In November 2000, Olympia J. Snowe was re-elected to a second six-year term with 69 percent of the vote to continue representing Maine in the United States Senate. With her election in 1994, she became only the second woman Senator in history to represent Maine, following the late Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, who served from 1949 - 1973.
Before her election to the Senate, Olympia Snowe represented Maine’s Second Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for sixteen years. Senator Snowe is only the fourth woman in history to be elected to both houses of Congress and the first woman in American history to serve in both houses of a state legislature and both houses of Congress. When first elected to Congress in 1978, at the age of 31, Olympia Snowe was the youngest Republican woman, and the first Greek-American woman, ever elected to Congress. She has won more federal elections in Maine than any other person since World War II.
