Women in the United States Senate After retiring from the Senate, she married former Senator Howard Baker (R-TN). Kassebaum has the distinction of being the first female elected senator who did not succeed her husband in Congress (Margaret Chase Smith was only elected to the Senate after succeeding her husband to his House seat). At the time of her retirement in 1997, Kassebaum was the second longest serving female senator, after Smith (Since 1997 five women have had Senate careers longer than Kassebaum's). The first woman in the Senate was Rebecca Latimer Felton, who served representing Georgia for only one day in 1922. Hattie Caraway became
Senate of the Roman Kingdom the interregnum. The interregnum was the only period during which the senate exercised its sovereign power. During the first interregnum after the death of Romulus, the senate, comprised at that time of 100 men, arranged itself into ten decuries, and each decurio governed Rome for five days as interrex. The decurios continued to rotate the government amongst themselves for a year until the senate elected Numa Pompilius as king. The practice eventually evolved that, when a king died, it was a member of the senate (the Interrex) who nominated a candidate to replace the king. If the senate gave its