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Women in the United States Senate

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There have been 34 women in the United States Senate since the establishment of that body in 1789, meaning that out of the 1,884 Americans who have served in the United States Senate since that time, 1.75 percent of all Senators have been female.

Contents

History

Throughout most of the Senate's history, the body was almost entirely male. Perhaps in keeping with the notion of the Senate as a more "elite" body than the House of Representatives, few women ran for the Senate and even fewer were elected.

The first woman in the Senate was Rebecca Latimer Felton who briefly served in 1922.

No more women served between 1922 to 1931, from 1945 to 1948, and from 1973 to 1978. Since 1978, however, there has always been at least one woman in the Senate.

There were still few women in the Senate far into the 20th century, long after women began to make up a significant percentage of the membership of the House. As late as 1992, in fact, only two women (Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) were serving in the Senate.

This began to change with the election of the 103rd Congress in 1992, which commentators dubbed the "Year of the Woman." Five women were elected to the Senate to join the two already there, significantly diminishing the popular perception of the Senate as an exclusive "boys' club." The taboo having been broken, many more women in both the Democratic and Republican parties began to run for the Senate in subsequent years, and several have been elected since then.

Twenty women senators have been Democrats while 13 have been Republicans.

Election, selection and family

Prior to 2001, numerically speaking, the most common way for a woman to ascend to the U.S. Senate was to have been appointed there following the death or resignation of a husband or father who previously held the seat. However, with the election of three women in 2001, the balance shifted: More women have now entered service as a U.S. Senator by winning their seats outright than by being appointed to the body.

Recent examples of the selection side of things include Jean Carnahan and Lisa Murkowski. In 2000, Jean Carnahan (D-MO) was appointed to fill the Senate seat won by her dead husband, Mel Carnahan. Carnahan—even though dead—defeated the incumbent Senator, John Ashcroft, and his widow, in the tradition of the Senate, was named to fill his seat by the Missouri Governor. However, in 2002, she did not win reelection. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), however, was appointed by her father Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski to serve out the remainder of his term in the Senate. Murkowski narrowly defeated her opponent in her reelection bid in 2004.

Two current members of the Senate (Senators Elizabeth Dole and Hillary Clinton) bring with them a combination of name recognition resulting from the political careers of their famous husbands and their own substantial experience in public affairs. The first, Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), is wife to former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, and served as Secretary of Transportation under President Reagan and as Secretary of Labor under President George H. W. Bush. The other, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) is a former First Lady of the United States, a former First Lady of Arkansas, and an accomplished attorney and author.

Former female Senators with very famous political family names include Muriel Humphrey (D-MN), the widow of former Senator and U.S. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. She was appointed to fill out the last year of her deceased husband's Senate term and did not seek reelection when the term ended.

Another famous name, or names, is Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker. Better known by her married name from her first marriage (Kassebaum) Baker is wife now to former Senator Howard Baker (R-TN), whom she married after retiring from the Senate. She is the daughter of former Kansas governor (and presidential candidate) Alf Landon. Kassebaum Baker served the Senate with the distinction of being the first female Senator to be elected to the Senate with no previous Congressional experience (and having not succeeded a dead husband in his seat). Her three terms in the Senate mark her time there as the third-longest tenure (after Margaret Chase Smith and Barbara Mikulski) for a woman in the Senate.

Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) arrived in the Senate in 1995, having previously served in the House of Representatives and both houses of the Maine state legislature, making her the only woman (and one of the few people at all) to serve in both houses of a state legislature and both houses of the Federal Legislature.

Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) holds several distinctions for women in the U.S. Congress: She served the Senate (to date) longer than any woman has (24 years); she was the first woman ever elected to both the U.S. House and Senate (she was first elected to the House in 1940 after the unexpected death of her husband, who himself was a member of the House of Representatives, and served there for eight years before winning the Senate seat by a landslide); she was the first woman to hold a Senate Leadership position; and she also won her 1960 race for Senate in the nation's first ever race pitting two women against each other for a Senate seat.

Currently

There are currently 14 women serving in the 100-person body. The Senatorial representation of three states (California, Washington and Maine) is entirely female. California's current two senators (Boxer and Feinstein) are the first two women to be elected to the U.S. Senate in the same election (in 1992) from the same state. Seven of the women (or half of the current female Senators) currently serving as Senators have also been elected to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives—a distinction once held by only Margaret Chase Smith—Mikulski, Snowe, Boxer, Lincoln, Stabenow, and Cantwell.

