25 Women Lawmakers You Should Know

As a Democrat working her way up through the political system, Tammy Baldwin was elected and then re-elected to the United States Senate after serving four terms on the Dane County Wisconsin Board of Supervisors, three terms in the State Assembly, and seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives as its first openly gay member. As a sickly child under her grandparents’ care, racking up enormous medical bills, she was denied insurance coverage because of her pre-existing condition – an experience that made her a strong advocate for the Affordable Care Act and the author of the provision allowing children to stay on their parents’ health plans until reaching the age of 26.

In 2019, Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, became the first woman senator from Tennessee. In her prior life as a businesswoman in the retail fashion industry, Blackburn was also involved in the arts, and was made executive director of the Tennessee Film, Entertainment, and Music Commission, her first stint as a public servant. She went on to the House of Representatives and the Senate, and has continued to be an advocate for artists, particularly musicians.

The second Black mayor of San Francisco and the first Black woman mayor, London Breed, a Democrat, was raised in the city and for many years served on its Board of Supervisors, in the latter years as President. Her deep history with San Francisco and her impoverished roots ground her policy direction and ethos. They also put her at odds with San Francisco’s progressives, most prominently District Attorney Chesa Boudin, on the issue of policing, with Mayor Breed seeking a strong law enforcement presence.

Working across party lines is more difficult than it has ever been in modern times, but Republican Senator Susan Collins can be credited, perhaps more than any other member of Congress, for trying. Her non-ideological approach to issues and herwork ethic have won her strong approval from her Maine constituents, who have voted for her in greater numbers in each of her four successive elections after winning her first Senate seat in 1996. Her historic five terms are a first for a Maine Senator and for a Republican woman. She also holds the record for the longest perfect voting record in the history of the U.S. Senate.

The first Thai to be elected to the U.S., Democrat Tammy Duckworth is also the first disabled woman and first woman amputee to become a senator, having earned a Purple Heart for her service as a combat pilot in Iraq. Both in the Senate and in her previous years as a member of the House, Duckworth has been a tireless advocate for veterans.

Dianne Feinstein preceded London Breed – by several administrations – as mayor of San Francisco, serving a partial term and then two full terms following the death of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. In that office, she received high grades for her effectiveness – and since 1992, when she and Barbara Boxer became the first female senators elected to represent California, she had been a stalwart of the Democratic Party. Today, at 88, she is the oldest member of Congress, and her perennial popularity is slumping, as the mood of the country and splits in her party take their toll.

Born into a political family going back to the political machine days of Albany, New York, Kirsten Gillibrand began her career as an attorney in private practice before going to Washington to work in the Clinton administration as an attorney for HUD. She had served one term in the House of Representatives, until then-Governor David Patterson appointed her to take Hillary Clinton’s seat in the Senate when Clinton became Secretary of State. Democrat Gillibrand thus became only the second female senator from New York. She kept the seat in a special election, and was re-elected in 2012 and 2018.

After Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, Democrat Kamala Harris was the third woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate from California and the first Black woman in the job. LIke Feinstein, she began honing her political skills in San Francisco, where she served as district attorney before becoming the state’s attorney general. While most women on this list have at least one “first” to her credit, Harris is the most prominent, becoming the first woman, the first South Asian, and the first Black person to rise to the office of U.S. Vice-President.

Kathy Hochul was unknown to most New Yorkers before they met her as their first female governor after Andrew Cuoma was forced to step down in the face of allegations of sexual harrassment and bullying. She came to the job with a wealth of political experience, though it was mainly low-profile and local to the Buffalo area, until won a special election to join the House of Representatives in the state’s 26th congressional district – the first Democrat in that position in 40 years. In 2015, she was tapped to serve as New York lieutenant governor – usually a dead end job, but one which led her to the governor’s mansion. She has already won over many New Yorkers with a confident but self-effacing style that contrasts with that of her unpopular predecessor. With a large war chest attesting to her political savvy, she appears destined to become first woman elected governor of the state.

Like Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar was a prosecutor before becoming a senator. She was also the first woman to represent Minnesota in the Senate. Although Minnesota is considered a purple state, she has won her elections as a Democrat by large margins. Her popularity as a candidate and her record number of popular legislative initiatives set her up for a presidential run in 2020, an effort she is likely to renew in 2024 if President Biden does not run for re-election.

Barbara Lee, the U.S. Representative for California’s 13th congressional district, is currently serving her 12th term in the House. She has been active in politics since her college years, when she invited Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American congresswoman, to her campus at Mills College and subsequently worked on Chisholm’s 1972 presidential campaign. Later Lee was a staffer for Congressman Ron Dellums and went on to earn an MSW from Berkeley. She served in both houses of the California legislature before her election to Congress. Noted for her work on environmental, health, education, criminal justice reform, and civil rights issues, Lee may be most famous for being the only member of congress to vote against the joint resolution known as Authorization for the Use of Military Force, following the September 11th attacks, believing it would result in continued, unnecessary war. She is still fighting for its repeal and a return to congressional oversight in the deployment of the military.

Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee, who earned an undergraduate degree with honors from Yale and a law degree from the University of Virginia, is serving her 11th term as a Texas congresswoman, representing most of the city of Houston. Noted for her high staff turnover, she became caught up in the “me too” movement in 2019 for allegedly firing a staffer who made a sexual assault complaint aganst a member of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. As part of the fallout she was forced to resign as Chair of the Foundation.

