Women Senators For The 113th Congress
At January 2011, there were 17 women serving in the 100-person body. For four states, California, Washington, Maine, and New Hampshire, both senators were women. California's two senators (Boxer and Feinstein) were the first two women to be elected to the U.S. Senate in the same election (in 1992) from the same state. Seven female senators had previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives—a distinction long held by only Margaret Chase Smith—Sens. Mikulski, Boxer, Snowe, Lincoln, Stabenow, Cantwell, and Gillibrand.
From January 2013, the number of serving women senators will increase to 20, of whom 16 are Democratic, whilst the remaining four are Republican. Republican Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas) and Olympia Snowe (Maine) did not seek re-election, while five new women senators were elected: Republican Deb Fischer (Nebraska) and Democrats Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii) and Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts).
| Class | State | Name | Party | Prior Experience | First took office |
Born |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Alaska | Lisa Murkowski | Republican | Alaska House of Representatives | 2002 | 1957 |
| 1 | California | Dianne Feinstein | Democratic | President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Mayor of San Francisco | 1992 | 1933 |
| 3 | California | Barbara Boxer | Democratic | Marin County Board of Supervisors, U.S. House of Representatives | 1993 | 1940 |
| 1 | Hawaii | Mazie Hirono | Democratic | U.S. House of Representatives, Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii, Hawaii House of Representatives | 2013 | 1947 |
| 2 | Louisiana | Mary Landrieu | Democratic | Louisiana House of Representatives, Louisiana State Treasurer | 1997 | 1955 |
| 2 | Maine | Susan Collins | Republican | Deputy Maine Treasurer; gubernatorial nominee | 1997 | 1952 |
| 3 | Maryland | Barbara Mikulski | Democratic | Baltimore City Council, U.S. House of Representatives | 1987 | 1936 |
| 1 | Massachusetts | Elizabeth Warren | Democratic | None | 2013 | 1949 |
| 1 | Michigan | Debbie Stabenow | Democratic | Michigan House of Representatives, Michigan Senate, U.S. House of Representatives | 2001 | 1950 |
| 1 | Minnesota | Amy Klobuchar | Democratic-Farmer-Labor | Hennepin County Attorney | 2007 | 1960 |
| 1 | Missouri | Claire McCaskill | Democratic | Missouri House of Representatives, Jackson County Legislature, Jackson County, Missouri Prosecutor, State Auditor of Missouri | 2007 | 1953 |
| 1 | Nebraska | Deb Fischer | Republican | Nebraska Legislature | 2013 | 1951 |
| 2 | New Hampshire | Jeanne Shaheen | Democratic | New Hampshire Senate, Governor of New Hampshire | 2009 | 1947 |
| 3 | New Hampshire | Kelly Ayotte | Republican | New Hampshire Attorney General | 2011 | 1968 |
| 1 | New York | Kirsten Gillibrand | Democratic | U.S. House of Representatives | 2009 | 1966 |
| 2 | North Carolina | Kay Hagan | Democratic | North Carolina Senate | 2009 | 1953 |
| 1 | North Dakota | Heidi Heitkamp | Democratic | North Dakota Attorney General, North Dakota Tax Commissioner | 2013 | 1955 |
| 3 | Washington | Patty Murray | Democratic | Washington Senate | 1993 | 1950 |
| 1 | Washington | Maria Cantwell | Democratic | Washington House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives | 2001 | 1958 |
| 1 | Wisconsin | Tammy Baldwin | Democratic | Wisconsin State Assembly, U.S. House of Representatives | 2013 | 1962 |
Read more about this topic: Women In The United States Senate
Famous quotes containing the words women, senators and/or congress:
“Once women begin to question the inevitability of their subordination and to reject the conventions formerly associated with it, they can no longer retreat to the safety of those conventions. The woman who rejects the stereotype of feminine weakness and dependence can no longer find much comfort in the cliché that all men are beasts. She has no choice except to believe, on the contrary, that men are human beings, and she finds it hard to forgive them when they act like animals.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)
“When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“I date the end of the old republic and the birth of the empire to the invention, in the late thirties, of air conditioning. Before air conditioning, Washington was deserted from mid-June to September.... But after air conditioning and the Second World War arrived, more or less at the same time, Congress sits and sits while the presidents—or at least their staffs—never stop making mischief.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)