U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, center, is seen in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 7. Collins is being asked for town meetings by several Maine citizens groups opposed to President Donald Trump’s policies.

LEWISTON — RESIST Central Maine held a protest Wednesday outside U.S. Susan Collins’ downtown office.

Part of a growing national movement to push back at President Donald Trump through members of Congress, the new citizens group wants a town meeting with Collins.

Maine’s congressional delegation has not scheduled any meetings, and there may be none scheduled.

Members of RESIST want to ask questions and express their fear and anger about Trump’s ties to Russia and his Cabinet appointments of “people who are grossly unsuited,” founder Pat Fogg of Greene said.

They want to talk about the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and the immigration ban. “People are outraged all over this country. Nobody was hearing us,” Fogg said.

After Trump was inaugurated, Fogg formed RESIST Central Maine.

Another group, “Mainers for Accountable Leadership,” was organized at about the same time.

Mainers for Accountable Leadership is asking Collins to talk with Mainers about Trump’s policies, said one of the founders, Marie Follayttar Smith of Scarborough.

The groups have also asked for town meetings with U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, and U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine. King is out of town for the near future, Smith said. Pingree said she would meet at a later date.

“Poliquin is nowhere to be found,” RESIST Central Maine member Bill Frayer of Lewiston said. “He won’t meet with anybody.”

Poliquin spokesman Brendan Conley said the congressman has held several “telephone town meetings.”

While all of Maine’s congressional delegates are being asked for town meetings, the most sought after is Collins.

“Collins is in an incredibly unique position as someone who does work across the aisle,” Smith said.

“She’s one of the few people that stands between us and this administration that is immature, reckless,” said Frayer, 66, a retired Central Maine Community College professor. “Congress is the only body of government we have to work with to address concerns.”

Collins has agreed to a videoconference with six members of RESIST Central Maine.

The group wants her to resist many aspects of the Trump Administration, Frayer said.

She did oppose the nomination of Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Frayer said. Pruitt has close ties to the fossil fuel industry and sued the EPA as Oklahoma attorney general.

“Now we want her to make sure new regulations don’t weaken the environment,” Frayer said. “We feel her proposal on Obamacare is very weak. Lots of people will lose coverage. And we’re just so appalled at the behavior of the president.”

For those reasons, people are rising up through grass-roots organizations, similar to how the tea party emerged, said Smith of Mainers for Accountable Leadership.

“They’re out of apathy. They’re angry,” she said. Everything, including immigration, civil rights, education and health care, “is under attack,” Smith said. “We are trying to find a new way to respond. There’s a climate of fear. It is all over.”

Smith said Collins met with eight members of her group Tuesday. They’re appreciative of that, but they would still like a forum at which more Mainers could air concerns.

During an interview with WABI on Wednesday, Collins said she meets with thousands of constituents every year.

Collins told WABI that she spent an hour on public radio this week during which anyone could phone or send questions through social media. Meeting with small groups or through call-in shows “works best,” and is the tradition of Maine senators, Collins said.

It’s more productive than meetings in “huge town halls where very few people get to speak, and the level of civility is not that high,” Collins told WABI.

King spokesman Scott Ogdon said Thursday that King meets regularly with thousands of people from all over Maine, and like Collins, he has found that one-on-one meetings are the most effective way to hear from constituents, “because they allow everyone, and not just the loudest in the room, to express their views.”

The two citizens groups plan to get better organized.

“The Resistant Summit” will be held March 5 at the Augusta Civic Center.

And RESIST Central Maine intends to continue showing up weekly outside Collins’ Lewiston office.

Next week they’ll call for an independent investigation of Russia’s hacking of election emails. After that, Trump’s tax returns.

“We’ll give her the petition of the week,” Fogg said. “We’ll never run out.”

Members of RESIST Central Maine gather in front of U.S. Sen. Susan Collins’ office on Lisbon Street in Lewiston on Wednesday. The group wants a town meeting with Collins to discuss its opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies on immigration and health care and his ties to Russia.