I love trivia questions, so I wrote some to share with my dear friends and acquaintances on DKos. In the 113th Congress (convening in January, 2013), there will be 20 women and 80 men in the U.S. Senate. How well do you know the history of women in the Senate?
I once hosted pub trivia contests in a few different bars, back when I lived in Seattle, so I wrote some trivia questions, which you can see below the orange fleur-de-Kos.
Rules
No rules and no prizes. Read the questions and come up with an answer. I can’t stop you from using Google, so it’s all on the honor system. If you want to, you can keep track of your score and brag about it in the comments.
Ten questions. A total of 43 points (if I counted them correctly). Here you go:
The Trivia Questions
1. Same/Similar Names (6 points)
Six of the current female Senators have the same (or similar) first names. I’ll give you the first names -- what are their last names: Barbara and Barbara? Deb and Debbie? Mary and Maria?
2. Oldest and youngest (2 points)
Of the 20 women currently in the Senate, which is the oldest and which the youngest? Hint: The oldest was born in 1933, so she’s 79 years old. The youngest was born in 1968, so she’s 44.
3. Republican Women (9 points – 1 point each for the name and state, plus a bonus).
Of the 20 women currently in the Senate, there are 16 Democrats. Name the four Republicans (plus the state they represent). Bonus point: Which one was elected to the Senate as a write-in candidate (which is remarkable, because she’s only the third person in history to succeed as a write-in Senator)?
4. Two from the Same State (3 points)
Every state gets two Senators. Name the three states represented by two women? (Note: Maine is not one of the answers because Olympia Snowe recently retired and Maine’s new Senator is a man.)
5.Three from the Same State (3 points)
Which three states have been represented in the Senate by three different women over the years? (This is a really hard question and here’s a hint: all three states currently have one woman in the Senate and two other women who served at some time in the past).
6. Widows, Wives, and Daughters (10 points total)
6a. (widow, 1 point): Which female Senator was appointed to the Senate and served from 1/25/78 to 11/7/78 to serve the remainder of her husband’s Senate term after his death? Her husband had been a Mayor, U.S. Senator, Vice President, and Democratic nominee for President (but he lost the election).
6b. (daughter, 2 points): What female Senator was the daughter of a man who was a Governor and a Republican nominee for President (but he lost to FDR in a landslide)? She was the first female Senator to be elected to a full term in the Senate without being the wife of a man who previously served in Congress. She was re-elected and served from 1978 to 1997. Bonus point, who was her father (the guy who lost to FDR)?
6c. (wife, 1 point): After the 1972 death of a Senator, which woman was appointed to the Senate by her husband (who was Governor of the state)? She served in the Senate for 104 days (August to November, 1972).
6d. (wife, 2 points): What female Senator was (and still is) married to a man who was, during his career, Senate Majority Leader, a nominee for VP (but his ticket lost) and his party’s nominee for President (but he lost)? She served one term (six years) and then lost the general election to a woman. Bonus point: Name the woman who won the election against her.
6e. (widow, 3 points – 1 each for name of the state, and the two female Senators). In which state did a male Senator die in a plane crash three weeks before the 2000 election? He won the election anyway and his widow was appointed to his seat. What was her name? She ran in a special election in 2002 to fill the remaining four years of the term, but lost to a man. Then that man lost in the regular election of 2006 to a different woman. Who’s that second woman? (To recap: Name of the state, female Senator 2001-2003, and female Senator 2007-present).
6f. (widow and also mother, 1 point): Which female Senator was appointed to fill the seat of her husband after he was assassinated at the State Capitol Building in 1935? She served for a little less than a year (337 days). Her son later became a Senator.
7. The Kennedy Seats (3 points)
Which female Senator now holds Edward “Teddy” Kennedy’s seat (which, incidentally, was previously John F. Kennedy’s seat)? And if you look at Robert “Bobby” Kennedy’s seat, which two women have been subsequently elected to Bobby Kennedy’s seat?
8. Upper Midwest Women (4 points)
Name the female Senators from the four-state swath of North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
9. Pacific Coast Women (2 points)
There are five states that have a coast on the Pacific Ocean. How many of those states (0 to 5) have a female Senator? How many female Senators (0 to 10) represent a Pacific state in the U.S. Senate?
10. Boys ONLY!!! No Grils Allowd in the CLudHouSe!!! (1 point)
26 states have had female Senators, which means 24 have not. Which is the only state has never ever had a woman in the Senate AND, not only that, all of the states that border this state have never had a female Senator?
Interlude
If you want to scroll down to the answers, you can do that now. But here are a few thoughts about women in politics.
I’ve written a couple of other DKos diaries relating to women: 100 Years Ago: WA Women Get The Right To Vote, about women getting the vote in 1910 in the State of Washington, and Famous Daughters of Famous Politicians, about women whose father was a politician.
