Familial Connections of Women Members of Congress

Footnotes

¹Smith served in the House from 1940 to 1949 and then won election to the Senate, where she served from 1949 to 1973.

²Territorial delegate.

³Neuberger was not immediately appointed to succeed her husband Richard Neuberger after he died in early 1960. However, she won the general election in November 1960 to serve the remainder of her husband's unexpired term in the 86th Congress and a full six-year term commencing on January 3, 1961.

⁴The GOP nominee for Illinois' 15th District, Frank R. Reid, Jr., died in August 1962 while campaigning for the open seat. Republican officials convinced his widow, Charlotte Reid, to replace him on the ticket.

⁵Just weeks after securing the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican incumbent LaMar Baker in Tennessee's 3rd District, Mort Lloyd was killed in a plane crash. Democratic leaders convinced his widow, Marilyn Lloyd, to replace him on the ticket.

⁶Mel Carnahan was killed in a plane crash less than two weeks before the election for the Missouri Senate seat he was running for. His name remained on the ticket, and he posthumously defeated incumbent John Ashcroft by a narrow margin. Governor Roger Wilson appointed Jean Carnahan to her husband's vacant seat. Carnahan's re-election bid in a special election held in 2002 was unsuccessful.

⁷Luke Letlow was elected to the House in a runoff election on December 5, 2020; however, he died due to complications from COVID-19 on December 29, 2020, before he could take his seat. Representative Julia Letlow won the special election to fill the vacancy caused by the death of her husband on March 20, 2021.

⁸Her husband, John Wesley Langley, had won re-election to the House in 1924 for Kentucky's 10th District but was convicted of conspiring to transport and sell liquor in violation of the Volstead Act. He was placed in a federal penitentiary in Atlanta before his term expired. Katherine Langley ran successfully for his seat in 1926 and was re-elected in the 71st Congress in 1928.

⁹Ruth Hanna McCormick won election in 1928 to one of Illinois' two At-Large House seats. Her husband, Joseph Medill McCormick, had served one term each in the House (1917–1919) and the Senate (1919–1925). He died days before his Senate term expired in February 1925.

¹⁰John B. Sullivan died in January 1951, but Leonor Sullivan could not convince Missouri 3rd District Democrat leaders to give her the nomination for the special election. In November 1952, after redistricting merged her husband's old district with another, she defeated GOP incumbent Claude I. Bakewell, who had succeeded John Sullivan in the 82nd Congress.

¹¹Nicola Tsongas was elected to a House seat covering a Massachusetts congressional district once represented by her late husband, Paul Tsongas. Paul Tsongas served in the House from 1975 to 1979 and, later, in the Senate from 1979 to 1985. He died in 1997.

¹²(See note 8 above.) Ruth Hanna McCormick married Rep. Albert Simms, who had served one term in the House with her in the 71st Congress (1929–1931), in March 1932.

¹³Married to Sen. Paul Douglas (D-IL, 1949–1967).

¹⁴Married Rep. Andrew Jacobs (D-IN, 1965–1973, 1975–1997) in 1975 while both were serving in the House.

¹⁵Married Sen. Howard Baker (R-TN, 1967–1985) in 1996 after he left office but while she still was in the Senate. They had served together six years.

¹⁶Married Rep. John McKernan, Jr. (R-ME, 1983–1987) in 1989, after he had left the House and was serving as governor of Maine, but while Snowe was still in the House. They had served together four years.

¹⁷Married Rep. Bill Paxon (R-NY, 1989–1999) in 1994 while both were serving in the House.

¹⁸Preceded in the House by her then husband, Rep. Ed Mezvinsky (D-IA, 1973–1977). The couple divorced in 2007.

¹⁹Preceded in the Senate by her husband, Robert J. Dole (R-KS), who served in the House from 1961 to 1969 and the Senate from 1969 to 1996.

²⁰Stephanie Herseth married Rep. Max Sandlin (D-TX, 1997–2005) in 2007. They served together for one year in the House.

²¹Mary Bono married Rep. Connie Mack IV (R-FL, 2005–2013) in 2007. She won election under the name Mary Bono Mack in the 111th–112th Congresses (2009–2013).

²²Preceded in the House of Representatives by her husband, John Delaney (D-MD, 2013–2019).

²³They were the only mother–son pair to serve simultaneously.

²⁴James Kee of West Virginia was the first son to directly succeed his mother in Congress.

²⁵Riley M. Moore of West Virginia was the first nephew to serve simultaneously with his aunt in Congress.