Photos: From tech exec to politician

Washington U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat, topped CNET News' Technology Voters Guide in 2008 as the senator most friendly to tech policies. That should not come as a surprise: Cantwell was vice president of marketing at Seattle-based streaming-media company RealNetworks from 1995 through her original bid for the Senate in 2000.

In the Senate, Cantwell holds a few posts where tech cred helps quite a bit: she sits on the Finance Committee; Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee; the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee; and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.