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
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,