Book Olympia Snowe

Olympia Snowe is an American businesswoman and politician who represented Maine in the United States Senate for three terms, from 1995 to 2013, after eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. A lifelong Republican, she was known as one of the chamber's leading moderates and often held the deciding voice on close votes and on ending filibusters, and Time included her among America's Best Senators in 2006. Her career began at the local level on the Board of Voter Registration and in the office of then-Representative William Cohen. At 26 she won a seat in the Maine House of Representatives, then moved up to the Maine Senate in 1976 representing Androscoggin County before taking her U.S. House seat in 1979. She chose not to seek a fourth Senate term in 2012, citing the rising tide of hyperpartisanship. Since 2013 she has held a senior fellowship at Washington's Bipartisan Policy Center, co-leading its political reform commission and serving as a director. She was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame in 1999. Snowe speaks with authority on bipartisanship, consensus-building, women in leadership and how to make government work.