'Maria E. Cantwell' (born
October 13,
1958) is the
junior United States Senator from the state of
Washington and is a member of the
Democratic Party. Previously she served in Washington House of Representatives and one term as member of the
United States House of Representatives from .
Cantwell and
Michigan's
Debbie Stabenow are the first women who have defeated elected incumbent senators in U.S. history.
Political views
Cantwell serves on the
Finance Committee, the
Indian Affairs Committee, the
Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, the
Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the
Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. She also served on the Judiciary Committee during her first two years (2001–2002).
While she scores high on a progressive chart from ProgessivePunch.org,
[1] Cantwell has made several controversial votes during her time in the Senate that have created friction between her and members of the
Democratic Party.
On the issue of the Iraq war, on
October 11 2002 Cantwell voted in favor of the
Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq. Her
October 10 2002, press release, however, quotes her as stating on the floor of the U.S. Senate, "... Mr. President, my vote for this resolution does not mean that I am convinced of the Administration has answered all the questions. I believe the following issues must be addressed before the U.N. or the U.S. move forward with military action." Cantwell detailed six specific areas where her questions and concerns were as yet unanswered at the time of her vote to authorize war, i.e., "First: Continued Multilateral Approach ... Second: Successful Military Strategy ... Third: A Postwar Commitment Strategy ... Fourth: Fighting the Broader War on Terrorism ... Fifth: Maintaining Middle East Stability ... Sixth: Protecting Iraqi Civilians."
In 2006 Cantwell voted against the Kerry-Feingold Amendment to S.2766 that would have set a timetable for withdrawal,
[2] but in favor of the Levin-Reed Amendment
[3] that would encourage beginning a phased withdrawal by the end of the year, with no timetable for completion.
On the issue of abortion, Cantwell calls herself "100%
pro-choice", and she consistently supports the positions of the pro-choice movement. She was one of 34 senators to vote against the
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which passed and was signed into law by President Bush on
November 5 2003, and has been ruled against by multiple federal courts. She also voted against the
Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which made it a crime to kill or harm a fetus during a criminal assault upon the mother. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 61-38, and was signed into law by President Bush on
April 1 2004.
Cantwell is the chair of the Senate Democrats 20/20 Energy Independence campaign and is a co-chair of the
Apollo Alliance.
[4] One of Cantwell's main accomplishments was the passage of an amendment "To prevent energy market manipulation," which passed 57-40 in the Senate; a previous effort was defeated by a vote of 50-48.
[5]
In the summer of 2005, Cantwell voted for
CAFTA, which angered many who opposed free trade agreements. Others argued that due to the state's unique economy, any senator from Washington almost had to vote for free trade pacts. Her votes on CAFTA, the
PATRIOT Act, and Iraq prompted a 2006 Democratic primary challenge from
Hong Tran, a Seattle legal aid attorney, and a third party challenge from
Aaron Dixon, the former captain of the Seattle chapter of the
Black Panther Party.
Citing his potential views on abortion and the environment, Cantwell was one of 22 senators to vote against
United States Supreme Court nominee
John Roberts.
In
December 2005 Cantwell scored what many perceived as one of the strongest victories of her first term when she blocked
Alaska senator
Ted Stevens' efforts to drill in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Stevens attached the measure to a bill that provided money for defense spending and
Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. Cantwell managed to round up the votes of 41 Democrats and 2 Republicans, enough to block a final vote.
[6] Stevens removed the ANWR measure from the larger bill, but promised to bring the matter up at a later date.
In January 2006, after publicly announcing her opposition to Supreme Court nominee
Samuel Alito, Cantwell, along with 18 other Democrats and all 53 present Republicans, voted for the
cloture motion.
[7] The success of this motion ended an unlikely attempt to
filibuster the confirmation of Judge Alito that was being led by Senator
John Kerry and Senator
Ted Kennedy.
[8] Alito was confirmed the next day by a vote of 58-42, with most Democrats, including Cantwell, voting against.
