Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine speaks to media outside her office on Capitol Hill in Washington. The surprising retirement of moderate Snowe moves congressional centrists a step closer to extinction, and illustrates the great paradox of American politics. Voters say they want bipartisan solutions to the nation’s problems. But they vote in ways that assure partisan warfare, driving the GOP farther right and the Democratic Party farther left.By ANDREW TAYLOR
WASHINGTON – In many ways, Thursday encapsulated why the Senate is failing to live up to its aspiration to be the world’s “greatest deliberative body” and why Maine Republican Olympia Snowe is bailing out of the institution in the prime of her career.
Capping three weeks of dysfunctional, sporadic debate on a massive highway bill, the Senate finally voted on an amendment to the measure – except that the vote had nothing to do with highway jobs and everything to do with election-year politics.
Snowe, a moderate, was the only Republican to join with Democrats on a politically freighted vote that affirmed an Obama administration directive that requires employers to provide contraception coverage to their workers regardless of religious or ethical concerns.
After casting their first votes since Monday, most senators then immediately bolted the Capitol. It was lunchtime.