Kristi Noem, a Republican rancher and small business owner, is the first female governor of South Dakota. A Trump ally, she attracted national attention by hosting an event for the former president at Mt. Rushmore. She also received attention for refusing to impose COVID restrictions in her state, based on her belief in individual freedom and her stated desire to keep the state open. Recently, Trump endorsed her for another term.

After she earned a Yale law degree and clerked for a federal judge, Eleanor Holmes Norton worked for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York as a free speech litigator. A Democrat, she later worked for the Carter Administration as Chair of the Commission for Human Rights before becoming a professor at Georgetown University. By the time she was elected to Congress, she already had a national reputation as a powerful advocate for civil and women’s rights. As the congressional representative for Washington D.C. since 1991, Eleanor Holmes Norton is a non-voting member, but has seen many of her bills enacted into law, and has otherwise made a difference. As an example, President Biden’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, was named the District Court Judge for D.C. by President Obama at Norton’s suggestion.

Elected to the House in 2018 as the youngest woman ever to do so (she was 30), Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, popularly known as AOC, is the face of the progressive movement in Congress, and one of its most prominent members. A Bernie Sanders acolyte, she advocates for Medicare-For-all, the Green New Deal, and cancellation of student loans. A formidable communicator, both in her committee work and on social media, she is regularly derided by Republican legislators and right wing media.

Democrat Ihan Omar is the first African refugee and one of only two Muslim women to be elected to Congress – joining the House of Reprentatives with a handful of progressives from the Bernie Sanders wing of the party. She is controversial for her campaign to eliminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and for her criticism of Israel, particularly its resettlement policies and occupation of Palentinian territories.

Described in a Time Magazine cover story as “one of the most consequential political figures of her generation,” Nancy Pelosi was elected as the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2007, and has been the leader of the Democratic party in the House ever since. Among her many successes as negotiator and leader during her 31 years in Congress, she is credited with shepherding the passage of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signal achievement as president, after decades of failure on the part of other leaders to enact major healthcare legislation.

Having worked for Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, and Senator John Kerry, Ayanna Pressley was already seasoned in politics when she became the first Black woman elected to the Boston City Council. She entered Congress in 2019 as a member of the quartet of progressives known as “The Squad” (the others being Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib). She is also the first Black woman to be elected to Congress from Massachusetts.

Jamaican-born Winsome Sears, a pro-Trump Republican, was just elected as Virginia’s first femalel lieutenant governor and its first woman of color elected to statewide office. Her positions are mostly in sync with the Republican playbook: she wants lower taxes and restrictions on abortion and she rails against critical race theory and equity programs for Blacks. A former Marine, she gained notoriety on the campaign trail with a photo of herself cradling a military style rifle.

Senate Democrats have been frustrated by the refusal of Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona – both fellow Democrats – to make it possible to pass the Biden Administration’s signature initiatives, such as the Build Back Better Bill. Indigenous voters in Arizona rightly take some credit for electing Kyrsten Sinema to the House for three terms, and then, in 2018, to the Senate. They are now unhappy with her resistance to ending the filibuster for the purpose of getting voting rights legislation passed. Of particular interest to Arizona’s 22 tribes is the Native American Voting Rights Act, which would allow tribes to run their own elections, determining locations for voter registrations and ballot boxes.

Elected as a moderate Republican, representing a large area of northernmost New York, Elise Stefanik is now serving her fourth term in the House of Representatives, but no longer as a moderate. Noted in her early political life for her integrity, but also her ambition, she became a Trump favorite, choosing to align herself with the former president and his most extreme positions. Most recently, she has joined Trump apologists in blaming President Biden for Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Rashida Tlaib is a member of “the Squad” of progressives elected in 2018 in the middle of the Trump administration, representing a district that includes much of the city of Detroit. She made her name as the first Muslim member of the Michigan legislature and as an attorney activist, fighting for the health, safety, and rights of underserved communities. Along with her progressive allies, she has been the subject of vitriol from the extreme right for her criticism of Israel – Tlaib is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants – and her advocacy for a progressive agenda, including the elimination of ICE.

Born into a blue collar family and having to work at a very young age, Elizabeth Warren has risen to become a liberal icon and one of the most recognizable women in politics. A former Harvard Law professor, she is serving her second term in the U.S. Senate. In 2020 she joined a crowd of fellow Democrats in a run for the Party’s presidential nomination. Her intelligence, broad understanding of complex issues, and concern for struggling Americans were on full display in the presidential debates. Though Warren and her colleague Bernie Sanders lost to the centrist Joe Biden, their progressive positions and arguments have had a major influence on the direction of the party.

One of the most powerful women in politics, Maxine Waters built her reputation for determination, savvy, and tireless pursuit of racial justice in her 14 years in the California Assembly, where she rose to become Chair of the Democratic Caucus. She has been a member of Congress since 1990, and a voice for fairness on behalf of women, people of color, and the impoverished, often in confrontation with powerful political and corporate interests. Like other resolute lawmakers, she has been the target of racial epithets and death threats for her liberal positions.

Currently co-chair of the Democratic National Committee, Gretchen was a seasoned Michigan politician when she became governor in 2019. President Trump, who narrowly won the state in 2016, took an early dislike to Whitman, chastising her for her COVID-19 mandates and berating her at his rallies, enjoying the “lock her up” responses from his fans. The recipient of death threats, Whitman was also targeted in a failed kidnapping plot uncovered by the FBI. Trump refused to criticize the perpetrators. Democrats chose Governor Whitman to deliver their response to Trump’s last State of the State address. Michigan went for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race.