Olympia Jean Snowe is an American businesswoman and politician who was a United States Senator from Maine from 1995 to 2013.
41 Facts About Olympia Snowe
2.
On February 28,2012, Olympia Snowe announced that she would not seek re-election in November 2012, and retired when her third term ended on January 3,2013.
3.
Olympia Snowe cited hyper-partisanship leading to a dysfunctional Congress as the reason for her retirement from the Senate.
4.
Olympia Snowe's seat went to former governor Angus King, a former Democrat and current independent.
5.
Olympia Snowe is a senior fellow for the Bipartisan Policy Center and co-chairs its Commission on Political Reform.
6.
Olympia Snowe's father emigrated to the United States from Sparti, Greece, and her maternal grandparents were Greek.
7.
Olympia Snowe is a member of the Greek Orthodox Church.
8.
Olympia Snowe attended St Basil's Academy in Garrison, New York, from the third grade to the ninth.
9.
Olympia Snowe entered politics and rose quickly, winning a seat on the Board of Voter Registration and working for Congressman William Cohen.
10.
At the urging of family, friends, neighbors and local leaders, Olympia Snowe ran for her husband's Auburn-based seat in the Maine House of Representatives at the age of 26 and won.
11.
Olympia Snowe was re-elected to the House in 1974, and, in 1976, won election to the Maine Senate, representing Androscoggin County.
12.
Olympia Snowe was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1978 and represented Maine's 2nd Congressional District from 1979 to 1995.
13.
Olympia Snowe served as a member of the Budget and International Relations Committees.
14.
Olympia Snowe voted for the bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr.
15.
In 1994, when Senate Majority Leader George J Mitchell declined to run for re-election, Snowe immediately declared her candidacy for the seat.
16.
Olympia Snowe was part of the Republican election sweep of 1994, when the Republican party captured both the House and Senate for the first time since 1954.
17.
Olympia Snowe won every single county in Maine in all three of her elections.
18.
Olympia Snowe was an important voice during the Senate's 1999 impeachment trial of then-President Bill Clinton.
19.
In October 2002, Olympia Snowe voted in favor of the War in Iraq.
20.
Olympia Snowe did not miss any of the 657 votes on the Senate floor during the 110th Congress from 2007 to 2009.
21.
Olympia Snowe was one of only eight senators who did not miss any votes during that session.
22.
Olympia Snowe is the fourth woman to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the first to chair its seapower subcommittee which oversees the Navy and Marine Corps.
23.
In 2001, Olympia Snowe became the first Republican woman to secure a full-term seat on the Senate Finance Committee.
24.
Olympia Snowe was the youngest female Republican ever elected to the United States House of Representatives; she is the first woman to have served in both houses of a state legislature and both houses of the US Congress.
25.
However, on Tuesday, February 27,2012, citing excessive partisanship and a dispiriting political environment, Olympia Snowe announced she would not run for re-election in November 2012.
26.
On May 23,2005, Olympia Snowe was one of fourteen senators dubbed the Gang of 14, who defused a confrontation between Senate Democrats and the Senate Republican leadership.
27.
Olympia Snowe is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership and supports stem cell research.
28.
Olympia Snowe is a member of Republicans for Environmental Protection, the Republican Majority for Choice, Republicans for Choice and The Wish List, a group of pro-choice Republican women.
29.
Olympia Snowe voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, an amendment aimed at banning gay marriage, in 2004.
30.
Olympia Snowe voted against banning gay marriage in 2006 for a second time.
31.
In 2008, Olympia Snowe endorsed Republican candidate John McCain for President of the United States.
32.
In 2007, Olympia Snowe was among the Republicans who voted in favor of the McCain-Kennedy bill to give citizenship to undocumented immigrants.
33.
Olympia Snowe voted to continue funding to 'sanctuary cities,' voted against eliminating the 'Y' guestworker visa program, but she voted in favor of building a fence along the southern border and voted to make English the official language of the United States.
34.
Olympia Snowe was one of three Republicans to break with their party and vote with Democrats to end a filibuster of a defense spending bill; the filibuster was meant to delay or stop the vote on health care legislation.
35.
In December 2009, Olympia Snowe voted against cloture for two procedural motions and ultimately against the Senate Health Care Reform Bill.
36.
Olympia Snowe again voted against health care reform when she voted "no" on the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.
37.
When Olympia Snowe announced in February 2012 that she would not seek re-election, it was reported that she and Democrat Ben Nelson, who did not seek re-election, had the closest overlap of any two members of the US Senate.
38.
In 2012, Olympia Snowe endorsed Republican candidate Mitt Romney for President of the United States.
39.
Olympia Snowe opposed Donald Trump as the GOP nominee in 2016.
40.
Olympia Snowe said that Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton were the least partisan 2016 presidential candidates.
41.
On November 8,2020, five days after the election, while President Trump and some other members of the Republican Party were falsely claiming he had won the election, Olympia Snowe congratulated President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.