Mikulski is longest-serving female senator

Associated Press

ANNAPOLIS, Md.

When Maryland’s Barbara Mikulski was first sworn in as a U.S. senator in 1987, she entered what she described as “a guys’ club,” a chamber where senators socialized in a gym off-limits to her and the only other female senator then, Republican Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas.

Mikulski, a Democrat who becomes the longest-serving woman in the history of the U.S. Senate today, says in her characteristically blunt style that she was never much of a jock anyway.

“For us, it’s not about whether we had a locker room,” Mikulski, 74, said in an interview with The Associated Press this week. “It’s whether we had a committee room, and we now have them.”

Mikulski, who was a Baltimore congresswoman before being elected to the Senate, says she felt she had established a reputation as a hard worker and a good committee member that first Senate year by the time of her hometown Baltimore Orioles’ opening day.

She said she believes her plainspoken, wisecracking personality was a powerful tool for breaking down barriers.

The daughter of a Baltimore grocer and social worker, she first gained recognition in 1970 when she successfully fought to block an interstate-highway project through the city’s historic Fells Point neighborhood. Mikulski captured a U.S. House seat in 1976 and was easily re-elected four times in a heavily Democratic district. She also was re-elected to her Senate seat with big majorities — in 1992, 1998, 2004 and last year.