{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://susanwbrooks.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/100-years-of-women-serving-in-congress", "100 years of women serving in Congress", "2016-11-11", "2016", "2016-11", "Republican", "House", "IN", "Susan Brooks", "B001284", "susanwbrooks.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Hillary Clinton is hoping to shatter an enormous glass ceiling on Tuesday by being elected to the Oval Office, but today\u2019s story looks across the reflecting pool to Capitol Hill. One hundred years ago today, Montana\u2019s Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.\nThat was even before all American women were given the right to vote by the 19th Amendment, which was ratified on Aug. 18, 1920.*\nWe\u2019ve come a long way since then.\nIndiana has had seven women in Congress, including two Republican women first elected in 2012 who are still serving in the House, hoping to be re-elected on Tuesday.\nU.S. Rep. Susan Brooks, whose husband David is a Hammond High School graduate, is vice chair of the congressional women\u2019s caucus and will become co-chair if re-elected. Brooks, a Republican, represents Indiana\u2019s 5th Congressional District.\nU.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski, a fellow Republican, represents the 2nd Congressional District, which includes much of LaPorte County.\nWomen\u2019s role in Congress\nThey\u2019re the only two congresswomen from Indiana currently serving in Congress, but they\u2019re not alone on Capitol Hill.\nWalorski remembers when she, Brooks and the third female Republican elected to Congress that year showed up for the freshmen class photo on Capitol Hill. There were 30-some Democratic women who asked them where the rest of their group was. When the Democrats realized there were only three Republican women, they gave the GOP members hugs and welcomed them, literally, with open arms.\nSince then, the women have been working together on a number of issues of common concern where bipartisan cooperation is feasible, Brooks and Walorski said.\nA number of the congresswomen live in the same apartment building, Walorski said, and they often meet in the lobby and elsewhere and talk about finding ways to work together to get things done.\nWomen have a common bond and reach to their \u201csisters\u201d across the aisle to get things done, she said.\n\u201cThe women in Congress I think do play an incredibly important role,\u201d Brooks said. The bipartisan women\u2019s caucus plans to work together on issues like child care, women\u2019s health and children\u2019s health and welfare, \u201cand raise up some issues that men might not,\u201d Brooks said.\n\u201cWhat I\u2019ve seen out of Congress, the women often check their egos at the door,\u201d she said. \u201cThey often really roll up their sleeves and find ways to work within not only our own parties, but I have really seen the women work across the aisle to find solutions.\u201d\nWomen are good listeners, consensus builders and problem solvers, Brooks said.\nFor Indiana, that\u2019s a tradition that dates back to 1933.\nIndiana\u2019s first congresswoman\nVirginia Jenckes, a Democrat, served 1933-1939. To win election, she had to defeat two incumbents who were in the same district following reapportionment. The farm widow\u2019s campaign strategy was simply to abolish Prohibition, her official House biography said. \u201cGet rid of Prohibition and you will have a market for your corn,\u201d she told farmers in her district.\nJenckes campaigned hard, logging 15,000 miles in a campaign that took her throughout the district in 1932.\nShe was able to help abolish Prohibition, and she was also able to secure funding for Wabash River flood control projects, but she wasn\u2019t appointed to the committees that would have matched her interests. Instead, she served on Mines and Mining, Civil Service and the District of Columbia.\nShe was a fierce anti-communist, her biography said, and pushed legislation to outlaw the mere mention of communism in public schools in the District of Columbia. She pushed for American flags to be flown atop every federal building, too.\nSecond congresswoman\nCecil Harden, the second Hoosier woman elected to the House, was a Republican. She served from 1949 to 1959. She won her first election by just 483 votes.\nHarden joined with Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine and Rep. Frances Bolton of Ohio to criticize male dominance of the Republican Party and push for women\u2019s issues to be included in future platforms.\n\u201cHarden believed women had an important part to play in politics, particularly in local organizations and volunteer groups, which would provide the kind of experience they needed to move into higher offices,\u201d her House biography said.\nWalorski and Brooks have taken up that charge. They are each working to encourage more women to become politically active.