ICYMI: Ranking Member Shaheen Profiled in Foreign Policy

WASHINGTON – In case you missed it: This week, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was profiled by Foreign Policy magazine, focusing on her storied career representing New Hampshire as both Governor and Senator, as well as navigating President Trump’s second term and the future of bipartisanship in America.

Read the full profile of Ranking Member Shaheen here.

Key quotes from Ranking Member Shaheen:

• “The whole time I was governor, I had a Republican legislature. My career in politics has been about trying to work in a bipartisan manner.”
  
  
• On the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act: “In my mind, it’s a trade-off, and I think the most critical issue right now is putting pressure on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and trying to do everything we can to end the war in Ukraine. Is it a perfect bill? No. Legislation is never perfect. But would it help us to really put pressure on Putin? The answer is yes.”
  
  
• On Republicans standing up to President Trump: “My argument is: ‘So you lose your election? What’s more important? Your principles, or staying in office?’ And that argument just doesn’t carry much weight with most people,”
  
  
• “It’ll be interesting to see in the upcoming elections if there are any of those states that have historically been Republican but don’t vote Republican this time, I think that’s what it’s going to take in order to get people to think about doing more to work together.”
  
  

Other highlights from the article:

• Naz Durakoglu, longtime staffer for Shaheen and Democratic staff director on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Shaheen’s unanimous confirming of 10 career ambassadors: “I think this is very uniquely Jeanne Shaheen,” recalling how other Senate staff for both Democrats and Republicans laughed when they realized what the senator was doing and that she was going to get away with it. “Because she was the one doing it, no one objected.”
  
  
• Foreign Policy: “Shaheen, who is retiring at the end of the year, has spent nearly two decades on Capitol Hill working in a bipartisan manner to strike modest compromises. That hasn’t always made her popular with the Democratic base, which has been hunting for its own flamethrowers to meet the challenge of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term Flamethrower she is not. Rather, Shaheen operates as a conciliator, doing the often-unglamorous work of trying to build consensus. No matter how outraged she may be over Trump’s latest norm-defying move, she always speaks in measured, even tones.”
  
  
• Foreign Policy: “The senator’s legislating philosophy is similar to her governing philosophy and can generally be summed up by the old aphorism: ‘Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of good.’”
  
  

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