Schneider, Claudine, 1947-

<p>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.</p>

<p>Claudine Schneider was born Claudine Cmarada in Clairton, Pennsylvania, on March 25, 1947, the eldest of three children. Her father was a tailor. 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.</p>

<p>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. A political moderate, Schneider switched party allegiances in 1978, finding more support from the GOP. 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. She ran a competitive race against Democratic incumbent Edward Peter Beard. A former house painter, Beard’s blue-collar background appealed to the capital city’s Italian neighborhoods. Schneider won 48 percent of the turnout, coming within 9,000 votes of Beard. 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.</p>

<p>Claudine Schneider (born March 25, 1947) is a former Republican U.S. representative from Rhode Island. She was the first, and to date only, woman elected to Congress from Rhode Island. She is founder of Republicans for Integrity, which describes itself as a network of "Republican former Members of Congress who feel compelled to remind Republican voters about the fundamentals of our party and to provide the facts about incumbents' voting records."</p>

<p>Schneider was born Claudine Cmarada in Clairton, Pennsylvania. On her father's side, she is of Slovak descent. Schneider attended parochial schools. She studied at the University of Barcelona, Spain, and Rosemont College (Pennsylvania). She obtained a B.A. degree from Windham College (Vermont) in 1969. She also attended the University of Rhode Island School of Community Planning.</p>

<p>She was the founder of the Rhode Island Committee on Energy in 1973, and was appointed executive director of the Conservation Law Foundation in 1974. She became Federal coordinator of Rhode Island Coastal Zone Management Program in 1978. She worked as a producer and host of a public affairs television program in Providence from 1978 to 1979.</p>