A Master Class with Sen. Olympia Snowe

Master Class in the U.S. Senate with Sen. Olympia Snowe

Located directly off the Floor or main chamber of the U.S. Senate, and the cloaked-in-mystery Senate Cloak Room, the official Senate Reception room with its richly decorated interior is one of the few places you can catch a Senator whose constantly changing schedule demands proximity to the floor of the Senate. In this case, it was the the perfect place for next generation students to meet with and senior Senator from the State of Maine, the Honorable Olympia Snowe.

As debate on the floor of the Senate and a pending vote had made it necessary for her to change her scheduled Master Class in her offices in the Russell Building at the last minute, Sen. Snowe asked if the students would mind that they were meeting with her in the Capitol, in between speeches, so to speak?  Having never imagined they would have this rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of the inner workings of the Senate, no one was even thinking of complaining.

Fortunately her return to the Senate Floor was not required immediately, and it gave time for Sen. Snowe to speak with them individually and as a group, and give them a sense of what propelled a Greek American orphan from the sparsely-populated state of Maine into a demanding national role — as a pivotal vote in a divided Senate, which often gives her the ability, and the responsibility, to decide close votes over crucial issues — and still leave her with the highest popularity of any sitting Senator in their own home state.

A Master Class with 
Sen. Olympia Snowe
The U.S. Senate
Washington, DC

Sen. Olympia Snowe  

Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine

Olympia Snowe is the senior United States Senator from Maine. Sen Snowe serves on the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, the Committee on Finance and the Select Committee on Intelligence. Sen. Snowe is also the Ranking Member on the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

In April 2006, Snowe was selected by Time as one of “America’s 10 Best Senators.” She was the only woman so recognized. Time praised Snowe for her sensitivity to her constituents, also noting that: “Because of her centrist views and eagerness to get beyond partisan point scoring, Maine Republican Olympia Snowe is in the center of every policy debate in Washington.”

Olympia Snowe entered politics at a young age, elected to a seat on the Board of Voter Registration and then working for Congressman (later  U.S. Senator and U.S. Secretary of Defense) William Cohen.  She first ran for a seat in the Maine House of Representatives at the age of 26 and won. She was re-elected to the House in 1974, and, in 1976, won election to the Maine Senate. Olympia Snowe was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978, and represented Maine’s 2nd Congressional District from 1979 to 1995.  Olympia Snowe was first elected to the U.S. Senate —winning the seat of retiring Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell — as part of the Republican election sweep of 1994, when the Republican party captured both the House and Senate for the first time since 1954.

Olympia Snowe is not only the first Greek-American congresswoman, she is the youngest Republican woman ever elected to the House of Representatives, and the first woman to have served in both houses of a state legislature and both houses of the U.S. Congress. Sen. Snowe is the fourth woman to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the first to chair the subcommittee which oversees the Navy and Marine Corps. In 2001, Sen. Snowe became the first Republican woman to secure a full-term seat on the Senate Finance Committee. Olympia Snowe has never lost an election in 35 years as an elected official.

Olympia Jean Bouchles Snowe is the daughter of Georgia Goranites and George John Bouchles. Her father immigrated to the United States from Sparta in Greece. Orphaned at the age of ten, Olympia was raised by her aunt and uncle, a textile mill worker and a barber, respectively, along with their five other children. Olympia was sent off to boarding school at St. Basil’s Academy in Garrison, New York, where she remained from the third grade to the ninth. Olympia Snowe went on to earn her degree in political science from the University of Maine in Orono, Maine in 1969.

Sen. Olympia Snowe is an honorary member of the Next Generation Initiative Advisory Board.