Olympia Snowe
“”When George W. Bush proposed a huge, regressive tax cut in 2001, Snowe, sitting at the heart of a decisive block of centrists, used her leverage to support the passage of a modestly smaller and less regressive version. When Barack Obama proposed a large fiscal stimulus in 2009, Snowe (citing fears of deficits that she had helped create) decided to shave a nice round $100 billion off his figure and call it a day. If a Gingrich administration proposed spending a trillion dollars to erect a 100-foot-tall solid-gold Winston Churchill statue on Mars, Snowe would no doubt decide, after careful deliberation, that the wise course was to trim the height down to 90 feet and perhaps use a cheaper bronze alloy in the base.
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| —Jonathan Chait[1] |
Former Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) is a former Republican Senator, serving from 1995 to 2013. Given that she represented Maine, it's not surprising that Snowe held many socially liberal views, such as being pro-choice, supporting stem cell research and gay rights. Her political outlook was more in line with the GOP in regards to defense and economic issues.[2] She was very bipartisan and for that reason was known as one of the Senate's leading RINOs moderates.
[edit] Biography
Snowe was born February 21, 1947 in Augusta, Maine to two Greek immigrants. She lost her mother when she was nine, and her father when she was ten, after which she was raised by her aunt and uncle with their five children. She graduated from the University of Maine in 1973.[3]
Snowe was elected to the Senate in 1994, becoming the second female senator to represent Maine. Before her election to the Senate, Olympia Snowe represented Maine’s Second Congressional District in the House of Representatives for sixteen years. Senator Snowe was only the fourth woman in history to be elected to both houses of Congress and the first woman in American history to serve in both houses of a state legislature and both houses of Congress.
In 2001, Snowe became the first Republican woman ever to secure a full-term seat on the Senate Finance Committee, and only the third woman in history to join the panel. She was also a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and is the former Chair and Ranking Member of its Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and the Coast Guard. Prior to her service on the Finance Committee, Senator Snowe had been the fourth woman ever to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee, where she was the first woman Senator to chair the Subcommittee on Seapower, which oversees the Navy and Marine Corps.[4]
[edit] Retirement
On 28 February 2012, Snowe announced that she would not seek re-election in 2012, citing "an atmosphere of polarization and 'my way or the highway' ideologies" that had become inherent in Congress, particularly in the Republican Party.[5] The announcement came as a benefit to Democrats in the 2012 senatorial race, as previously they were faced with the prospect of losing four seats to lose the majority in the Senate.