Marsha Blackburn: “it is an honor to speak on the floor of the Senate today for the first time. I really want to say a thank you to my…”

“it is an honor to speak on the floor of the Senate today for the first time. I really want to say a thank you to my colleagues here in the Senate for the warm welcome, especially Senator Alexander, for the friendship, advice, and counsel he supplies to each and every one of us, especially to me. I am really humbled to be here as the first female elected from Tennessee to serve in the Senate. I just have to note that a few decades ago, neither the Presiding Officer, who is the first woman from West Virginia, nor I could have been here in this Chamber speaking because women would not have been allowed. Yet our suffragists took care of that with women getting the right to vote. I love this quote by Susan B. Anthony. I think it is so good and appropriate for us: ``I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand.'' Women have always been fierce defenders of freedom and freedom's cause. Many times people will say to me: Why do you choose to serve? For me, it really is more or less a calling to public service. In that calling, I find it important to defeat the narrative that still exists to this day that conservative women should be seen but not heard. Here in this Chamber and in my role, I will continue to fight against a media that chooses to empower women on one side of the political aisle and denigrate those of us on the other side of the aisle.…”