The 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. It was passed in 1920. The first woman to serve in the Senate was Rebecca Latimer Felton (Wikipedia link), who served for one day. Here’s what Wikipedia says:
Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton (June 10, 1835 – January 24, 1930) was an American writer, lecturer, reformer, and politician who became the first woman to serve in the United States Senate. She was the most prominent woman in Georgia in the Progressive Era, and was honored by appointment to the Senate; she was sworn in on November 21, 1922, and served one day, the shortest serving Senator in U.S. history. At 87 years old, 9 months, and 22 days, she was also the oldest freshman senator to enter the Senate. As of 2012, she is also the only woman to have served as a Senator from Georgia. She was a prominent society woman; an advocate of prison reform, women's suffrage and educational modernization; and one of the few prominent women who spoke in favor of lynching.
Yes, she was in favor of lynching. She fought for women’s rights but she was a racist and a former slave owner from Georgia. She had only one day in the Senate.
So the first woman in the Senate was not very nice.
And now here are the…
Answers
1. (6 points) Same or similar names: Barbara Boxer (CA) and Barbara Mikulski (MD). Deb Fischer (NE) and Debbie Stabenow (MI). Mary Landrieu (LA) and Maria Cantwell (WA).
2. (2) Oldest and youngest: Dianne Feinstein (CA) was born 6/22/1933. Kelly Ayotte (NH) was born 6/27/1968, both of them in June. So they’re astrologically Cancer, if you believe in that stuff.
3. (9) Republican women in the Senate: Murkowski (AK), Collins (ME), Fischer (NE), Ayotte (NH). Bonus point: Murkowski won as a write-in candidate in 2010 after that awful Tea Party guy got the Republican nomination.
4. (3) The three states with two female Senators: CA (Feinstein and Boxer), NH (Shaheen and Ayotte), and WA (Murray and Cantwell).
5. (3) States represented by three women Senators: Louisiana (Rose McConnell Long, Elaine Edwards, Mary Landrieu); Maine (Margaret Chase Smith, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins); Nebraska (Eva Kelly Browning, Hazel Hampel Abel (both of them in 1954), and Deb Fischer).
6a. (1) Widow of a Mayor, Senator, VP, Pres nominee: Muriel Humphrey (MN), widow of Hubert Humphrey. And by the way, here’s a quote from Hubert Humphrey:
The moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
6b. (2) Daughter of a Governor and Presidential nominee: Nancy Kassebaum (KS). Bonus point: Her father was Alf Landon (who lost to FDR in 1936).
6c. (1) Appointed to the Senate by her husband in 1972: Elaine Edwards (Louisiana).
6d. (2) Married to Majority Leader, VP candidate, Pres candidate: Elizabeth Dole (NC), the wife of Bob Dole. Bonus point: She lost in 2008 to Kay Hagan, who is the current Democratic Senator from NC.
6e. (3 – state, woman, woman) State where a widow was replaced by a man who was replaced by a woman: Missouri. Mel Carnahan was elected posthumously in 2000 and his widow, Jean Carnahan, served for two years. She lost the special election of 2002 to Jim Talent, who then lost in 2006 to Claire McCaskill (who is currently Senator).
6f. (1) Appointed in 1935 after husband’s assassination: Rose McConnell Long (wife of Huey Long from LA). Their son, Russell Long, later became a Senator.
7. (3) The Teddy (and John) Kennedy seat (MA) is now filled, admirably, by Elizabeth Warren. Bobby Kennedy’s seat (NY) was later Hilary Clinton’s and is currently held by Kirsten Gillibrand.
8. (4) Four-state swath: Heitkamp (ND), Klobuchar (MN), Baldwin (WI), Stabenow (MI).
9. (2) Pacific coast states: the answers are 4 and 6. Four of five states have a woman in the Senate (and 6 of 10 Senators are women). Only Oregon doesn’t have a female senator. HI and AK have one each. WA and CA have two each.
10. (1) Utah is in the middle of the NO GIRLS ALLOWED zone. Never elected a woman to the Senate and none of its five (or six) neighbors – NV, ID, WY, CO, and AZ (and NM, if you count kitty corner states) – has ever had a female Senator. Nevada Republicans tried to elect Sharron Angle in 2010, but they failed, thank God and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Some of these state have elected a female Governor (Jan Brewer, BOO!) or a female Congressperson (Gabby Giffords, YAY!), but never a Senator. And Montana had Congressperson Jeannette Rankin (the only person to vote against both WWI and WWII).
And that’s the end of the trivia contest. Did you learn anything new? How many points did you get? By my count, a perfect score would be 43.