Fighting for Common Ground: How We Can Fix the Stalemate in Congress

An outspoken centrist, Senator Snowe stunned Washington in 2012 when she announced she would not seek a fourth term and offered a sharp rebuke to the Senate, citing the dispiriting gridlock and polarization. After serving in the legislative branch at the state and federal levels for forty years, including eighteen years in the US Senate, she explained that Washington wasn't solving the big problems anymore. In this timely call to action, she explores the roots of her belief in principled policy-making and bipartisan compromise. A leading moderate with a reputation for crossing the aisle, Senator Snowe proposes solutions for bridging the partisan divide in Washington, most notably through a citizens' movement to hold elected officials accountable. Senator Snowe recounts how the tragedies and triumphs of her personal story helped shape her political approach. Born in Maine, Senator Snowe was orphaned at nine and raised by an aunt and uncle. When she was twenty-six, her husband, a Maine state representative, was killed in a car accident. Already dedicated to public service, she ran for and won her husband's seat. Fighting for Common Ground includes anecdotes from throughout Snowe's career and addresses her working relationships with Presidents Reagan through Obama, Senator Ted Kennedy, Majority Leader Bob Dole, and many others, as well as her involvement with the most talked-about legislative challenges of recent decades: the country's response to 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, the Affordable Care Act, the debt ceiling debacle, and much more. Drawing on the lessons she's learned as a policymaker and the frustration she shares with the American people about the government's dwindling productivity, Senator Snowe passionately argues that the government has now lost its way, shows how this happened, and proposes ways for the world's greatest deliberative body to once again fulfill its mission.