Maria Cantwell

Early life, education, and early political career

Cantwell was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. She was raised in a predominantly Irish American neighborhood on the south side of Indianapolis. Her father, Paul Cantwell, served as county commissioner, city councilor, state legislator, and chief of staff for U.S. Representative Andrew Jacobs Jr. and was the Democratic nominee for mayor of Indianapolis in 1979. Her mother, Rose, was an administrative assistant. Her ancestry includes Irish and German.

Cantwell attended Emmerich Manual High School, and was inducted into the Indianapolis Public Schools Hall of Fame in 2006. After high school, she attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in public administration.

A year after graduating, Cantwell worked on Jerry Springer's unsuccessful 1982 Ohio gubernatorial campaign. In 1983, she moved to Seattle, Washington, to campaign for U.S. Senator Alan Cranston in his unsuccessful bid for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination. She then moved to the Seattle suburb of Mountlake Terrace, because it reminded her of Indianapolis, and led a successful campaign in 1986 to build a new library there. As of 2000, Cantwell lived in Edmonds, Washington with her mother.

Washington House of Representatives (1987–1993)

Elections

In 1986, Cantwell was elected to the Washington State House of Representatives, defeating George Dahlquist 54%–46%. In 1988, she was reelected with 66% of the vote. In 1990, she was reelected to a third term with 61% of the vote.

Tenure

As a state representative, Cantwell helped write Washington's Growth Management Act of 1990, which required cities to develop comprehensive growth plans, and negotiated its passage. She also worked on legislation regulating nursing homes. Cantwell resigned on January 3, 1993, in preparation to be sworn in as a member of the United States House of Representatives.

U.S. House of Representatives (1993–1995)

Elections

1992

In the November election, Cantwell defeated Republican State Senator Gary A. Nelson 55%–42%. She became the first Democrat elected to the United States House of Representatives from Washington's first congressional district in 40 years.

1994

Republican Rick White defeated Cantwell 52%–48% in the 1994 United States House of Representatives elections. Before that year's "Republican Revolution", eight of the nine representatives from the Washington state delegation were from the Democratic Party. After the election, five Democratic representatives from Washington state lost their campaigns for reelection, including Cantwell, future governor Jay Inslee, and Speaker of the House Tom Foley.

Tenure

Cantwell was called a "savvy, pro-business Democrat". She supported President Clinton's 1993 budget, which raised taxes and passed without the votes of many Democrats. During her only term, she helped persuade the Clinton administration to terminate its support of the Clipper chip. She wrote Vice President Al Gore a letter staunchly opposing it because Microsoft was in her district. She voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

In 1993, Cantwell became one of the first three women to play in the annual Congressional Baseball Game, alongside Blanche Lincoln (then under her maiden name Lambert) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Committee assignments

Public Works

Foreign Affairs

Merchant Marine and Fisheries

Private sector employment (1995–1999)

After her defeat, Cantwell vowed to leave politics. Political ally Rob Glaser offered her a job as vice president of marketing for RealNetworks. Among her accomplishments was the live internet streaming broadcast of a Mariners-Yankees baseball game in 1995, which marked the start of internet broadcasts of Major League Baseball games.

In 1998, the company was criticized by privacy groups, which alleged that the RealJukebox software program incorporated spyware to track unsuspecting users' listening patterns and download history. In response, RealNetworks amended its privacy policy to fully disclose its privacy practices regarding user listening patterns and subsequently submitted to independent outside audits of its privacy practices. Several lawsuits regarding alleged privacy violations were settled out of court. This incident shaped her views on privacy and her opposition to the Bush administration's post-9/11 policies.

U.S. Senate (2001–present)

Elections

At the urging of party activists and officials, Cantwell formed an exploratory committee in October 1999 to consider a run for U.S. Senate against Democrat Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn and incumbent Republican Senator Slade Gorton. She committed to the race on January 19, 2000. Cantwell entered the campaign a year after Senn, who was endorsed by the Washington State Labor Council and NARAL, and used her personal wealth to fund television advertisements. Early on, privacy became an issue; Senn cited her record protecting medical privacy as insurance commissioner, while Cantwell promoted internet privacy and cited her opposition to the Clipper chip. Senn later used television advertisements to accuse Cantwell of avoiding debates, as she had agreed to two debates while Senn preferred more. They participated in three debates, during which they attacked each other. Senn attacked RealNetworks and Cantwell's role in the company; Cantwell accused Senn of wanting to run against RealNetworks, and said that Senn was uninformed on internet issues. Cantwell was endorsed by The Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Spokesman-Review, and The News Tribune. She won the nomination, defeating Senn by a 3–1 margin in the primary. Although he won re-nomination, Gorton got fewer votes than Cantwell and Senn's combined total.

