{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ContentRecord_id=ABE588D9-E93C-483E-BE1E-37C94A8FE2E8", "Barrasso Celebrates the 150th Anniversary of Wyoming Womens Right to Vote", "2019-12-10", "2019", "2019-12", "Republican", "House", "WY", "John Barrasso", "B001261", "www.barrasso.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Wyoming is technically the 44th state to enter the Union. But Wyoming really is the first state when it comes to women's equality. Wyoming put women first, even before statehood\r\nClick here to watch Sen. Barrasso's remarks.\r\n\r\nWASHINGTON, D.C.  Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) spoke on the Senate floor to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Wyoming women's right to vote. Women's suffrage in Wyoming played a significant role in advancing women's equality in the rest of the United States.\r\nExcerpts of Senator Barrasso's remarks:\r\nI come to the floor today as we celebrate, today in Wyoming, the 150th anniversary of Wyoming women's right to vote. 150 years.\r\nBefore we even became a state, women were voting in Wyoming.\r\nAnd today at our State Capitol, a building in Cheyenne, there is a huge celebration of people from around the state and around the country celebrating this historic day.\r\nMany people watching today may not know this history, what happened 150 years ago. Yesterday afternoon, Senator Enzi spoke on the Senate floor and outlined some of that history.\r\nI am so proud of my home state's amazing record in advancing this entire issue and concern and allowance of women voting.\r\nWomen in Wyoming were the first in the nation to use the right to vote.\r\nThat's a fact.\r\nWyoming women have been voting for 150 years.\r\nDecember 10, 1869, Wyoming took a giant leap forward for women's equality. We are called the Equality State.' This is the reason why.\r\nSo Wyoming's Governor, Mark Gordon, in a ceremony this morning at our State Capitol in Cheyenne is proclaiming today Wyoming Women's Suffrage Day.' Wyoming was the first place in the country to pass a law securing women's rights to vote as well as the right not just to vote but to hold public office.\r\nThe people of Wyoming spoke loud and clear 150 years ago, today.\r\nWe stood with women 50 years ahead of the rest of the nation.\r\nWyoming was a territory back then. Our state hadn't yet joined the Union, that didn't happen till 1890.\r\nStill, that's when we earned the proud name of the Equality State.' Wyoming earned far more than the name.\r\nBy leading the fight for women's rights, Wyoming has forever earned a hallowed place in the books of history.\r\nNobody embodies the legacy more than Wyoming's Louisa Ann Swain. On September 6, 1870, Louisa Swain, of Laramie, Wyoming, became the first woman in the United States to vote in a general election.\r\nBy casting her historic ballot, she claimed a great victory for women everywhere. It's a tremendous heritage that we celebrate today.\r\nWyoming truly is the nation's trailblazer for women's equality.\r\nIn fact, Equal Rights' is our state motto.\r\nOn November 19, the Senate unanimously passed the Wyoming Women's Suffrage Day resolution.\r\nSenator Enzi and I co-sponsored the resolution to commemorate today's 150th anniversary.\r\nSo now the entire nation can join in celebrating Wyoming's ground-breaking law.\r\nTwenty years after the law's passage, Wyoming refused to enter the Union as a state unless we had equal voting rights, men and women. Big fight about it in Wyoming and in the nation's capitol.\r\nWhen standing on principle became a major sticking point, Wyoming stuck to its guns on women's equality. And actually ended up delaying becoming a state over this very issue.\r\nOn March 26 of 1890, Wyoming statehood legislation narrowly passed in the U.S. House of Representatives.\r\nThe measure passed the Senate a few months later. But part of the debate, on the floor of the House of Representatives, had to do with Wyoming and women actually voting in our then territory, and now state.\r\nPresident Benjamin Harrison signed Wyoming statehood into law on July 10, 1890, upholding women's rights.\r\nWyoming is technically the 44th state to enter the Union. But Wyoming really is the first state when it comes to women's equality. Wyoming put women first, even before statehood.\r\nBack home, 2019 is the Year of Wyoming Women.'\r\nOur state is paying tribute to our strong women leaders.\r\nWe had the great honor of electing the first woman governor, Wyoming's 14th governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross.\r\nWyoming boasts many more female firsts.\r\nThese include the first woman to serve on a jury and the first female justice of the peace, Esther Hobart Morris.\r\nWyoming also claims the first all-female city government.\r\nThese pioneering women leaders were elected in 1920, in Jackson, Wyoming. The Jackson press dubbed them the petticoat government.'\r\nSo we celebrate 150 years of equal rights in Wyoming and 100 years for women nationwide.\r\nIn 1919, Congress passed the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution granting women's suffrage.\r\nThis hard-fought legislative victory would ensure women's full participation in our democracy.\r\nTo mark this 100th anniversary, President Trump recently signed into law the Women's Suffrage Centennial Commemorative Coin Act.\r\nI had the privilege of co-sponsoring this legislation, it was introduced by Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate.\r\nI made sure that Wyoming's Esther Hobart Morris was among the suffragettes honored in this legislation.\r\nAll Americans owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the nation's extraordinary women leaders, of the past, as well as the present.\r\nAnd so today, as we pause to remember where it all started 150 years ago: in the trailblazing state of Wyoming, the Equality State.\r\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ContentRecord_id=ABE588D9-E93C-483E-BE1E-37C94A8FE2E8"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9521790780127048, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}