WASHINGTON – Praised for her “New England brand of political pragmatism and fiscal moderation,” Sen. Olympia Snowe has been named as one of 28 “emerging players” in Congress by the highly regarded Congressional Quarterly.

The 57-year-old weekly magazine, known for chronicling the inner workings and legislative dealings of Congress, says that out of the 535 members of Congress, Maine’s senior Republican senator ranks among a small group of rising stars that assumes “a new mantle of authority and influence in Congress.”

Each one of the 28 emerging players has been singled out for a variety of institutional, personal and circumstantial reasons, but “in different ways and styles, they have caught their colleagues’ attention and so deserve ours,” the magazine claims.

The first Republican woman to sit on the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee and the co-chairwoman of the bipartisan Centrist Coalition, Maine’s second-term senator is cited as a leading centrist who “pulls” her more conservative party leaders to the center on fiscal issues.

While a firm believer in the GOP’s push for lower taxes and smaller government, Snowe contributes a moderating voice in the narrowly divided Senate that helps bridge differences between Democrats and Republicans as she tirelessly works to hammer out “sound budgetary policy with an eye toward class fairness,” the magazine says.

Snowe adeptly demonstrated her skill in that realm when Congress approved the $1.3 trillion tax cut package last year that largely succeeded because of efforts by her centrist group to pare a much more aggressive proposal originally endorsed by President Bush.

Snowe has capitalized on her unique position not only to broker bipartisan deals on tax policy, but also to advance a host of other issues ranging from innovations in health care to campaign finance reform.

“In a Senate where virtually every major proposal must muster the 60 votes requisite to overcoming a filibuster,” the article says, “her presence at the negotiating table in the 107th Congress has become nearly a necessity.”

Snowe also has sided with the majority of Democrats on questions relating to abortion rights, international family planning, and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Not all congressional observers would agree with CQ’s view of Snowe as a rising star. Congress watcher Mike Frank with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, believes Snowe represents the last vestige of Republican moderates who are now being overshadowed by the party’s conservatives.

“She is part of a dying breed that has been disappearing for the past 30 to 35 years,” Frank said recently, although he conceded that Snowe and a handful of other GOP moderates were “pivotal” this past year in getting things through a divided Senate.

Republican moderates may be diminishing in number, but they are gaining in their influence, countered Sandy Maisel, chairman of government studies at Colby College.

Snowe is widely respected on both sides of the aisle for her intelligence and experience, he said.

“There’s no question that Republicans in the Senate are going to the right, but she is extremely well positioned to work in the center of things,” he added. “She’s a coalition builder and with the Senate so closely divided, that is crucial.”