her kinship with Margaret Chase Smith,” King said. “What an accomplishment!"