Elected 1994, seat up 2006 Born: Feb. 21, 1947, Augusta Home: Auburn Education: U. of ME, B.A. 1969 Religion: Greek Orthodox Marital Status: married (John McKernan)

Career:

• Political: ME House of Reps., 1973-76; ME Senate, 1976-78; U.S. House of Reps., 1978-94.
• Professional: Dir., Superior Concrete Co., 1969-78; Auburn Bd. of Voter Registration, 1971-73.

DC Office: 154 RSOB 20510, 202-224-5344; Fax: 202-224-1946; Web site: www.senate.gov/~snowe

State Offices: Auburn, 207-786-2451; Augusta,207-622-8292; Bangor,207-945-0432; Biddeford,207-282-4144; Portland,207-874-0833; Presque Isle,207-764-5124.

Committees:

• Commerce, Science & Transportation: Aviation; Communications; Oceans, Atmosphere & Fisheries (RMM); Surface Transportation & Merchant Marine.
• Finance: Health Care (RMM); International Trade; Taxation & IRS Oversight.
• Small Business.

Olympia Snowe is a Republican elected in 1994. Snowe grew up in Auburn and worked as a legislative staffer after college; in 1973, after her husband, state Representative Peter Snowe, died in an auto accident, she was elected to his seat. In 1978, when then-Congressman William Cohen ran for the Senate, she ran for the House in the northern 2d District, and won handily. She had a moderate record and won by large margins in the 1980s but more narrowly in the 1990s; in 1989 she married Governor John McKernan, her former House colleague. Her voting record has been around the middle of the Senate; she is one of the Republicans who votes fairly often with Democrats, on issues including campaign finance, the minimum wage, missile defense and gun control. When Senator George Mitchell announced his retirement in March 1994, Snowe decided instantly to run. Immediately she went on the attack against her obvious Democratic opponent, 1st District Congressman Tom Andrews, whose winning margin two years before had been 107,000 votes, while hers was only 22,000. Snowe attacked him hard for voting for the bill that closed Loring Air Force Base in northern Maine and for opposing the balanced budget amendment. She won 60%-36%, carrying every county, losing only the cities of Portland and Lewiston and a few mill towns.

In the Senate she was the least conservative of the 11 freshman Republicans elected in 1994. She has supported Republican positions on many economic issues, but also has backed abortion rights and family leave. Her record on foreign and defense issues has been solidly conservative. She was one of the few Republicans to support the Clinton administration EPA's air-quality standards. On campaign finance in March 1998, she advanced a proposal to regulate ads that mention a candidate's name 60 days before a general election, but she insisted on the provision, an anathema to Democrats, to ban unions from spending their members' dues money on politics without their permission. On impeachment, she supported Republican positions on most issues, and worked with Democrats to come up with a compromise; she and Maine colleague Susan Collins proposed that the Senate vote first on a ''finding of fact'' describing Clinton's conduct and then separately on whether he should be removed from office. It was not successful, and Snowe voted against impeachment. In November 1999 she and Louisiana Democrat John Breaux tried to revive the Centrist Coalition. "Everything up here is very separate, very divided. There's no instrument to break down those walls of separateness. It is degrading the Senate. I hear it at home. It has not gone unnoticed by the public."

Snowe has taken a lead role on many women's health care issues. In July 2000 she sponsored a $200 million appropriation for women's health research, with $175 million for breast cancer, $12 million for ovarian cancer and $6 million for osteoperosis. She and Dianne Feinstein have sponsored the special stamp for breast cancer funding. In 1998 she co-sponsored with Harry Reid a bill that would require insurance companies to pay for women's contraceptives. In 1999 she pushed a bill to allow mastectomy patients to remain in the hospital as long as a doctor prescribes. In 2000 she sponsored a bill to extend osteoperosis screening to all Medicare recipients. With Edward Kennedy, she worked in 2000 to extend prescription drug coverage to military retirees through the military Tricare program. Child support enforcement is one of Snowe's major causes, and on the welfare bill she called for retaining some federal role in Medicaid, and helped insert a provision requiring states to spend at least 80% of their old budgets and some $3 billion for child care programs.

Since 1997 Snowe has served on Armed Services. She took the lead in opposing the recommendation of the commission headed by former Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker to end gender-integrated basic training. She has been a backer of missile defense and the resolution she introduced with Democrat Mary Landrieu declaring it U.S. policy to deploy a ballistic missile system as soon as ''technologically possible'' was passed 99-0 in March 1999. She has championed the DDG-51 built at the Bath Iron Works and has worked to make available to a local building authority the former Cutler Navy base. For the 107th Congress, Snowe moved from Armed Services to the Finance Committee.

She has worked on many local issues, establishing a pilot $25 million fishing vessel buyback, passing a ''Maine Lights'' program to preserve historic Maine lighthouses, working to ban lobster dragging. In 2000 she worked for $10 million for fishermen who voluntarily agree to stop fishing in depleted waters and, with Collins, got $5 million for Atlantic salmon habitat protection. But she opposed the designation of the Atlantic salmon as an endangered species on the grounds that Maine rivers have been restocked so often that the fish there are no longer endangered. She and Vermont's Patrick Leahy sponsored a bill for controlling mercury pollution, a pressing issue in some parts of Maine.

Snowe approached the 2000 campaign with very high job approval ratings. She received vigorous opposition from state Senate President Mark Lawrence, who campaigned in support of Maine's prescription drug law and charged that Snowe had voted against a bill which would have provided $97 million for school construction in Maine. But it was no contest. Snowe was re-elected 69%-31%, this time carrying even Portland and Lewiston, and trailing only in a few small isolated communities.

Group Ratings
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2000	30	29	0	43	26	80	60	73	80	71	31
1999	45	--	16	67	21	--	50	59	60	--	--

National Journal Ratings
	1999 LIB	--	1999 CONS		2000 LIB	--	2000 CONS
Economic	53%	--	46%		48%	--	50%
Social	50%	--	49%		49%	--	46%
Foreign	36%	--	63%		48%	--	48%

Key Votes of the 106th Congress
1. Educ. Savings Accts. Y 2. Prescrip. Drug Benefit N 3. Delay Ergonomic Standards Y 4. Phase Out Estate Tax Y 5. Review Movie Violence Y 6. Gun Show Bckgrnd. Checks N		7. Ban Part.-Birth Abortion N  8. Broaden Hate Crimes List Y  9. NATO War in Serbia Y 10. Table Cuba Travel Ban Y 11. Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty N 12. Perm. Trade with China Y

Election Results
2000 general	Olympia Snowe (R)	437,689	(69%)
	Mark Lawrence (D)	197,183	(31%)
2000 primary	Olympia Snowe (R)	unopposed
1994 general	Olympia Snowe (R)	308,244	(60%)
	Thomas H. Andrews (D)	186,042	(36%)
	Other	17,447	(3%)

Campaign Finance
2000	Receipts	Receipts from PACs	Expenditures
Olympia Snowe (R)	$2,236,146	$817,009	$1,981,504
Mark Lawrence (D)	$739,637	$145,703	$727,655