Olympia Snowe is the only woman to have served in both houses of the Maine legislature and both houses of Congress. Two years ago, the moderate Republican retired from the U.S. Senate, citing the surge in hyper-partisanship and extremism. This week, she was in Dallas to speak at a Planned Parenthood awards luncheon -- and she talked with 四虎影院鈥檚 vice president of news, Rick Holter, in this week鈥檚 Friday Conversation.
Interview Highlights:
鈥n the difficulty of pushing for change since leaving the Senate:
鈥淚t鈥檚 actually in some ways easier because you are unconstrained by the day-to-day in order to focus on this mission. When I realized that overall Congress wasn鈥檛 achieving its potential, that鈥檚 what took a significant change.鈥�
鈥n fixing the hyper-partisanship in Congress:
鈥淧eople think it鈥檚 an all or nothing proposition when it comes to problems and I always say, 鈥業 don鈥檛 know an area of life where you get 100 percent of what you want.鈥� You know? If you want to solve a problem, you鈥檝e got to be practical about it to make it work. It isn鈥檛 so much that someone鈥檚 a liberal, a conservative, far left, far right, that鈥檚 not the issue. The issue is, at the end of the day, you prepare to help solve some problems and move forward.鈥�
鈥n her view of the abortion restrictions in Texas:
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 contradictory because it鈥檚 blocking access to contraceptives and it's denying people to make their choices for themselves. It鈥檚 government intrusion, which I see as contradictory to the Republican philosophy. We don鈥檛 want government intruding in our lives.鈥�
