Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who is the longest serving female senator in U.S. history. When Mikulski arrived in the Senate in 1986, there wasn't even a woman's bathroom. Since then, she has become the unofficial dean of the increasing number of women serving in the Senate.
In 1986, Senator Barbara Mikulski became the first Democratic woman to be elected to a Senate seat not held by her husband. With her re-election in the 2010 midterms, the Senator from Maryland has now served in that august body longer than any woman in U.S. history.
Over the years, she's become the dean of Senate women. And in that unofficial role, she holds regular dinner parties with a bipartisan group of women senators and acts as a mentor, sharing the benefit of her decades-long experience on the Hill.
