Women in the United States Senate Women in the United States Senate There have been 52 total women in the United States Senate since its establishment in 1789. The first woman who served as a U.S. Senator, Rebecca Latimer Felton, represented Georgia for a single day in 1922. The first woman elected to the Senate was Hattie Caraway from Arkansas in 1932. Fifteen of the women who have served were appointed; seven of those were appointed to succeed their deceased husbands. As of April 9, 2018 when Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi was sworn in, the 115th United States Congress has 23 female Senators out of 100
Chaplain of the United States Senate Hindu to say the opening prayer for the Senate in 2007. Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama became the first Buddhist to lead the Senate in prayer, and as of 2014 was the highest religious official to do so. Unlike the Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives, who must be elected to a two-year term at "the beginning of each Congress," the Senate Chaplain (like other Senate officers) does not have to be reelected. Both the House and Senate Chaplains are elected as individuals, "not as representatives of any religious body or denominational entity." When a vacancy occurs,