Dem
51
GOP
49
The record for the largest number of votes cast by a U.S. Senator is held, not surprisingly, by the longest-serving U.S. Senator, namely Robert Byrd of West Virginia. In his 51+ years, he voted 18,689 times. That's about what one would expect, as the Senate takes about 350 votes a year. In turn, that means that to join the 10,000-votes club, you have to be a senator for something like 30 years, give or take.
Before yesterday, there were a grand total of 32 senators who had cast at least 10,000 votes. And it had been a while since the club had added someone new (which, we assume, entitles a senator to a velour smoking jacket with the monogram of the 10,000-vote club and access to the secret 10,000-votes lounge on the third floor of the Capitol, with drinks served by David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler). The latest addition came about five years ago, when Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) crossed the line. About 3 years before that, it was Richard Shelby.
As you might imagine, all of those 32 bearers of the coveted velour smoking jacket were white men. After all, the country has only recently entered into a phase of its history where someone who is not a white man could be elected to the Senate. And even more recent was the arrival of an era where someone who is not a white man could hold their seat for three decades. But yesterday, the club handed out jacket #33, the first to go to non-white-male.
The senator who broke that particular glass ceiling is... Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA). Yesterday, she cast vote number 10,000 in support of a proposed amendment to the Fire Grants and Safety Act. It's not surprising it was Murray; she has just commenced the 31st year of her tenure and, to use the parlance of Washington, she's a "work horse" and not a "show horse."
After the vote, Murray's colleagues paused to recognize her accomplishment and her long period of service with a round of applause. "We're not supposed to clap, but every once in a while breaking protocol is appropriate as it is now," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). "So it is a remarkable accomplishment for a truly remarkable public servant. Her accomplishments go—if she just cast 10,000 votes that would be pretty good—but her accomplishments go way beyond that and often dwarf it." Among other things, Schumer was undoubtedly thinking about the fact that Murray was already the first female president pro tempore of the Senate in U.S. history.
The woman who would have beaten Murray to the president pro tempore honor, and who probably would have beaten her to the 10,000 vote mark, is Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who is at about 9,700 votes right now. Obviously, she is not likely to join the club, given her health issues. However, Susan Collins will join in a few years, and Murray's junior colleague Maria Cantwell (D-WA), in the likely event she is reelected next year, will join a couple of years after that. That's progress, right before your very eyes.
Incidentally, for those who did not recognize it, the bit about the velour jackets and the secret lounge is a reference to the Saturday Night Live five-time-hosts' club. That allowed us to write around the use of the word "member," which carries more than one connotation when you note that an all-male club has 32 members. And, on that note, have a good weekend, all. (Z)