Maxine Waters opponent Joe Collins loses lawsuit, ordered to pay her legal fees
Waters wrote of her Republican challenger that he "has, once again, done what he does best — lose."
During the 2020 election cycle, longtime California Rep. Maxine Waters was challenged by Republican Joe Collins, who later accused her of libel and slander in a lawsuit that was dismissed by a judge last month.
Judge Yolanda Orozco has ruled that Collins will have to pay more than $53,000 in Waters’ attorneys’ fees.
“In the simplest of terms, Joe Collins has, once again, done what he does best — lose,” Waters wrote in a statement issued Tuesday. “After filing a baseless and frivolous lawsuit against me that went nowhere, it became even more clear that Joe Collins is not in this for the people of the 43rd Congressional District, but is instead in it for one person, and that person is himself. Joe Collins is nothing more than a serial filer of lawsuits looking to attract media attention at any cost — in this case, that cost is $53,589.”
She decried Collins’ more-recent legal moves.
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“It has come to my attention that Joe Collins, the loser and serial lawsuit filer, has filed yet another lawsuit — this time naming myself, Los Angeles County and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan as defendants and challenging the election results,” Waters wrote. “Doesn’t that sound like something we have heard before?”
She called the latest suit “a tactic taken right from Donald Trump’s playbook.”
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Waters noted that Collins raised more than $10 million from right-wing organizations across the country in his run for the congressional seat representing California’s 43rd district, which is mainly south Los Angeles. He lost the election two-to-one.
“The fact is that the community is on my side because they know me and they understand that I am fighting for their best interest every single day,” wrote Waters, who has been in Congress since 1991. “The court is also on my side because the law is the law and I am on the right side of it.”
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