By J.C. Bruce
When the 120th Congress convenes early next year, a record number of women will be in the House and Senate—at least 159 from both major political parties.
According to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, that will increase the percentage of women to about 30%, still not at parity with men, but the largest number in the nation’s history.
Florida will send 10, nine to the House and one to the Senate (Ashley Moody). Among the women in the House will be four Democrats and five Republicans:
“Women made history because we showed up to vote, and then voted in more than 100 Democratic women to serve in the House,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico, the chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, told The 19th, an Austin, Texas, nonprofit news outlet named for the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.
She added: “Women have borne the brunt of the Trump administration’s recklessness and Republicans’ extremist agenda, and on Tuesday they made it clear they have had enough.”
But as CNN notes:
… while the wins will increase women’s representation to 30% when the 120th Congress convenes in January, they’ll still be about 100 seats shy of gender parity. And the gains aren’t across the board — they’re among Democratic women and mostly in the House, where women are breaking a new record. The number of women in the Senate will decrease."
Still, as Jessica Mackler, the president of EMILY’s List, said: “It’s a seismic, generational sea change. It’s not just about the volume; it’s about… infusing the halls of power in this country with a new generation of leadership.”
Hegseth impeachment tabled
But before this new generation of legislators could be sworn in, the House voted yesterday to table efforts by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
It wasn’t as close as it looked: Republicans succeeded in sending the resolution to committee—effectively killing it—on a 211-204 vote, but if all House Democrats had shown up for work, it would have passed.
Eleven Dems were no-shows.
Why? One reason, some said, was gridlock on Pennsylvania Avenue caused by a traffic accident.
But Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t having it:
“The people send us here to do a job. I don’t know if anyone had any real health issues or anything significant. So I want to leave room for that. But that being said, at the end of the day, we’re here to do a job. And the same way I had to clock in when I worked at a restaurant, we got to clock in and do our work here.”
Just for the record, every House office building is connected to the Capitol by underground tunnels, so there is never any need to be out on the streets to make a vote—assuming they were at work at their office at the time.
According to The Hill newspaper:
The 11 Democrats who missed the vote were Reps. Melanie Stansbury (N.M.), Marilyn Strickland (Wash.), Julia Brownley (Calif.), Lou Correa (Calif.), Laura Gillen (N.Y.), Steven Horsford (Nev.), Jonathan Jackson (Ill.), Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Brittany Pettersen (Colo.), Haley Stevens (Mich.) and Frederica Wilson (Fla.).
Massie, who introduced the impeachment articles, was the only Republican to oppose the move to impede his measure.
Poll results
In yesterday’s newsletter, ahead of the vote to impeach Hegseth, I asked readers what they thought about including Donald Trump in the articles of impeachment since, as Hegseth himself said, he was just following the president’s orders.
Here are the results:
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most of us would lose our jobs if we didn’t show up to work on time
Great job missing Dems…
Somebody sticks their neck out to remove a major POS that has no business being anywhere close to all of world's safety and they couldn't make in to work cause there was something on tv more important to watch….
Let the mush begin…..jez