First concurrent service

The first female U.S. Senators from a single state to serve concurrently were Eva Kelley Bowring and Hazel Hempel Abel of Nebraska, for 6 days in 1954.

The first female U.S. Senators from a single state elected to serve concurrently were Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, in 1992, with Feinstein taking office that same year (as the result of a special election) and Boxer taking office in 1993.

Statistics by state

Twenty-two states have been represented by female Senators.

List of female U.S. Senators

Timeline of female U.S. Senators (

ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:12 PlotArea = top:10 bottom:30 right:130 left:20 AlignBars = early

DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:1920 till:2020 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:1920

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id:PA  value:blue
id:GP  value:red
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BarData = 

barset:Senators
PlotData= 
width:5 align:left fontsize:S shift:(5,-4) anchor:till
barset:Senators
from:1922 till:1922 color:PA text:"Rebecca Latimer Felton (1922)"
from:1931 till:1945 color:PA text:"Hattie Wyatt Caraway (1931 - 1945)"
from:1936 till:1937 color:PA text:"Rose McConnell Long (1935 - 1937)"
from:1937 till:1938 color:PA text:"Dixie Bibb Graves (1937 - 1938)"
from:1938 till:1939 color:GP text:"Gladys Pyle (1938 - 1939)"
from:1948 till:1948 color:GP text:"Vera Cahalan Bushfield (1948)"
from:1949 till:1973 color:GP text:"Margaret Chase Smith (1949 - 1973)"
from:1954 till:1954 color:GP text:"Eva Kelley Bowring (1954)"
from:1954 till:1954 color:GP text:"Hazel Hempel Abel (1954)"
from:1960 till:1967 color:PA text:"Maurine Brown Neuberger (1960 - 1967)"
from:1972 till:1972 color:PA text:"Elaine Edwards (1972)"
from:1978 till:1978 color:PA text:"Muriel Humphrey (1978)"
from:1978 till:1978 color:PA text:"Maryon Allen (1978)"
from:1978 till:1997 color:GP text:"Nancy Kassebaum (1978 - 1997)"
from:1981 till:1987 color:GP text:"Paula Hawkins (1981 - 1987)"
from:1987 till:2006 color:PA text:"Barbara Mikulski (1987-present)"
from:1992 till:1992 color:PA text:"Jocelyn Burdick (1992)"
from:1992 till:2006 color:PA text:"Dianne Feinstein (1992-present)"
from:1993 till:2006 color:PA text:"Barbara Boxer (1993-present)"
from:1993 till:1999 color:PA text:"Carol Moseley-Braun (1993 - 1999)"
from:1993 till:2006 color:PA text:"Patty Murray (1993-present)"
from:1993 till:2006 color:GP text:"Kay Bailey Hutchison (1993-present)"
from:1995 till:2006 color:GP text:"Olympia Snowe (1995-present)"
from:1996 till:1996 color:GP text:"Sheila Frahm (1996)"
from:1997 till:2006 color:PA text:"Mary Landrieu (1997-present)"
from:1997 till:2006 color:GP text:"Susan Collins (1997-present)"
from:1999 till:2006 color:PA text:"Blanche Lincoln (1999-present)"
from:2001 till:2006 color:PA text:"Hillary Rodham Clinton (2001-present)"
from:2001 till:2006 color:PA text:"Debbie Stabenow (2001-present)"
from:2001 till:2006 color:PA text:"Maria Cantwell (2001-present)"
from:2001 till:2002 color:PA text:"Jean Carnahan (2001 - 2002)"
from:2002 till:2006 color:GP text:"Lisa Murkowski (2002-present)"
from:2003 till:2006 color:GP text:"Elizabeth Dole (2003-present)"
barset:skip

See also

External links

United States Congress — (House of Representatives, Senate)
Members House: Current, Former, Districts | Senate: Current, Former, Current & Former by state
Groups African Americans, Asian Pacific Americans list, Caucuses, Committees, Demographics
House: Committees  | Senate: Committees, Women list
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Research Biographical directory, Congressional Quarterly, Congressional Record, Congressional Research Service,
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