In May 2006, Cantwell, along with 38 of 44 Senate Democrats, voted in favor of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (S. 2611).
[9] The controversial bill includes provisions to improve border security, increases fines and other punishments for employers of illegal immigrants, creation of a guest worker program (which includes an almost doubling of the number of H1-B visas)
[10], and creates a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country.
[11] The bill, with support from GOP leadership, passed 62-36.
Environmental record
Cantwell received the highest rating possible from the League of Conservation Voters for her environmental voting record. She is known for supporting alternative energy research and for protecting Washington's forests from logging and the construction of paved roads and has earned endorsement from various prominent environmental advocacy groups.
[12] and other environmental groups
[13][14] She has opposed drilling in Alaska's
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on multiple occasions, has voted to reduce oil usage by 40% by 2025, and has opposed legislation to relax or terminate CAFE standards.
[15] ''The Seattle Times'' has described Cantwell's environmental record as "pristine"
[16] and The Wilderness Society has described Cantwell as an "environmental champion".
[17]
Committee Assignments
Currently she serving as chairwoman of the
Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard. She is also a member of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Committee on Finance,
Committee on Indian Affairs and the
Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Early life
Cantwell was born in
Indianapolis,
Indiana. She was raised in a predominantly Irish neighborhood on the south side of Indianapolis. Her father, Paul F. Cantwell,
[18] served as county commissioner, city councilman, state legislator, and Chief of Staff for U.S. Representative
Andrew Jacobs, Jr.. Her mother, Rose M., was an administrative assistant.
After high school, Cantwell went to
Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Administration. She moved to
Seattle,
Washington in
1983 to campaign for
Alan Cranston in his unsuccessful bid for the 1984 Democratic Presidential nomination. She then moved to the
Seattle suburb of
Mountlake Terrace because it reminded her of Indianapolis, and led a successful campaign to build a new library there.
Maria Cantwell never married and has no children.
Early political career
In 1986, Cantwell was elected to the
Washington State House of Representatives at the age of 28. In her campaign, she had knocked on every door in her district.
[19] As a state representative, she helped write Washington's Growth Management Act of 1990, which required cities to develop comprehensive growth plans, and she negotiated its passage. She also worked on legislation regulating nursing homes.
In 1992, Cantwell became the first Democrat elected to the
United States House of Representatives from Washington's first congressional district in 40 years. During her first term, she helped convince the
Clinton Administration to drop its support of the
Clipper chip, she voted in support of
NAFTA, and she supported President Clinton's 1993 budget. Republican
Rick White used that vote to narrowly defeat her in the Republican landslide year of
1994.
In the private sector
After her defeat, Cantwell vowed to leave politics. Political ally
Rob Glaser offered her a job as vice president of marketing for
RealNetworks. Among her accomplishments was the live (Internet streaming) broadcast of a
Mariners-
Yankees baseball game in 1995. (Cantwell is an avid Mariners fan.)
In 1998, the company faced heavy criticism because privacy groups alleged that the RealJukebox software program incorporated
spyware to track unsuspecting users' listening patterns and download history. In response, RealNetworks amended its
privacy policy to fully disclose its privacy practices regarding user listening patterns. Subsequently, RealNetworks submitted to independent outside audits of its privacy practices. Several lawsuits regarding the alleged privacy violations were settled out of court.
Cantwell became a multimillionaire with the stock options from RealNetworks. In August of 2000, during her Senate campaign, Cantwell sold 110,000 shares of RealNetworks stock at about $44/share.
2000 campaign
At the urging of party activists and officials, Cantwell formed an exploratory committee in October
1999 to consider a run for United States Senate against Democrat
Deborah Senn and incumbent Republican
Slade Gorton. She committed to running on
January 19,
2000.
Primary
Cantwell was behind Senn by a year in getting into the race. She quickly lost the Washington State Labor Council and NARAL endorsements to Senn. Early on, privacy became an issue. Senn cited her record protecting medical privacy as insurance commissioner. Cantwell promoted Internet privacy and cited her opposition to the
Clipper Chip.
