Barbara Mikulski

With her brash style, her working-class Baltimore roots, and her support for the underdog, Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski's four decades in Congress (1977 to 2017) earned her the reputation of a crusader for the poor and marginalized.

Early Life and Education

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1936, Barbara Ann Mikulski is the oldest of three daughters born to parents of Polish descent, Christine and William Mikulski. While attending high school at the Institute of Notre Dame, Mikulski worked in the family's neighborhood grocery. In spite of a fire that destroyed the family business during her senior year, Mikulski attended and graduated from Mount Saint Agnes College in 1958 with a bachelor's degree in sociology. She earned a master's degree in social work from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, in 1965.

Mikulski used her degree to participate in President John F. Kennedy's anti-poverty agenda as a Baltimore social worker. As she was considering a return to school, however, Mikulski became involved with a group of neighbors opposed to a state project that would have constructed a sixteen-lane highway, Interstate 70, through one of Baltimore's poor and largely minority neighborhoods. Her leadership in the successful effort to stop the project propelled Mikulski to a seat on the Baltimore City Council in 1971. She served on the council for five years while also teaching sociology at Loyola College.

US Congress

Mikulski made her first run for the US Senate in 1974. This early effort failed, but she regrouped to enter the 1976 race for the US House of Representatives. Her election victory that year began a ten-year tenure in the House that lead to her 1986 election to the Senate. Mikulski was the first Democratic woman in the United States to be elected to a Senate seat not previously held by her husband, and she would go on to become the longest-serving woman in the Senate and in Congress as a whole.

As a representative and as a senator, Mikulski focused on political issues that she considered to be of particularly local impact. She made a name for herself as a forceful proponent of women's rights, funding for women's health research and care, programs to assist the nation's senior citizens and veterans, environmental clean-up and protection, and technology programs, from on-line access at housing projects to continued funding for NASA's space program.

As a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and as chair of its Primary Health and Aging subcommittee, Mikulski played a leading role in the country's health care debates. She co-sponsored the well-publicized 1997 reform bill that created faster access to experimental medical drugs and equipment, and has pushed for tax credits and deductions for health insurance for the self-employed. She was also a leading supporter of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 and the much-debated Patients Bill of Rights. Some of her other interventions in federal health care policy included the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act, the Clinical Laboratories Improvement Act of 1988, the Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act, the Breast and Cervical Cancer Mortality Prevention Act of 1990, and the Mammography Quality Standards Act. She also supported increased funding for health insurance coverage for low-income children, and expanded Medicare and Medicaid assistance.

Mikulski was also a member of the Senate's powerful Appropriations Committee, chairing it from 2012 to 2015 and serving as ranking member from 2015 to 2017. She served on a number of Appropriations subcommittees, including those on commerce, defense, and foreign affairs. Her seniority on Capitol Hill means that she was a prominent voice in the debates about President George W. Bush's appointment of John Ashcroft as attorney general and about President Bill Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy with regard to gays in the military.

In 2008, Mikulski voted in favor of legislation granting immunity to the telecommunication companies that assisted in government investigations into alleged terrorism suspects. She was elected to her fifth term as senator in 2010, defeating Republican Party challenger Eric Wargotz, and in March 2015 the "dean of Senate women" announced that she would retire at the end of her term, in January 2017. In November 2015, President Barack Obama awarded Mikulski the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Bibliography

Bash, Dana, and Abigail Crutchfield. "Longest-Serving Female Lawmaker Says Goodbye." CNN, 15 Dec. 2016, http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/14/politics/barbara-mikulski-maryland-senator-goodbye/. Accessed 17 Mar. 2017.

Mara, Melina, and Helen Thomas. Changing the Face of Power: Women in the US Senate. U of Texas P, 2005.

Mundy, Liza. "Who Will Be the Next Dean of Senate Women?" Politico, 4 Mar. 2015, http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/senate-women-barbara-mikulski-115761. Accessed 17 Mar. 2017.

O'Keefe, Ed. "Barbara Mikulski Honored as Longest-Serving Woman in Congress." The Washington Post, 21 Mar. 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/2chambers/post/barbara-mikulski-honored-as-longest-serving-woman-in-congress/2012/03/21/gIQA6d5JSS‗blog.html. Accessed 17 Mar. 2017.

"Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (1936– )." Congress.gov, https://www.congress.gov/member/barbara-mikulski/M000702. Accessed 17 Mar. 2017.