Maria Ellen Cantwell (; born October 13, 1958) is an American politician serving since 2001 as the junior U.S. senator from Washington. A member of the Democratic Party, she served from 1987 to 1993 in the Washington House of Representatives and from 1993 to 1995 in the United States House of Representatives.
Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Cantwell graduated from Miami University before moving to Seattle to work on Alan Cranston's 1984 presidential campaign. In 1986, she was elected to the state house of representatives, where she served until her election to Congress in 1992. Cantwell served one term in Congress before losing her seat to Republican Rick White in the 1994 election. She then briefly worked in the private sector as vice president of marketing for RealNetworks.
Despite having vowed to remain out of politics, Cantwell ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000. She defeated Republican incumbent Slade Gorton in one of the closest elections in the state's history. Cantwell was reelected in 2006, 2012, 2018, and 2024. After Jeff Sessions resigned from the Senate in February 2017 to become United States Attorney General, Cantwell became the most senior junior senator. She is the second female senator from Washington, after Patty Murray.
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)
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.