Sen. Olympia Snowe
Former Senator for Maine
![Photo of Sen. Olympia Snowe [R-ME, 1995-2012]](/static/legislator-photos/300091-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Snowe is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the Senate in 2013 positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Snowe sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 4, 2007 to Jan 2, 2013. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Snowe was the primary sponsor of 35 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- S. 3624 (112th): Military Commercial Driver’s License Act of 2012
- S. 815 (112th): Sanctity of Eternal Rest for Veterans Act of 2011
- S. 3199 (111th): Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act of 2010
- S. 3103 (111th): Small Business Job Creation Act of 2010
- S. 2862 (111th): Small Business Export Enhancement and International Trade Act of 2009
- S. 823 (111th): Net Operating Loss (NOL) Carryback Act
- S. 2607 (110th): DTV Transition Assistance Act
Does 35 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.
We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).
Bills Sponsored
Issue Areas
Snowe sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Commerce (24%) Taxation (16%) Government Operations and Politics (15%) Science, Technology, Communications (12%) Health (10%) Economics and Public Finance (8%) Finance and Financial Sector (8%) Transportation and Public Works (7%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Snowe recently introduced the following legislation:
- S. 3663 (112th): A bill to reassert the proper role of Congress in closing or …
- S. 3624 (112th): Military Commercial Driver’s License Act of 2012
- S.Res. 589 (112th): A resolution designating November 24, 2012, as “Small Business Saturday” and supporting …
- S. 3591 (112th): Commercial Building Modernization Act
- S. 3572 (112th): Restoring Tax and Regulatory Certainty to Small Businesses Act of 2012
- S. 3516 (112th): Rural Spectrum Accessibility Act of 2012
- S. 3439 (112th): Federal Wi-Net Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 1995 to Jan 2013, Snowe missed 11 of 5,995 roll call votes, which is 0.2%. This is better than the median of 2.0% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Jan 2013. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.
Primary Sources
The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:
- unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
- The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
- United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1990 by Howard L. Rosenthal and Keith T. Poole.
- Martis’s “The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress”, via Keith Poole’s roll call votes data set, for political party affiliation for Members of Congress from 1789 through about year 2000
- Congressional Pictorial Directory for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
