Maria Cantwell (born October 13, 1958) is the junior United States Senator from Washington state and is a member of the Democratic Party.
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2 In the Washington and United States Houses 3 In the Private Sector 4 Campaign 2000 5 In the United States Senate |
Maria Cantwell was born in Indianapolis. She was raised in a predominantly Irish neighbourhood on the south side of Indianapolis. Her father, Paul, served as county county commissioner, city councilman, state legislator, and Chief of Staff for U.S. Representative Andrew Jacobs. Her mother, Rose was an administrative assistant.
She remained in Indianapolis through high school, when she left for Miami University of Ohio, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Administration. After earning her degree, she moved to Seattle, Washington in 1983 to campaign for Alan Cranston. She then moved to Seattle suburb Mountlake Terrace because it reminded her of Indianapolis. She led a successful campaign to build a new library there.
In 1986, Cantwell became the youngest woman ever elected to the Washington State Legislature at the age of 28. She had knocked on every door in her district. As a state representative, she helped write the 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, she 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 got 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.
After her defeat, Cantwell vowed to leave politics. Political ally Rob Glaser offered her a job as vice president of RealNetworks for marketing. She succeeded with the live broadcast of a Mariners-Yankees baseball game in 1995. (Cantwell is an avid Mariners fan.) She became a multimillionaire as the company grew.
The company faced embarrassment when it was discovered that its software tracked users' listening habits. Cantwell responded by writing a privacy policy she says was the first of its kind. She claimed in 2000 that RealNetworks was at the frontier of Internet privacy.
At the urging of party activists and officials, Cantwell formed an exploratory committee in October 1999 to mull a run for United States Senate against Democrat Deborah Senn and incumbent Republican Slade Gorton. She committed to running on January 19, 2000. Cantwell was behind Senn by a year, and quickly lost the Washington State Labor Council and NARAL endorsements to her.
Early on, privacy became an issue. Cantwell promoted Internet privacy and cited her opposition to the Clipper Chip; Senn cited her record protecting medical privacy as insurance commissioner. Gorton damaged Cantwell's campaign when he falsely accused her of hacking his website. (A campaign volunteer had deep-linked to a photo posted there.) Senn accused Cantwell of hypocrisy because of the incident.
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 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.
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.
The election was 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 gained a lead of 1,953 votes out of 2.5 million ballots cast, or about .08%. A mandatory recount increased her lead to 2,229 votes, or .09%, on December 7. Republicans frequently pointed out that Cantwell won only five counties. However, those counties were among the most populous in Washington, including King County, Washington.
Republicans criticized Libertarian candidate Jeff Jared for acting as a spoiler. They said that had he not run, his 64,734 votes would have gone mostly to Slade Gorton, making him the victor. Some Democrats accused Republicans of hypocrisy for believing this, but not believing that Ralph Nader spoiled Al Gore's chances for the presidency. The Libertarians complained about Gorton's stances on gun control and the size of government in general.
Cantwell spent over $10 million of her own money on her campaign, and she rejected money from PACs. When one includes money spent by the Republican Party on behalf of Gorton, he still outspent her.
Maria Cantwell serves on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
She has voted with the Senate Democratic leadership most of the time, including her vote in favor of the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq. Her main claim to fame is authoring an amendment to a 2003 bill that would have repealed the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935: The Cantwell Amendment would have prohibited Enron-style market manipulation. It was defeated by a vote of 50-48.Early Life
In the Washington and United States Houses
In the Private Sector
Campaign 2000
In the United States Senate