Social security, prescription drugs, dams, gun control, and campaign finance reform were among the most important issues in Cantwell's race against Gorton, which drew national attention. 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 said Gorton supported "19th-century solutions to 21st-century problems". Cantwell was endorsed by The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the state's two biggest newspapers. Gorton was endorsed by the smaller The News Tribune and two of the largest Eastern Washington newspapers, The Spokesman-Review and Tri-City Herald. At times, the campaign was accused of pettiness as national PACs and groups funded television attack ads. After a Cantwell campaign worker deep-linked to a humorous photo on Gorton's website, he accused Cantwell's campaign of hacking, and Senn accused Cantwell of hypocrisy. "Fiddling with people's websites and calling it good fun ... adds a very childish and unworthy character to the race", Senn's campaign spokeswoman Barbara Stenson said. Cantwell spent over $10 million of her own money on her campaign, pledging not to accept money from PACs. When RealNetworks stock declined at the end of 2000, she spent time raising funds for debt retirement, but kept her pledge not to accept PAC money. In the waning weeks of the campaign, the Federal Election Commission ruled that Cantwell violated federal campaign finance law by securing $3.8 million in bank loans for her campaign and failing to properly disclose the loans until January 30, 2001. The complaint alleged she had received a $600,000 line of credit without sufficient collateral, and another $1,000,000, all at a preferential interest rate. After review, the Federal Election Commission sent a letter of admonishment, saying that the loans were "made on a basis that assures repayment, and that each loan bore the usual and customary interest rate".

Tenure

Cantwell was a proponent of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill of 2002, and co-sponsored the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act of 2001. In 2005, she wrote a letter in support of the Perkins Loan program, and in July 2006 she told the Seattle Times she opposed Social Security privatization. Cantwell co-sponsored the "Pension Fairness and Full Disclosure Act of 2005".

Also in 2005, Cantwell voted for the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which angered many who opposed free trade agreements. Others argued that due to the state's unique economy, any senator from Washington almost had to vote for free trade pacts.

Cantwell was one of 22 senators to vote not to confirm United States Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, citing his potential views on abortion and the environment. In January 2006, after publicly announcing her opposition to Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, Cantwell, 18 other Democrats and all 53 present Republicans, voted for the cloture motion. The success of this motion ended an unlikely attempt to filibuster Alito's confirmation led by Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy. Alito was confirmed the next day by a vote of 58–42, with most Democrats, including Cantwell, voting against confirmation.

In 2010, Cantwell voted to invoke cloture to begin debate on the Don't ask, don't tell policy in the military.

In the 2016 United States presidential election, Cantwell received one electoral vote for vice president from a faithless elector in Washington.

Cantwell has led efforts to improve internet privacy laws.

In 2024, Cantwell crafted legislation to require airline passengers to request a refund for a canceled flight rather than automatically receiving one.

Cantwell has expressed support for making Plan B contraceptives available to girls 16 and under. In 2007, she co-sponsored the Prevention First Act, a bill that sought to increase national access to family planning and preventative methods as a means to reduce unwanted pregnancies. It included giving women access to Plan B, as well as expanding Medicaid to cover family planning. As an advocate of increasing access to family planning and sexual health education, Cantwell argues that these venues for increased education are necessary to reduce unwanted pregnancies. She was criticized by her Republican challenger, State Senator Michael Baumgartner, who suggested that she was too extreme and too far to the left of Washington voters on this issue, and expressed concern about 11-year-olds getting these drugs without a prescription.

Committee assignments

Cantwell's committee assignments for the 118th Congress are as follows:

Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation (Chair)

As chair, Cantwell is an ex officio member of all subcommittees.

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Committee on Finance

Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure

Subcommittee on Health Care

Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight

Committee on Indian Affairs

Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship

Joint Committee on Taxation

Caucus memberships

Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues

Congressional Hazards Caucus

Congressional Internet Caucus

Congressional Wine Caucus

Senate National Guard Caucus

Senate New Democrat Coalition

Senate Steel Caucus

Rare Disease Caucus

Personal life

In 2006, it emerged that court files concerning a loan Cantwell made in 2001 to her former boyfriend, boss, and campaign manager, lobbyist Ron Dotzauer, to help him through his divorce litigation, had been sealed. A Sound Politics reporter had the file unsealed and discovered that Cantwell was identified in the divorce records "as the 'other woman'".

Cantwell was also formerly in a relationship with Seattle-based track and cross country star Scott Daggatt, then serving as a stockbroker of a Seattle-based National Securities Corporation.

Owing to a sharp decrease in the value of her RealNetworks stock, Cantwell's personal fortune had declined significantly by 2011.