Blueprint for Bipartisanship: A Conversation with Senator Olympia Snowe and Jason Grumet
Senator Olympia Jean Snowe is a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) and served an 18-year career in the Senate, which ended on January 2, 2013. Before her election to the Senate, Snowe represented Maine’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for 16 years. She was the first woman in U.S. 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, 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, and is the third-longest serving woman in the history of the Congress. Snowe is a former chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, became the first Republican woman ever to secure a full-term seat on the Senate Finance Committee, and was also the first woman senator to chair the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Seapower, which oversees the Navy and Marine Corps. In 2005, Snowe was named the 54th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine. In 2006, Time magazine named her one of the top ten U.S. senators.
Jason Grumet is the founder and president of the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). In 2007, Grumet founded BPC with former U.S. Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell to develop and promote bipartisan solutions to America’s most difficult public policy challenges. Under Grumet’s leadership, BPC is developing and advocating bipartisan solutions on immigration reform, health care, housing and economic policy, energy security and national security. In 2001, Grumet founded and directed the National Commission on Energy Policy, which produced a comprehensive set of policy recommendations many of which were adopted into law in 2005 and 2007. These policies included specific legislative approaches to promote domestic energy production as well as the first updates of U.S. automotive fuel economy standards in 30 years. Previously, Grumet led the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, a nonprofit association of air quality agencies in the Northeast. During his eight-year tenure, Grumet expanded the organization’s technical and advocacy capabilities increasing its presence in the national policy debate.
This event is free and open to the public.
Paul Brest Hall
555 Salvatierra Way
Stanford, CA 94305
Bruce E. Cain
Jerry Yang & Akiko Yamazaki
Environment & Energy Building
473 Via Ortega, First Floor
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-4225
Bruce E. Cain is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. He received a BA from Bowdoin College (1970), a B Phil. from Oxford University (1972) as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph D from Harvard University (1976). He taught at Caltech (1976-89) and UC Berkeley (1989-2012) before coming to Stanford. Professor Cain was Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley from 1990-2007 and Executive Director of the UC Washington Center from 2005-2012. He was elected the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and has won awards for his research (Richard F. Fenno Prize, 1988), teaching (Caltech 1988 and UC Berkeley 2003) and public service (Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service, 2000). His areas of expertise include political regulation, applied democratic theory, representation and state politics. Some of Professor Cain’s most recent publications include “Malleable Constitutions: Reflections on State Constitutional Design,” coauthored with Roger Noll in University of Texas Law Review, volume 2, 2009; “More or Less: Searching for Regulatory Balance,” in Race, Reform and the Political Process, edited by Heather Gerken, Guy Charles and Michael Kang, CUP, 2011; and “Redistricting Commissions: A Better Political Buffer?” in The Yale Law Journal, volume 121, 2012. He is currently working on a book about political reform in the US.
