The first woman elected from Rhode Island to the U.S.
House of Representatives, Claudine Schneider also was the
first Republican Representative to serve the state in more
than 40 years. During her five terms in Congress, Schneider
earned a reputation as one of the House’s strongest
environmental advocates.1
Claudine Schneider was born Claudine Cmarada in
Clairton, Pennsylvania, on March 25, 1947, the eldest of
three children. Her father was a tailor.2 She graduated from
Pittsburgh’s Winchester-Thurston High School in 1965,
before studying at Rosemont College in Pennsylvania and
the University of Barcelona in Spain. She received a BA in
languages from Vermont’s Windham College in 1969. She
later attended the University of Rhode Island’s School for
Community Planning in 1975. After graduation, Cmarada
moved to Washington, DC, where she worked as executive
director of Concern, Inc., a national environmental
education organization. Engaged to Dr. Eric Schneider,
she moved with him to Narragansett, Rhode Island, in
1970 when he took a position as a research scientist at the
University of Rhode Island’s Center for Ocean Management
Studies. In 1973 she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease,
a rare form of cancer in the lymph nodes, which she battled
for five years. After twelve years of marriage, Claudine
and Eric Schneider were divorced in 1985. Despite her
continuing battle with cancer, Claudine Schneider became
involved in the Rhode Island environmental movement.
She founded the Rhode Island Committee on Energy in
1973, and the following year, she became executive director
of the Conservation Law Foundation. In 1974 she led a
group of concerned community and environmental groups,
launching the first successful campaign in the United States
to halt the construction of a nuclear power plant near her
home in Charlestown, Rhode Island.3
In the mid-1970s, Claudine Schneider aspired to
run as a Democrat for one of Rhode Island’s two seats
in the U.S. House but found little support among party
leaders. Rarely did a candidate win without the support
of the statewide machine and, though both parties were
well-organized at all levels in Rhode Island politics, the
Democratic Party had enjoyed a strong statewide majority
since the 1930s.4 A political moderate, Schneider switched
party allegiances in 1978, finding more support from the
GOP.5 That same year, after her husband declined to seek
the GOP gubernatorial nomination, Schneider expressed
her own interest. Republican leaders had a different
candidate in mind; however, they offered Schneider a
chance for a U.S. House seat in a district that included
Providence and the state’s southern beaches.6 She ran a
competitive race against Democratic incumbent Edward
Peter Beard.7 A former house painter, Beard’s blue-collar
background appealed to the capital city’s Italian
neighborhoods.8 Schneider won 48 percent of the turnout,
coming within 9,000 votes of Beard.9 She continued her
environmental pursuits and attracted more publicity as a
television producer and a public affairs talk show host for a
statewide Sunday morning program.10
Schneider challenged Beard again in 1980 when he
ran for a fourth term. This time Beard’s reputation for
being quarrelsome and ill-informed hurt his campaign.11
Schneider, on the other hand, had learned to speak Italian,
broadened her base of support, and ran well ahead of Beard.
She captured an upset victory, winning with 55 percent of
the vote as the first woman to represent Rhode Island.12 The
first Republican to win either of the state’s two House seats
since 1938, Schneider was re-elected to the four succeeding
Congresses, enjoying increasingly larger margins of
victory.13 At 72 percent, her 1986 and 1988 victories were
the highest percentage for a GOP candidate in Rhode Island
since 1878.14
Claudine Schneider arrived for the 97th Congress
(1981–1983) insisting that she was not a liberal Republican,
but outside her economic policies, her voting record
indicated otherwise.15 Schneider tended to be a fiscal
conservative, allying with her fellow Republicans on issues
such as balancing the federal budget and curbing inflation.16
“We’ve got to stop the government from spending more
money,” she said. “I don’t look to the government to solve
our problems.”17 Schneider stopped short of slashing the
social programs on which her working-class constituents
depended, claiming, “We can help them, but we can do it
in a cost-efficient fashion.”18 However, Schneider quickly
earned a reputation as a GOP critic of President Ronald
Reagan’s conservative social agenda. She opposed the
President’s position 75 percent of the time, more than the
average for House Democrats. Her liberal district urged her
in this direction; during her freshman term, she estimated
that her constituent mail ran 19-to-1 against the President.19
Schneider’s committee assignments recognized her
environmental expertise. She served on the Committee
on Merchant Marine and Fisheries and the Committee on
Science and Technology (later renamed Science, Space, and Technology). In the 98th Congress (1983–1985), Schneider
was appointed to the Select Committee on Aging—an
important appointment, as Rhode Island had the second
oldest population in the country.20 Her differences with
President Reagan often translated into differences with
the Republican Party leadership in Congress, which
consequently excluded her from some important committee
assignments. For the 101st Congress (1989–1991), she lost
a bid to the prestigious Energy and Commerce Committee,
the main arena for the discussion of environmental
issues.21 Schneider rose to Ranking Member of the Science,
Space and Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on
Natural Resources, Agricultural Research and Environment.
