Important Record for Female Congressional Rep

By Catherine Morrisey on March 19, 2012@CaMo0

Now in her fifth decade of public service, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) has been in office long enough to see many milestones come and go. But on Saturday, she will become the longest-serving woman in congressional history, passing Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers, a Massachusetts Republican who spent 35 years on Capitol Hill. Mikulski, 75, is already the longest-serving female senator, having cleared that hurdle in January 2011. She also spent a decade in the House before being elected to her current post in 1986.

When Mikulski began her House tenure in 1977, she was one of 21 women serving in Congress — 18 in the House and three in the Senate. Today there are 92 women serving, with 17 in the Senate.

Among Mikulski’s other “firsts,” include: Being the first female Democrat to serve in both chambers of Congress and the first female Democrat to be elected to the Senate without succeeding her husband or father. In the Senate, she was the first woman to chair an Appropriations subcommittee and the first woman to serve on a handful of other panels.