WASHINGTON – John McKernan may praise his wife, Sen. Olympia Snowe, for her work on Capitol Hill at the dinner table each night, but he made his kudos of her public Wednesday.

The Republican Main Street Partnership, a 3-year-old organization of moderate Republicans in the House and Senate that McKernan chairs, honored the Maine senator for her work as a centrist member of Congress.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the group’s newest member, presented Snowe with the 2001 John Chafee Award for Public Service for her bipartisanship and ability to solve problems and compromise.

Chafee, a Republican from Rhode Island elected to the Senate in 1976, died in 1999. He co-chaired the Centrist Coalition, a group of Republicans and Democrats with similar moderate views.

The Republican Main Street Partnership started the Chafee award soon after his death to commemorate GOP members of Congress who hold moderate views. Other New Englanders in the partnership include Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois also was honored with the Chafee award Wednesday. Snowe follows in the footsteps of fellow Mainer, former U.S. senator and Defense Secretary William Cohen. Rep. Nancy Johnson, a Republican from Connecticut, also received the award last year.

Snowe said she always saw Chafee as a kindred spirit in Congress and described him as a “modern, moderate Republican.”

“He knew that it is only when we ratchet down the rhetoric and truly listen to each other over the din of partisanship that we accomplish anything of lasting value,” Snowe said. “It’s a lesson I learned early on in my own legislative service in the Maine state House and Senate.”