5-term Sen. Mikulski says she won’t seek re-election

By Kathleen Hunter

Bloomberg News

Sen. Barbara Mikulski. D-Md., a trailblazer for women in Congress, Monday announced she won’t seek a sixth term next year.

Mikulski, 78, is Congress’s longest-serving woman and the first to be chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“I have thought long and hard about the next two years,” Mikulski said in Baltimore in announcing her decision not to seek re-election. “I want to give 125 percent of my time focused on my constituents.”

“Do I spend my time raising money or do I spend my time raising hell?” she said.

Mikulski served for a decade in the House before she was elected in 1986 to the first of her five Senate terms. Her retirement would open a political opportunity for a crowded field of potential successors in a state that’s historically been a Democratic stronghold.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and half the members of Maryland’s U.S. House delegation are on the short list of possible Mikulski successors, according to a longtime Democratic strategist.

Reps. John Delaney, Chris Van Hollen, Donna Edwards and John Sarbanes, the son of former Maryland Senator Paul Sarbanes, are expected to at least consider running. O’Malley is also viewed as a potential 2016 presidential candidate.

Mikulski turned over the Appropriations Committee gavel when Republicans took control of the Senate in January. She serves as the top Democrat on the panel.

The tough-talking lawmaker once likened her Republican colleagues to “turkeys.” After super storm Sandy in 2012, she said an amendment to a disaster-recovery funding measure by Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn that would cut money for Alaska fisheries was “phony-baloney nonsense.”

Mikulski is a reliable Democrat who supported all of the signature accomplishments of President Barack Obama’s first term: his economic-stimulus plan, health-care overhaul, rewrite of financial industry regulations, the federal takeover of the student-loan industry and two Supreme Court appointments.

Mikulski has a long history of backing legislation aimed at improving women’s lives. She sponsored the first bill Obama signed into law – the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which was aimed at making it easier for women to sue for pay discrimination.

She successfully added an amendment to Obama’s 2010 health- care overhaul guaranteeing women access to preventive health screenings, such as mammograms, at no cost. Mikulski also has backed legislation to promote women in occupations where they are underrepresented.

When she was one of just two women in the chamber, Mikulski recalls a fuss among her male colleagues when she wanted to wear pants on the Senate floor.

“What you wore became a very big deal,” she told CNN. “For a woman to come on the floor in trousers was viewed as a seismographic event.”

Before doing so, she said, she had to alert the majority leader, West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, and “the Senate parliamentarian looked at the rules to make sure it was OK.”

“You would have thought I was walking on the moon,” she said. “It caused a big stir.”

The 1992 election added dozens of women to Congress, including five senators, and was quickly dubbed “Year of the Woman.” Mikulski was neither amused nor inspired by that label.

“Calling 1992 the Year of the Woman makes it sound like the Year of the Caribou or the Year of the Asparagus,” she said at the time, according to the Washington Post. “We’re not a fad, a fancy or a year.”

In March 2012, after 35 years on Capitol Hill, Mikulski became the longest-serving woman of the 300 or so who have been elected to Congress. She also has regularly been voted “meanest senator” in Washingtonian magazine’s annual survey of congressional aides.

Mikulski is the second veteran Senate Democrat to decide to make this term her last. California’s Barbara Boxer also has announced plans to retire.

Republicans will defend 24 seats in 2016, compared with 10 for Democrats, a reversal from the past two campaign cycles in which significantly more Democratic seats were on the ballot.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, left, introduces Xichitl Torres Small, center, Undersecretary for Rural Development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a talk at Thomas Family Farms on Monday, April 3, 2023, in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Under new federal program, Washingtonians can file taxes for free

At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene called the Direct File program safe, easy and secure.

Former Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Jeremie Zeller appears in court for sentencing on multiple counts of misdemeanor theft Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ex-sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 1 week of jail time for hardware theft

Jeremie Zeller, 47, stole merchandise from Home Depot in south Everett, where he worked overtime as a security guard.

Everett
11 months later, Lake Stevens man charged in fatal Casino Road shooting

Malik Fulson is accused of shooting Joseph Haderlie to death in the parking lot at the Crystal Springs Apartments last April.

T.J. Peters testifies during the murder trial of Alan Dean at the Snohomish County Courthouse on Tuesday, March 26, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Bothell cold case trial now in jury’s hands

In court this week, the ex-boyfriend of Melissa Lee denied any role in her death. The defendant, Alan Dean, didn’t testify.

A speed camera facing west along 220th Street Southwest on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Washington law will allow traffic cams on more city, county roads

The move, led by a Snohomish County Democrat, comes as roadway deaths in the state have hit historic highs.

Mrs. Hildenbrand runs through a spelling exercise with her first grade class on the classroom’s Boxlight interactive display board funded by a pervious tech levy on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 in Marysville, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lakewood School District’s new levy pitch: This time, it won’t raise taxes

After two levies failed, the district went back to the drawing board, with one levy that would increase taxes and another that would not.

Alex Hanson looks over sections of the Herald and sets the ink on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Black Press, publisher of Everett’s Daily Herald, is sold

The new owners include two Canadian private investment firms and a media company based in the southern United States.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.