Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.)

Though she won election to the Senate by a narrow margin in 2000, her positions during her freshman term seem to largely reflect those of her constituents. In the 111th Congress, she voted with her fellow Democrats 93.7% of the time.

The Environment

Cantwell had always focused on environmental issues. But in 2005, she stepped up her activities after attaching a measure to the Surface Transportation Act to require the Environmental Protection Agency to update its fuel-economy testing. But Cantwell's biggest recent environmental battle was over opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling.

It was over ANWR that Cantwell first went head- to-head with powerful former Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), a staunch supporter of drilling in the refuge. With much of Alaska's raw materials -- fish, crude oil and ore -- sent to Washington for processing, the two states often had competing, but complimentary interests. When Cantwell attempted to eliminate language about ANWR from the 2005 budget reconciliation bill, Stevens struck back with a bill to expand oil-tanker traffic in Seattle's Puget Sound -- a move that was undone when it was revealed that Stevens had been in cahoots with British Petroleum, one of his contributors, to expand its market in the Sound. ANWR is still a controversial issue, with many Republicans, and some Democrats, still pushing to allow oil drilling there, especially in the face of record energy prices in summer 2008.

In December 2005, Cantwell staged a second battle against the GOP's most senior senator when she narrowly blocked Republicans from attaching an ANWR drilling measure to a defense-spending bill. As Cantwell approached re-election in 2006, her conflicts with Stevens gave her high-credibility among the green-minded Democrats in the Pacific Northwest. "Cantwell never had it so good until she had it so bad with Stevens," quipped a local Seattle columnist in January of 2006.

Campaign Finance

Cantwell has a long history supporting campaign finance reform, stretching back to her initial run for the Senate. Her support for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that banned soft money was a major platform of her 2000 campaign, when she refused to accept PAC or soft money. But instead, Cantwell spent several millions out of her own pocket to fund her bid.

The Federal Election Commission, however, didn't look as favorably on how Cantwell funded her PAC-free candidacy. In 2004, the FEC ruled that Cantwell violated campaign-finance law by failing to disclose the terms of the loans negotiated in her 2000 Senate campaign that used her RealNetwork stock as collateral -- a value that plummeted along with the Dotcom economy. With her net worth severely diminished, Cantwell re-negotiated her loans and accepted contributions from individual lobbyists and Democratic donors -- though still turned down PAC money. The majority of Cantwell's debt was paid off by her run for re-election in 2006.

The Economy

In February 2009, Cantwell voted for Obama's stimulus plan, encouraged that the plan would invest in green technology and energy. "I look at it as a big, big, big opportunity," Cantwell said to a Washington state paper in early April. "Energy is a $6 trillion market. By comparison, the Internet was $1 trillion."

In fall 2008, Cantwell voted against the financial bailout formulated by the Bush administration.

Health Care Reform

Cantwell supports reform with a public option that is included in the initial legislation without a trigger.

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