Tina Smith

All Time High Number Of Women US Senators In 116th Congress: 25

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In the 116th Congress of 2019-2020, there will be an all time high of 25 women Senators, including four new members of the upper chamber.

17 of them will be Democrats, while 8 will be Republicans.

Six states will have both their Senators being women, including

California—Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris

Washington—Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell

New Hampshire—Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan

Minnesota—Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith

Arizona—Kyrsten Sinema and Martha McSally

Nevada—Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen

All of these duos are Democrats, except for Martha McSally, just appointed to fill John McCain’s seat to 2020, after losing the chance to win the seat of retiring Senator Jeff Flake to Kyrsten Sinema.

The longest serving woman Senator is Dianne Feinstein of California, who has been in the Senate since November 1992, and is the oldest member of the US Senate, and if she survives in office to the end of her term in 2024, she would be 91, only the 4th Senator to reach the age of 90 in office, and also would be the woman with more years of service than any other woman Senator.

Patty Murray of Washington has only two months fewer service than Feinstein, so also would have served longer than any other woman Senator.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine started serving in 1997, the longest serving Republican woman Senator.

32 states have had women Senators by 2019, and 21 states so represented in the 116th Congress.

A total of 56 women Senators will have served by 2019, with 36 being Democrats and 20 being Republicans.

And finally, it is likely that four Democratic women Senators will be running for President in 2020—Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Kamala Harris.

Former Living Vice Presidents To Be Proud Of: Walter Mondale, Al Gore, Joe Biden

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Today, January 5, marks the 90th Birthday of former Vice President Walter Mondale.

Two days ago, when Vice President Mike Pence swore in Doug Jones and Tina Smith as new Senators from Alabama and Minnesota, we had Mondale join Joe Biden, and we had a rare scene of three Vice Presidents together.

Biden came to DC to be there for his good friend, Doug Jones, and Mondale was in DC to support a new Minnesota Senator, Tina Smith.

It brought back memories of when Mondale was Vice President under Jimmy Carter from 1977-1981, and when Joe Biden was Vice President under Barack Obama from 2009-2017.

Both Vice Presidents were extremely close to their Presidents, and both played a major role in adding to the stature and influence of the Vice Presidency.

Also, with Mondale reaching the age of 90, it marks the second President and Vice President who reached the age of 90, after Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

It will be 37 years out of office for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale on January 20, an all time record out of office for any President and Vice President.

Also, Mondale became today the sixth Vice President to reach the age of 90, along with three Presidents who served as Vice President–John Adams, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush–and two Vice Presidents who lived longer than any of the others—John Nance Garner under Franklin D. Roosevelt, living to age 98, and Levi Morton under Benjamin Harrison, living to age 96.

The scene of three Vice Presidents together also brought back the tragic result of the Presidential Election of 2000, when Vice President Al Gore under Bill Clinton from 1993-2001, won the national popular vote by 540,000, and yet lost the Electoral College 271-266, when the Republican majority Supreme Court ruled in favor of George W. Bush, awarding Florida to Bush by 537 votes out of a total of 6 million.

One has to wonder how Al Gore would have been as President, with the assurance that he would have done better than Bush.

The scene of Mike Pence posing with Mondale and Biden also sobers us that he is likely to become the 46th President this year, unless he is shown to have collaborated on the Russian collusion, and if so, could be the second Vice President to resign due to scandal, after Spiro Agnew in 1973.

Historic Number Of Women In US Senate Tomorrow When Tina Smith Of Minnesota Replaces Al Franken

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Tomorrow, January 3, 2018, will mark an all time record of the number of women who have served in the US Senate.

When Tina Smith is sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday, she will be the 51st woman to serve in the US Senate, and the 22nd presently to serve in that august body.

Tina Smith will replace Al Franken from Minnesota in the Senate, and this will be the first time that four states have had two women Senators representing them at the same time—California, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Washington, with all eight women being Democrats.

17 of the 22 Senators on January 3 are Democrats, and 5 are Republicans.

17 of the total of 51 will have been Republicans, and 34 will have been Democrats.

18 states are presently represented by women Senators, and 29 have had women Senators historically.

North Carolina and New Hampshire have had a woman Senator succeeded by a woman of the other party, and had both parties represented by their women Senators concurrently in the case of New Hampshire.

The following 5 states have had 3 women Senators in history—California, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, and New Hampshire.

The following 11 states have had 2 women Senators in history—Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington.

The following 13 states have had 1 woman in the Senate—Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin.

11 of the total of 51 have served by appointment or had brief terms, with Tina Smith having the upper hand to keep the Minnesota seat since she was Lieutenant Governor when chosen to hold the seat for a year, facing an election in 2018.

The likelihood is that we will see more women in the Senate in the next few years, with several women competing for Senate seats in a number of states, and with Democrats still greatly outweighing Republicans in the Senate by a ratio of more than 3-1.

Additionally, we are likely to have four women Senators, all Democrats, seek the Presidential nomination in 2020, an all time record if that occurs. This would include Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Kamala Harris of California, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.