Political Life
Humphrey was appointed as a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party by Rudy Perpich, the governor of Minnesota, to the Senate vacancy caused by the death of her husband, and served from January 25, 1978 to November 7, 1978 in the 95th Congress. She was the first spouse of a former Vice President to serve in Congress as well as the first woman to represent Minnesota in the U.S. Senate. She was not a candidate for the special election for the remaining term. "It was the most challenging thing I've done in my whole life," she said. Twenty-eight years later, Amy Klobuchar, a fellow DFLer, would become the first woman to be elected to the United States Senate from Minnesota.
Looking back at her political life, Humphrey reflected "There's something I've been wanting to say for a long time. I'm a liberal and I'm proud of it. In fact, I was probably a little more liberal than Hubert was. I just wanted to say that." While in office, and after, she pressed for the right for women to choose to have an abortion and worked towards legislation for the rights of the mentally disabled.
Read more about this topic: Muriel Humphrey
Famous quotes containing the words political life, political and/or life:
“Political life at Washington is like political life in a suburban vestry.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The best political economy is the care and culture of men; for, in these crises, all are ruined except such as are proper individuals, capable of thought, and of new choice and the application of their talent to new labor.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I have spent so long erecting partitions around the part of me that writes—learning how to close the door on it when ordinary life intervenes, how to close the door on ordinary life when it’s time to start writing again—that I’m not sure I could fit the two parts of me back together now.”
—Anne Tyler (b. 1941)