At an informal discussion Saturday, Senator Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, told a small group of students about her 22 years as a legislator at both the state and national level, and what it means to be a woman with political power.
Snowe, speaking in the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences to about 20 students, mostly Women in Politics members, said she supports Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., for president in 1996.
"The aggregate of his life's experiences would make him a great president," she said.
Snowe criticized President Bill Clinton for ignoring moderate Republicans like herself.
She said when Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush were in office, legislators of all political persuasions were invited to the White House to debate issues such as taxes and, in Bush's case, the Gulf War.
Snowe, who was elected to the Senate in 1994, served in the U.S House of Representatives for 16 years, staring in 1978. She is married to John R. McKernan Jr. '70, the former Governor of Maine.
Concerning this week's Senate budget hearings, Snowe said she considers student loans a "key issue."
"We are going to balance this budget," she said. "It's not going to be easy. We're going to have to make some tough choices. But I think we should carve out certain issues that are critical to our country's future."
Snowe started the hour-long discussion by telling the audience why it is important for women to be involved with the political system. "Congress doesn't have enough women," she said, citing the fact that only eight of 100 Senators are female.
"We're under-represented and that, I think, has an impact on the kind of policies that evolve," she said.
Snowe said her female colleagues do not always share ideas or even basic political ideology but "the bottom line is women come with different life experiences than men do. That's what we bring to the table."
"I have made a personal commitment, above and beyond my other responsibilities to my constituency, to work on issues that effect women," Snowe said.
For 12 years Snowe co-chaired the Congressional Women's Caucus, which pushed child-care, family medical leave and other women's issues through the legislature.
"When I came to Congress we didn't even have child support enforcement," Snowe said of the days when Washington looked at the nation's problems through male eyes only.
"It was accepted in our society to suggest that the non-custodial parent, in most cases the father, would not be paying the bills for their child's upbringing," she said. "Ultimately that became a cost to the tax-payers."
Snowe also said she helped create an office of women's health at the National Institutes of Health that grants money for medical research. All clinical study trials funded by the NIH must now include women in their test groups so procedures and cures that emerge can be prescribed and applied to women.
Snowe also recounted the story of the statue of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott that sat in the basement of the Capitol building, while the rotunda was filled with statues of famous men.
For the 75th anniversary of women's suffrage this year, Snowe and other Senators tried to get federal funds to move the statue to the rotunda. But the House defeated the measure and outside funds had to be used for the project.
Snowe said she considers the statue's plight a personification of the struggle of American women.
Asked to contrast the House and the Senate, Snowe said the size of the House caused her considerable frustration.
"On any major subject of the day you're lucky to get two minutes to speak," she said. "Sometimes the more important the issue the less time you have. Then you don't have the opportunity to amend."
As a Senator, in contrast, she said she wields more influence.
"In the Senate, you're now one of 100," she said. "Just by the very fact that there are fewer of you, you can have more influence. I can say something and people pay attention."
"Because you're fewer in number its more informal, more personal, and people work more independently. You're able to contact people much more personally," she said.
"On our side, you have only 53 Republicans with the departure of Sen. [Bob] Packwood," Snowe said. "So, it's essential for the leader who's going to get a majority to pay attention to each and every person to find out where they stand on a particular issue."
Snowe also said since House members face reelection every two years, they constantly shift their agendas to accommodate the sentiments of electorates back home.
