Women on top

Senator-elect Tammy Baldwin, D-WI

As excited ecstatic deliriously, over-the-moon happy as I was about the re-election of President Obama as our 44th President, and as elated as I am about the momentum we're gaining in the movement toward Marriage Equality, I am even more thrilled to learn that there are five new women, one Republican and four Democrats, who will join the Senate next year, delivering a new record of 20 women serving in the U.S. Senate (four of whom are Republicans).  

So, if you're counting that 5 Republicans and 15 Democratic women in the Senate. Interesting snapshot of both parties, eh?

Maine, Washington, California and New Hampshire are the three states in which women hold both U.S. Senate seats.  With the election of two Democratic women to the U.S. House of Representatives, New Hampshire became the first state to have an all-women congressional delegation (joining incumbent U.S. Senators. Kelly Ayotte and Jeanne Shaheen), and made it a clean sweep by electing  Democrat Maggie Hassan as governor.

Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren, D-MA

And, Wisconsin Democratic Representative Tammy Baldwin made history on Tuesday with her election to become the first openly gay U.S. Senator, defeating former Governor Tommy Thompson in the most expensive Senate race in state history.

Just over a quarter-century ago, in 1986, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, became the first woman elected to the Senate whose spouse had not served before her in Congress.  The “year of the women,” 1992, brought Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., to the Senate, where they continue to serve.

This year, Representatives elected Carol She-Porter and Anne McLane-Kuster, D-NH, and Tammy Duckworth, D-IL, an Iraq War veteran who lost both legs in combat before turning to politics, who won a congressional seat from firebrand Tea Party icon, Joe Walsh.

The incoming freshman class of legislators include Tammy Baldwin, D-WI, Elizabeth Warren, D-MA Deb Fischer, R-Nebraska, Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii (first Asian-American woman - born in Japan - and Hindu elected), and (former state Attorney General) Heidi Heitkamp, D-North Dakota.

Voters reelected Sens. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York.

Okay, and bona fide Tea Party Cuckoo-Bird Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, was reelected but only by the slimmest of margins.

Rep.-elect Tammy Duckworth, D-IL

But, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, won a sweeping victory after her Republican challenger Todd Akin started talking about the magical thing a woman's lady parts can do after "forcible rape".

With the retirements of Republican Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Olympia Snowe, the steady increase in numbers of Senate women was expected to stop in 2012. But, it didn't.
  
I'm willing to bet solid money that was a direct result of the Republican War on Women.  Their bullets backfired.

Threaten the reproductive rights of women or to not pay us equally for equal work or prevent women of poverty to having access to quality health care and education for themselves and their children, and well, this is exactly what happens.  

We don't get angry. We get even. We run for office.

We now have 20 powerful women in positions of legislative government power. 

We could use more.  We'll get more.

A woman's place is in the House. And Senate. And, Governor's mansion. And, Supreme Court.

And, anywhere she wants to be - including the White House.   

Four more years!