Political Quotes

“150 years ago, in Washington State, a suffragette named Mary Olney Brown went to vote, and like so many others at the time, her vote was rejected. Why? Because she was a woman. She said: ``The idea of a woman voting was regarded as an absurdity.'' Fifty years later, thanks to the tireless efforts of women like Mary Olney Brown, that longstanding injustice finally began to change when this Chamber passed the 19th Amendment to guarantee women's right to vote. Today, as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of that important milestone in the march for equality, it is inspiring to see how far women have come over the last century. When we passed the 19th Amendment, there was only one woman in Congress--Jeannette Rankin. Before I ran for the Senate in 1992, there were two women Senators. I was very proud to join the Senate in 1993 and to join with Senator Barbara Mikulski, who is here today, and we became six women in the Senate. Today, there are 25 women serving in the Senate and 102 in the House of Representatives. Today, women are Governors, Fortune 500 CEOs, Nobel Prize-winning researchers, and candidates for President. It is clear we have come a long way, but we still have more work to do. Women may have more representation, but we still make up less than a quarter of Congress. Women of color are still particularly underrepresented. And we still have some ceilings left to crack.…”