1. Olympia Jean Snowe is an American businesswoman and politician who was a United States Senator, representing Maine for three terms from 1995 to 2013.
35 Facts About Olympia Snowe
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On February 28,2012, Olympia Snowe announced that she would not seek re-election in the 2012 US Senate election, and retired when her third term ended on January 3,2013.
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Olympia Snowe cited hyperpartisanship, leading to a dysfunctional Congress, as her primary reason for her retirement.
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In May 2013, Olympia Snowe was appointed senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, DC, where she co-chairs its Commission on Political Reform and serves on the center's board of directors.
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Olympia Snowe's father emigrated to the United States from Sparta, Greece, and her maternal grandparents were Greek.
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Olympia Snowe is a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.
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Olympia Snowe attended Saint Basil Academy in Garrison, New York for third through ninth grades, and then returned to Auburn, where she attended and graduated from Edward Little High School.
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Olympia Snowe then attended the University of Maine in Orono, where she graduated with a degree in political science in 1969.
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Olympia Snowe entered politics and rose quickly, winning a seat on the Board of Voter Registration and then working for US Representative and later US Senator and US Secretary of Defense William Cohen.
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At the urging of her family, friends, neighbors, and local leaders, Olympia Snowe ran for her husband's Auburn-based seat in the Maine House of Representatives, and, at the age of 26, won it.
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In 1978, Olympia Snowe ran for the US House of Representatives and won.
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In 1994, after then US Senate Majority Leader George J Mitchell chose not to seek re-election to the US Senate, Snowe immediately declared her candidacy for the seat.
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In each of her three US Senate races in Maine, Olympia Snowe won every county in the state.
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In February 1999, as a US Senator, Olympia Snowe was an important voice during the US Senate's impeachment trial of then-President Bill Clinton.
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In October 2002, following the September 11 attacks, Snowe voted in favor of the Iraq Resolution, which authorized President George W Bush to use of US military force against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, which led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq five months later.
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Olympia Snowe was one of only eight senators who did not miss any votes during that session.
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Olympia Snowe was the fourth woman to serve on the US Senate Armed Services Committee and the first woman to chair the US Senate Subcommittee on Seapower, which oversees the Navy and Marine Corps.
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In 2001, Olympia Snowe became the first Republican woman to secure a full-term seat on the US Senate Finance Committee.
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Olympia Snowe is the first woman to have served in both houses of a US state legislature and both houses of the US Congress.
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Over her 35-year career as an elected official, Olympia Snowe never lost an election.
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On February 27,2012, citing excessive partisanship and a dispiriting political environment, Olympia Snowe announced she would not run for re-election in November 2012.
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Olympia Snowe was considered one of the safest Republican incumbents in the 2012 US Senate elections.
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On May 23,2005, Olympia Snowe was one of fourteen senators, known as the Gang of 14, who defused a confrontation between Senate Democrats who were filibustering several judicial nominees and the Senate Republican leadership who wanted to use the nominations as a flashpoint to eliminate filibusters on nominees through the so-called nuclear option.
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In February 2007, Olympia Snowe endorsed Republican candidate John McCain in the 2008 presidential election.
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In December 2011, Olympia Snowe endorsed Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election.
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In 2007, Olympia Snowe was one of several Republicans to vote in favor of legislation that would have granted citizenship to undocumented immigrants, but she voted against the DREAM Act in 2010.
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Olympia Snowe voted to continue funding to sanctuary cities, voted against eliminating the 'Y' guest worker visa program, voted in favor of building a fence along the southern border, and voted to make English the official language of the United States.
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Olympia Snowe opposed President Barack Obama's budget resolution, but pledged to work in a bipartisan manner on health care reform and energy.
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In national security and foreign affairs, Olympia Snowe supported President Bill Clinton's engagement in the Kosovo War.
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Olympia Snowe was one of three Republicans to break with their party and vote with Democrats to end a filibuster on a defense spending bill; the filibuster was meant to delay or stop a vote on health care legislation.
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In December 2009, Olympia Snowe voted against cloture on two procedural motions and against the Senate Health Care Reform Bill.
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In 2010, Olympia Snowe voted against the Health Care and Education Act.
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Olympia Snowe is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership, Republicans for Environmental Protection, Republican Majority for Choice, Republicans for Choice, and The Wish List, a political organization of pro-choice female US Senators and Representatives.
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In June 2013, Snowe was appointed to the board of directors of T Rowe Price, a Baltimore-based Fortune 1000 investment management firm.
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On January 9,2021, following the January 6 Capitol violence, Olympia Snowe called on Trump to "resign from office now to allow our nation to begin to heal and prepare for the transition to the Biden presidency".