Maria Cantwell

Democrat Maria Cantwell has represented Washington State in the US Senate since her election in 2000. She is the first "high-tech" millionaire to serve in that chamber.

Early Life and Education

Maria E. Cantwell was born October 13, 1958, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Raised there in a working-class Irish neighborhood, she is the second of five children born to Paul and Rose Cantwell. Her father, a construction worker, became a county commissioner, two-term city councilman, state legislator, and chief of staff for US Representative Andrew Jacobs. Her mother, an administrative assistant, took an active interest in politics as well. Cantwell has attributed her motivation to pursue a career in politics to her parents' community involvement and their frequent conversation about political issues.

As a young girl, Cantwell attended both Catholic and public schools, participating in student government and in Catholic youth organizations. With the help of financial aid, Cantwell became the first in her family to go to college. She was elected president of the Young Democrats chapter at Miami University of Ohio and participated in a program at Miami's European Center in Luxembourg. In 1980, she received a bachelor's degree in public policy.

Cantwell has never been married. With her recently widowed mother and Chuck, a diabetic dog, she resides in Edmonds, fourteen miles north of Seattle.

Public Relations Consultant

After college, Cantwell helped her father manage his Kentucky oil well investments. She was then hired by Jerry Springer, former Cincinnati mayor and notorious talk show host, when he campaigned for Ohio governor. Cantwell has described him as "very charismatic" and stated that she was glad to work for him.

In 1984, Cantwell moved to Washington State, initially as a paid field director for Senator Alan Cranston, who was then seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Through this work, she met Ron Dotzauer, a former campaign aide to longtime US Senator from Washington Henry "Scoop" Jackson (1912-1983), known for his blend of liberal and conservative views. Dotzauer created a politically oriented public relations firm, Northwest Strategies, in 1985. Cantwell, the first person he hired, worked there until 1986.

State and US Representative

Cantwell successfully organized a campaign for a new library in Mountlake Terrace, the town north of Seattle where she then lived. When the local state legislature seat opened up, she won it through a door-to-door campaign. In 1987, the twenty-eight-year-old Cantwell became the youngest female state legislator in Washington history until that date. She gained prominence for her leadership work on the Washington Growth Management Act. In 1992, she left the state House for a higher office.

For Washington's First District, Cantwell represented Washington's First District in the US House of Representatives during the 103rd Congress (1993-1995). There she became known on the national political scene for her support of parental leave, deficit reduction, environmental protection, legalized abortion, and pro-business policies, especially those of interest to the emerging information technology (IT) industry.

Cantwell's district was an IT world center. She won the industry's backing through her opposition to export limits on software encryption programs and to the "Clipper chip," an encryption device the federal government promoted as a means of secure online voice communication. However, IT and privacy advocates like Cantwell objected that the chip could be used for illegal surveillance purposes.

In 1994, moderate Republican Rick White defeated Cantwell's reelection bid. That year's elections brought victory for many Republican candidates across the nation, perhaps because a Democrat, Bill Clinton, had ascended to the White House in 1992. Cantwell took a hiatus from politics, but she was able to literally capitalize on the IT expertise she had gained while in Congress.

High-Tech Marketing Executive

In 1995, Cantwell joined the small staff of Progressive Networks, an IT startup company whose founder she befriended through her political connections. Known as RealNetworks in the twenty-first century, the firm developed and marketed software programs for transmitting sound and video over the Internet. As vice president of the e-commerce and consumer division, Cantwell assisted the firm's expansion to a staff of over a thousand. She accumulated a personal fortune of roughly $50 million by early 2000 and used the money to affect her political comeback.

United States Senator

Cantwell decided to take on third-term incumbent US Senator Slade Gorton, a Republican known for opposing many environmental bills. She declared her support for restrained government spending and campaign-finance reform, while appealing to Washington's sizeable contingent of left-leaning voters on such matters as the environment.

The election results ran so close that they were not settled for an entire month. Cantwell was finally declared the winner by a few thousand votes. Observers attributed her victory to her somewhat controversial outspending of her opponent. She had used only her own funds, while portraying Gorton as utterly dependent on political action committee contributions. She also garnered support from liberal voters who were disillusioned with Gorton, and from IT professionals who felt that he had not caught up with their emerging industry.

On her first day as a Senator, Cantwell, one of the US Senate's youngest members, gave a tribute to Scoop Jackson. Georgia Senator Max Cleland then presented her with the desk Jackson had occupied during his 31 years representing Washington State in the Senate. At Scoop Jackson's old desk, Cantwell continued the so-called "New Democratic" blend of economic conservatism and social liberalism that her role model anticipated.

During her first two years in the Senate, she voted with Democratic leaders 92 percent of the time on issues such as energy regulation, gun control, Medicare prescription coverage, and unemployment benefits extension. However, she has differed from her party in order to side with her state's business interests. Cantwell opposed the breakup of Microsoft and voted in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was a financial boon to Boeing Aircraft.

Cantwell was reelected in 2006, 2012, and 2018. She served on several Senate committees, including serving as chair of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. She also served on the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Committee on Finance, Committee on Indian Affairs, Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and Joint Committee on Taxation. She fought for policies to protect the environment and end offshore drilling in the Arctic. She generally aligned herself with the Democratic Party.

Cantwell sought a fifth term in the Senate in 2024. She easily won the August primary and went on to win in the November general election against Republican nominee, Raul Garcia.

Bibliography

“About Maria.” Maria Cantwell United States Senator for Washington, 2024, www.cantwell.senate.gov/about/biography/about-maria. Accessed 17 Oct. 2024.

Deshais, Nicholas. “U.S. Senate Primary Election Results: Maria Cantwell Leads Raul Garcia." Seattle Times, 6 Aug. 2024, www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/u-s-senate-primary-election-results-maria-cantwell-leads-raul-garcia/.  Accessed 17 Oct. 2024.

“Senator Maria Cantwell." Congress.gov, www.congress.gov/member/maria-cantwell/C000127. Accessed 17 Oct. 2024.