Olympia Jean Snowe, a United States Senator from Maine and a member of the Republican Party, announced on February 28, 2012, that she will not seek reelection in November 2012.
Snowe, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978, and represented Maine’s 2nd Congressional District from 1979 to 1995, said about her decision: “Unfortunately, I do not realistically expect the partisanship of recent years in the Senate to change over the short term. So at this stage of my tenure in public service, I have concluded that I am not prepared to commit myself to an additional six years in the Senate, which is what a fourth term would entail”.
Snowe was born Olympia Jean Bouchles in Augusta, Maine in 1947, the daughter of Georgia and George John Bouchles. Her father immigrated to the United States from Sparta in Greece, and her maternal grandparents were also Greek.
Snowe’s early life had its share of tragedies; when she was nine, her mother died of breast cancer, and her father died of heart disease barely a year later.
Following her mother’s death, Snowe was sent to St. Basil’s Academy in Garrison, New York, where she remained from the third grade to the ninth. Returning to Auburn, she attended Edward Little High School, before entering the University of Maine in Orono, Maine, from which she earned a degree in political science in 1969. She received an honorary degree from Bates College in 1998, and another from the University of Delaware in 2008. In 2006, she was named one of America’s Best Senators by Time Magazine.
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. In 2001, Snowe became the first Republican woman to secure a full-term seat on the Senate Finance Committee.
Snowe was the youngest Republican woman ever elected to the United States House of Representatives; she is also the first woman to have served in both houses of a state legislature and both houses of the U.S. Congress. Additionally, she is the first Greek-American congresswoman.
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