Senate women to watch in 2014

In October, at an especially bleak moment in the government shutdown, Susan Collins chose to focus on “solutions instead of blame,” remembers a colleague from the other party.

Collins headed to the floor, where she proposed a plan and dared her fellow legislators to “come together. We can do it. We can legislate responsibly and in good faith.” Others joined in, including Maryland Democrat Barbara Mikulski and Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski.

After proposing a basic outline with a working group, others co-opted the process, but Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar writes that her Republican colleague “pointed the way to consensus.”

Collins, who has been termed “a Republican in a state that’s not, and a moderate and bipartisan in a party that’s not,” observes:

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that women were so heavily involved in trying to end this stalemate. Although we span the ideological spectrum, we are used to working together in a collaborative way.”

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Dec. 27, 2013 6:47 PM PT

Capitol Hill -- and especially the Senate -- was once an old boys’ club. Not anymore. Women now make up one-fifth of the Senate. And they’re making their presence felt.

In December, Washington Sen. Patty Murray was the Democrats’ standard-bearer in quiet, behind-the-scenes talks that loudly made news. Murray, the Senate Budget Committee chairwoman, and Wisconsin Republican Rep. Paul D. Ryan worked out a “breakthrough $85-billion bipartisan accord,” wrote The Times. “The modest deal represents an achievement in this divided Congress.”

But Murray was not the only woman to get something done in rancorous D.C. “Women now chair or sit as ranking members of 10 of the Senate’s 20 committees and are responsible for passing the vast majority of legislation this year, whether it be the budget, the transportation bill, the farm bill, the Water Resources Development Act or the Violence Against Women Act,” according to Time magazine.

The 20 -- yes, 20 -- Senate women come from both sides of the aisle, and the list today includes more names than California’s familiar Democratic duo of Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and Maryland Democrat Barbara Mikulski.

Here’s a look at some of the Senate women who stood together, and stood out, in 2013 -- and who are likely to do more of the same in 2014. -- Sara Lessley

“Courage doesn’t mean standing on opposite sides of the boxing ring throwing punches,” says Amy Klobuchar. “Courage means standing next to someone you don’t always agree with.”

So she and the other female senators meet regularly to talk about issues and legislation over dinner: “We work together well, and we look for common ground.”

In particular, she cites her Republican colleague, Susan Collins, who, she wrote in an essay this year, “was the Republican I approached when working to pass legislation to prevent drug shortages.”

“Having heard similar concerns in Maine, she agreed to join me in passing common-sense legislation to reduce shortages of critical lifesaving medications.”

To Klobuchar, it’s about being pragmatic. And reaching across the aisle: “You don’t have to agree with your colleagues on everything to tackle important issues together.”

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To Kirsten Gillibrand, a mother of two young sons, the legislative behavior she saw this autumn looked, well, familiar.

Watching a faction of Republicans in Congress made her think of her 5-year-old son wanting candy for breakfast: “It’s really a tantrum; it’s a tea party tantrum. ‘You either give me my way, or we’re going to shut down government.’

“I think they have to be told no, and they have to come back to the table,” Gillibrand told interviewers. “This is not a place for negotiation. This is what we should be doing as part of our jobs.”

In the summer, the Senate women had met after a deadlock on the problem of sexual assault in the military. The group supported Gillibrand’s bill over Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill’s version, creating an uncomfortable division. Tellingly, wrote an interviewer, the group agreed not to air its differences but to emphasize the significant overall reform. And the two senators, who are aligned on many changes in the military, have refrained from sparring in public.

“Women’s voices are not better than men’s,” wrote Gillibrand, who urges more women to run for public office. “They’re different, and the broader perspective that we bring often leads to better results.”

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la-ol-senate-women-to-watch-in-2014-20131227-005 (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press )

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Senate women to watch in 2014

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