In her television advertising late in the campaign, Senn accused Cantwell of ducking debates. Cantwell had agreed to two debates; Senn preferred more. They ended up having three debates, during which the candidates harshly attacked each other. Senn attacked RealNetworks and Cantwell's role in the company. Cantwell accused Senn of wanting to run against RealNetworks and said that Senn was uninformed on Internet issues.
Cantwell secured the endorsements of ''
The Seattle Times'', the ''
Seattle Post-Intelligencer'', the ''
Spokesman-Review'', and the ''
News Tribune''. She easily won her party's nomination, defeating Senn 3-to-1 in the primary. Although he won renomination, Slade Gorton got fewer votes than Cantwell and Senn's combined total. Cantwell cited this as evidence that Washington was ready for a change.
General election
Social security,
prescription drugs,
dams, and
campaign finance reform were among the most important issues in Cantwell's race against Gorton. Cantwell also adopted the slogan, "Your voice for a change," a veiled reference to Gorton's campaign theme in 1980, challenging incumbent
Warren Magnuson's age. She claimed Gorton supported "19th century solutions to 21st century problems."
Cantwell won the endorsements of ''
The Seattle Times'' and the ''
Seattle Post-Intelligencer'', the state's two biggest newspapers. Gorton won the ''
Tri-City Herald'' and the ''
News Tribune''.
At times the campaign was accused of pettiness. After a Cantwell campaign worker
deep-linked to a humorous photo on the Gorton website, Gorton accused Cantwell's campaign of hacking his website, and Senn accused Cantwell of hypocrisy because of the incident. "Fiddling with people's websites and calling it good fun ... adds a very childish and unworthy character to the race," said Senn's campaign spokeswoman Barbara Stenson.
[20]
The election results were extremely close. Early on, Cantwell enjoyed a lead, and TV networks projected a Cantwell victory. As absentee ballots streamed in, Gorton overtook Cantwell and achieved a lead of 15,000 votes. When the liberal
Puget Sound area finished counting ballots and the county totals were certified on
November 23, Cantwell had regained the lead; she was ahead by 1,953 votes out of 2.5 million cast, about .08%. A mandatory recount increased her lead to 2,229 votes, or .09%.
In 2000, Maria Cantwell and
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan became the first women to defeat incumbent senators.
Campaign Finance
Cantwell spent over $10 million of her own money on her campaign, pledging not to accept money from PACs. When RealNetworks stock declined at the end of 2000, she spent time raising funds for debt retirement, although she kept her pledge not to accept PAC money, as documented by the nonpartisan
Center for Responsive Politics.
[21]
In the waning weeks of the 2000 campaign, the
Federal Election Commission ruled that Cantwell violated federal campaign finance law by securing $3.8 million in bank loans for her campaign and failing to properly disclose the loans until
January 30 2001.
[22] The
Federal Election Commission sent a letter of admonishment.
[23]
2006 re-election campaign
Main articles: Washington United States Senate election, 2006
The close 2004 gubernatorial race between Democrat
Christine Gregoire and Republican
Dino Rossi suggested to many that the 2006 contest might go either way.
[24] Both Cantwell and her opponent Republican
Mike McGavick dominated their primaries; initial speculation favored a Republican victory.
[25] "At one point," wrote analyst
Larry Sabato, "all the talk in this race concerned Cantwell's cool relations with anti-war Democratic elements and McGavick's relatively united base. But Democrats appear to have closed ranks behind their junior senator."
[26] Cantwell ended up winning re-election by a 16 point margin, even winning several traditionally Republican counties in Eastern Washington including
Spokane County.
[27][28]
During the 2006 campaign, Cantwell received heavy criticism for declining most of the invitations she received to debate McGavick in public forums. Media outlets across the state, including the
The Olympian and the
Yakima Herald-Republic, rebuked Cantwell, claiming that she is afraid to confront McGavick, calling it "unacceptable"
[29] and "simply not fair." Cantwell agreed to a total of two debates with her opponent in Seattle and Spokane, lasting 60 and 30 minutes, respectively. However, when Cantwell ran as a challenger for the Senate against the incumbent Slade Gorton in 2000, Gorton only agreed to two debates of a similar format. In another comparison, when Washington's Senior Senator Patty Murray ran for re-election in 2004, she only agreed to two debates with George Nethercutt, although both debates lasted one hour.