She also joined the Women’s Caucus, which she called an
important “opportunity for women to focus.” She recalled
learning about issues important to women in this “forum
for strategizing, and enabling us to be a force for change.”22
Given her background, protecting the environment
became the cornerstone of Representative Schneider’s
work in Congress. Her first and greatest environmental
triumph was her work on a multi-year battle to close the
Clinch River nuclear reactor. A private and federally funded
project, the Clinch River Nuclear Reactor was scheduled to
open near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, before the Jimmy Carter
administration halted its construction in 1977. However,
a powerful lobby, which included President Reagan and
Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Howard Henry Baker Jr.
all endorsed the reactor’s continued construction in the early
1980s. As one of Clinch River’s most vocal critics, Schneider
called the project “a confederacy of corporate issues.”23 She
teamed with other moderate GOP freshmen to fight its
continued construction on the grounds that the project’s
costs outweighed its benefit. In May 1981, Schneider
convinced the fiscally conservative Science Committee to
cut $230 million in additional funding. In 1983 she offered
legislation which eliminated the remaining federal funding
for the Clinch River project. This proved to be the final
blow, shutting down the severely underfunded project.
Upon the Clinch River reactor’s demise, Schneider claimed,
“We won it on the economic argument. This was a total,
complete victory.”24
As a former television host, Schneider knew how
to attract attention to some of her core issues. In an
effort to promote a more peaceful relationship with the
Soviet Union, Representatives Schneider and George
Edward Brown Jr. of California headed a project, called “CongressBridge,” to exchange live satellite transmissions
on television between the Supreme Soviet and Members of
Congress.25 When the project launched in 1987, Schneider
commented, “For too long we have seen each other only as
warmongers. The time is ripe for new ways of thinking. [We
are] getting beyond posturing.”26
Her ability to communicate and her reputation for
being determined and independent made Schneider a
well-respected politician in Rhode Island. In 1984 the state
Republican Party considered her as a challenger for Senator
Claiborne de Borda Pell’s seat. She waited, however, until
1990 to take on the popular incumbent, boosted by her
clear 1986 and 1988 House victories in a district so large
that her elections were nearly statewide. The race between
Schneider and Pell drew national attention, as Schneider ran
close to the Senator in some polls.27 A popular stalwart in
Rhode Island politics, Pell mostly relied on his reputation
and television spots in his bid for re-election to a sixth
term. Schneider, on the other hand, campaigned vigorously,
returning to Rhode Island every weekend. She built support
at the grass roots and canvassed all corners of her district,
campaigning in neglected and underserved communities
in Providence. As the contest drew closer, President
George H. W. Bush made a stop in Providence to speak on
Schneider’s behalf. On the eve of the 1991 Gulf War against
Iraq, foreign policy was a popular issue among Rhode Island
voters. Pell’s experience on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee gave him the edge over Schneider, whose
foreign policy experience included her televised debates
with the Supreme Soviet and attendance at a Conference
on Peace and disarmament in April 1985.28 Rhode Islanders
also strongly supported the Democratic Party, as one voter
commented before heading to the polls, “I’d vote for her;
she’s young and she’s got drive. But that might bring the
Senate into Republican hands. That might prevent me from
voting for her.”29 Schneider failed to unseat the popular
incumbent, receiving 38 percent of the vote.30
After leaving Congress in 1991, Schneider remained
active in the environmental protection movement. She
invested in a Massachusetts-based consulting company,
which sold environmentally sound energy systems in
Central and South America. Schneider also accepted
a teaching position at the John F. Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University. Following Democratic
presidential candidate William J. (Bill) Clinton’s 1992
victory, she received an appointment to the Competitiveness
Policy Council.31 In 1999 Schneider was diagnosed with
cancer for a second time. She sought a successful, alternative
treatment. Having defeated the disease twice, she settled
permanently in Boulder, Colorado.32
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