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
Year of the Woman had joined six of her Democratic women colleagues in a march on the Senate to urge greater attention to Anita Hill's charges—solidly won a full term. At a presidential debate at the University of Richmond, President George H. W. Bush was asked when his party might nominate a woman for President. Bush brought up the media's catchphrase at the end of his response, saying "This is supposed to be the year of the women in the Senate. Let's see how they do. I hope a lot of them lose." A week after the election, a popular "Washington Post" photograph illustrated