[30]
Cantwell was a key proponent of the
McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill of 2002 and cosponsored the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act of 2001.
[31][32] In 2005 she wrote a letter in support of the
Perkins Loan program
[33], and told the
Seattle Times in July 2006 that she is opposed to
Social Security privatization
[34]. Cantwell cosponsored the "Pension Fairness and Full Disclosure Act of 2005".
[35]
Cantwell earned the endorsement of the League of Conservation Voters
[12] and other environmental groups
[13][14] for opposing oil drilling in
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and by cosponsoring the Roadless Area Conservation Act, legislation aimed at preserving Washington's forests from logging and the building of paved roads. She has also worked to invest in
alternative energy and to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, by sponsoring the Clean EDGE Act of 2006.
[39]
Electoral history
Footnotes
1. Maria Cantwell Progressive Score
2. S.Amdt. 4442 Vote Summary
3. S.Amdt. 4320 Vote Summary
4. Apollo Partners National Advisory Board
5. S.Amdt. 2087 Vote Summary
6. Hulk meets his match in drilling fight
7. Senate to Vote On Alito Today
8. Alito filibuster is unlikely
9. S. 2611 Vote Summary
10. The H-1B and L-1 Visas and America's High-Tech Workforce
11. S.2611
12. League of Conservation Voters Endorses Senator Maria Cantwell for Reelection
13. Maria Cantwell: U.S. Senator
14. DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE ACTION FUND ENDORSES SENATOR MARIA CANTWELL IN HER 2006 RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN
15. http://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Maria_Cantwell.htm
16. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002250292_sundayjoni24.html
17. http://www.wilderness.org/NewsRoom/Release/20070319.cfm
18. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~battle/senators/cantwell.htm
19. 2002 Woman of Distinction
20. Fishy Linking Nets Campaign War
21. Cantwell, Maria (D-WA)
22. Feds say Cantwell violated election law
23. MUR 5198
24. Poll Results — WA
25. 2006 Primary Election Results
26. September 19 Primary Updates
27. 2006 General Election Results
28. U.S. Senate, Washington
29. Cantwell passes up chance to debate issues in vital region
30. Cantwell, McGavick quibble over debates
31. S. 27
32. Sen. Wellstone’s Legislation Offers Alternative to Current System Through Public Financing
33. July 28, 2005 Federal Perkins Loan letter
34. Where they stand on Social Security
35. S. 991: Pension Fairness and Full Disclosure Act of 2005
36. League of Conservation Voters Endorses Senator Maria Cantwell for Reelection
37. Maria Cantwell: U.S. Senator
38. DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE ACTION FUND ENDORSES SENATOR MARIA CANTWELL IN HER 2006 RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN
39. Apollo Alliance Statement on the Clean EDGE ACT Daniel Seligman
See also
★
Washington U.S. Senate election, 2006
External links
★
United States Senator Maria Cantwell 'official Senate site'
★
★
Federal Election Commission — Maria Cantwell campaign finance reports and data
★
New York Times — Maria Cantwell News collected news and commentary
★
On the Issues — Maria Cantwell issue positions and quotes
★
OpenSecrets.org — Maria Cantwell campaign contributions
★
Project Vote Smart — Senator Maria Cantwell (WA) profile
★
SourceWatch Congresspedia — Maria Cantwell profile
★
Washington Post — Congress Votes Database: Maria Cantwell voting record
★
About.com — Maria Cantwell profile
★
Maria Cantwell 'official campaign site'
★
Strongman of the North, Rick Anderson, ''Seattle Weekly'', January 4, 2006, article on Cantwell's tangles with Senator Ted Stevens
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