\nNeither Brooks nor Walorski grew up in a political family, and neither planned to run for office. They were recruited. That\u2019s a common theme for women in public office.\n\u201cMany women are asked to run for office rather than just raising their hands and saying I\u2019m going to run,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cI think we need to do a better job encouraging more women to run, and I spend a lot of time doing that.\u201d\nWalorski said she is humbled and excited when mothers tell her that their daughters look up to her as a role model.\nIn the half century between Murray\u2019s term and Brooks and Walorski, three female Democrats from Indiana served in the House.\nKatie Hall\nKatie Hall, a Democrat from Gary, served the 1st Congressional District from 1981 to 1985. Her claim to fame in the House was authoring legislation to make Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s birthday a federal holiday.\nAfter she left the House, she became Gary city clerk and was convicted on public corruption charges in 2003. She died in 2012.\nJill Long Thompson\nJill Long Thompson, who represented Indiana\u2019s 4th Congressional District near Fort Wayne, has deep roots in Northwest Indiana. She is a graduate of Valparaiso University and was a faculty member there when she served on the Valparaiso City Council. In addition to serving in the House from 1989 to 1995, she ran unsuccessfully for governor against Mitch Daniels in 2008. Long Thompson was named undersecretary in the Agriculture Department by President Barack Obama and became chairman and CEO of the Farm Credit Administration until her term ended in 2015. She now teaches ethics at the Kelley School of Business and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University in Bloomington.\nJulia Carson\nThe late Julia Carson, whose grandson Andre Carson now holds that office in the House, was elected to the House in 1996. Carson grew up poor, working part-time jobs like waiting tables, delivering newspapers and harvesting crops, her biography said.\nShe succeeded her mentor, Rep. Andy Jacobs, upon his retirement after 15 terms in office and represented greater Indianapolis.\nAmong her legislative claims to fame is authoring a bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal to civil rights activist Rosa Parks, whose refusal to move to the back of the bus in 1955 was a key moment in the civil rights movement.\nShe was still a congresswoman when she died in 2007.\nGender issues\nLong Thompson said her college students today don\u2019t realize how difficult it was for women even 20 years ago.\nWhile on the Agriculture Committee, Long Thompson got a law changed to give widows the same rights as widowers in the federal egg program. Prior to that change, women whose husbands died weren\u2019t allowed to continue egg production at the same level as before.\nAnother gender barrier broken.\n\u201cWe\u2019ve come a long way since I was elected in that special election in 1989,\u201d she said. That was when Dan Quayle was elevated to the vice presidency and Dan Coats was appointed to the Senate. Long Thompson succeeded Coats in the House.\n\u201cThere were definitely comments that were made that reflected not complete acceptance of women running for high office,\u201d she said. \u201cThere were comments made, for example, that it doesn\u2019t matter if she loses because she\u2019s a woman.\u201d\n\u201cThe research shows very clearly that not everyone is accepting of a woman holding high office, and particularly high executive office, for example governor or president,\u201d she said.\nLong Thompson stressed that those views are a minority, however. The majority believe when you bring a wider variety of talent to the table, you get better decisions.\nFuture congresswomen\n\u201cI think our big challenge is that we need to encourage more women to run for office at all levels, including Congress,\u201d Brooks said. Just 19 percent of the members of the House are female.\n\u201cAfter 100 years of having women in elected office, I\u2019m disappointed in the numbers we have in office,\u201d Brooks said. \u201cI think we have a long way to go to have more women elected to Congress and more women elected to the U.S. House.\u201d\nFormer U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar established a program to give Republican women the encouragement and skills they need to run for office. Brooks volunteers with this program.\nBrooks said women who run for office need to develop public speaking skills, become comfortable asking for campaign donations and leading teams \u2014 office staffs and campaign staffs.\nThere still has not been a female U.S. senator from Indiana, but that glass ceiling will be broken someday, just as the one in the Oval Office could yield as soon as Tuesday.", 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": ["http://susanwbrooks.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/100-years-of-women-serving-in-congress"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9856000542640686, "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"}