What an inspiring story Sen. Olympia Snowe has. As a child, she was orphaned at age 9, and when she was widowed at 26 after her husband died in a car crash, she ran for his legislative seat and went on to become the third-longest-serving woman in congressional history.

Now, with an impressive record as a well-respected moderate Republican, Snowe will retire after 34 years in Congress. Her third term ends on Jan. 3, but she’s made it clear she has no plans to end her public service. Snowe has formed her own political action committee, Olympia’s List, as a way to support candidates who believe in consensus building rather than the divisive politics of partisanship that seem to have taken hold in Washington.

In her farewell speech last Thursday, Snowe said she “inherited a legacy of bipartisanship and independence” from Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, who is renowned for her “Declaration of Conscience” speech on the Senate floor, speaking out against McCarthyism during the Red Scare of the 1950s.

Independence, said Snowe, rather than toeing the party line, is what Mainers expect of their representatives: “To do what you believe is right, for the right reasons, and in the right way.”

That belief is why Snowe has been so highly regarded among both Democrats and Republicans during her time in public service, and it’s one of the reasons she will be missed. Her record of accomplishments is too lengthy for this space, but she has broken new ground for women, advanced several human rights causes, and been recognized multiple times for working across party lines to get the business of the American people done.

Thankfully, Maine has chosen another independent mind to represent us, Angus King, who is fiscally conservative but socially liberal. With no party affiliation, King is especially free to do what he believes is best for the country and Maine, without pressure from party influencers.

And we still have Sen. Susan Collins, also well-known for her bipartisan approach, as our voice. It’s telling that both she and Snowe are Republicans, but not Republicans in the way the party has come to identify itself in recent years. They represent the sensible approach to conservatism, rather than the rabid, far-right views that seem to have hijacked the party. More representatives like them need to be in our Congress to help find middle ground among those whose views do not seem to accommodate any compromise.

She has cited “excessive political polarization in Washington today” as one of her reasons for departing, saying that it “is preventing us from tackling our problems in this period of monumental consequence for our nation.”

It doesn’t have to be that way, she said, and anyone who’s studied history will know that’s true. We have short memories, but we can remember a time before “liberals and conservatives” became equal to “Hatfields and McCoys,” a time before the parties were both allowed to be defined by their extremes.

Snowe’s retirement certainly serves as a wake-up call to anyone who may have questioned the current state of U.S. politics ”“ but her work is far from over. She’s not leaving the Senate because she doesn’t believe in it anymore; she’s leaving because she believes she can effect change more readily from the outside.

With Olympia’s List, she plans to “help build support for those in this institution who will be working to re-establish the Senate’s roots as a place of refuge from the passions of politics, as a forum where the political fires are tempered, not stoked ”“ as our Founding Fathers intended.”

The list rates current senators and representatives on their bipartisanship and consensus-building skills and those who seek to “put the county ahead of politics.”

We would like to thank Sen. Snowe for all her years of service to the State of Maine and the nation and wish her luck ”“ for all our sakes ”“ in changing the state of national politics today so that our leaders are valued for making decisions in our best interests as a nation rather than to ensure re-election.

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Today’s editorial was written by Managing Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski on behalf of the Journal Tribune Editorial Board. Questions? Comments? Contact Kristen by calling 282-1535, Ext. 322, or via email at kristenm@journaltribune.com.