FOREWORD For too long women in America had to endure the myth of what or where a woman's place should be Today much has changed and a woman's place is virtually anywhere including the United States Congress A Woman in the House and Senate tells the fascinating and important story of this ongoing transformation taking the reader on a journey from before women's suffrage to a record number of female representatives and senators With vibrant verbal portraits of trailblazing women Ilene Cooper brings to life the indispensable significance of women's contributions to Congress and to our nation This book will also inspire and empower America's newest generation to continue the unfinished work of ensuring that more women serve at all levels of elective office If it is true that we can see farther by standing on the shoulders of giants and I believe it is then the role models you will read about here offer many distinguished shoulders on which to climb Growing up I was incredibly fortunate to have the example of Maine's legendary Senator Margaret Chase Smith who is profiled in these pages Her life demonstrated that success in public service or in any endeavor shouldn't be based on gender but rather on dedication and energy competence and ability and sheer determination Yet regrettably for years women had been the great silent majority They were the majority of voters but their calls for changes in laws and practices discriminatory against women were too often met with silence It wasn't until women were elected to Congress that their issues finally found a voice In 1978 my first year in the House of Representatives there were only sixteen women out of 435 members of the House and only one female senator So we all felt a tremendous obligation to go to bat for the women of America Like many who came before OLYMPIA SNOWE us as described in this book there was a deep understanding that if we didn't fight for women's issues no one would
Incredibly that was a time in America when child support enforcement was viewed as strictly a woman's problem A time when pensions were canceled without a spouse's approval A time when family and medical leave wasn't the law of the land A time when women unbelievably were systematically excluded from potentially life saving clinical medical trials But the women of the House and Senate worked together both Republican and Democrat to right these wrongs and remove the inequities proving again that there is no substitute for having women in the arena to drive the agenda As you will glean from the profiles encompassed in this book women also frequently bring a different perspective to decision making They tend to be practical results oriented and focused on getting to the bottom line of a problem That's one of the reasons it is critical that more women are elected especially given that today's extreme political partisanship is preventing us from meeting the monumental challenges facing our nation Another is that in our representative form of government shouldn't our governing institutions be more reflective of society as a whole The total number of women senators and representatives in America's history is 365. That's out of a total of 12,343 individuals who have served in Congress Those women could all sit in the chamber of the House of Representatives with 70 seats to spare While 127 women serve in Congress in 2019 indisputably there is still significant progress to be made The stories told here should spark all of us and particularly girls and women to close that gender gap Ultimately if we are to celebrate and strengthen the vast array of options available to girls and women today we must learn about those who fought to give life and reality to our dreams If we are to attain our fullest potential as a nation and exercise our rights as Americans we must understand that those rights came to us not by entitlement but by tenacity and perseverance As A Woman in the House and Senate conveys with a sense of wit and wonder we are now the bearers of the torch that so many lit before us and of their extraordinary legacy which will forever endure OLYMPIA SNOWE FORMER U.S. SENATOR
INTRODUCTION UNITED STATES CAPITOL THE SENATE THE HOUSE SIDE SIDE SEE that building The one with the wedding cake dome It's really made of cast iron That's the United States Capitol Building It's the home of the United States Congress The United States is governed by three equal branches of PRECUTIVE government LEGISLATIVE BUDICIA THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH Hail to the chief THE JUDICIAL BRANCH Nine count em nine Supreme Court Judges THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH That's the Congress 3 BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT Our Congress has two parts known as chambers the Senate and the House of Representatives the House for short viii
MEN THEIR RIGHTS AND NOTHING MORE WOMEN THEIR RIGHTS AND NOTHING LESS 0 INADA The Senate has 100 members two senators from every state in the Union no matter how big or how small Each senator is elected for a six year term The House currently has 435 members The number of representatives from each state depends on population The states with the most people have the most representatives Representatives are elected for a two year term The word Congress has another meaning It's also the name for the two year period when senators and representatives meet in Washington D.C. to do their work Since the founding of our country there have been more than a hundred Congresses Guess how many women served in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives from the first Congress in 1789 until the 65th Congress began in 1917 200 100 50 Zero Nada None That's right there was not one woman senator or member of the House during the first 128 years of our country's history What's up with that ZERO Each state also has its own version of Congress Forty nine of the fifty states have two chamber legislatures usually called the Senate and the House of Representatives though some have other names Nebraska's legislature has just one body and it's called the Senate Although the United States House and Senate did not have a woman representative until 1917 three women were elected to Colorado's House of Representatives in 1894 Colorado was the first state to have women legislators But that's another story ix
