Wash­ing­ton’s senior U.S. Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray made his­to­ry today as the first woman ever to become Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate, suc­ceed­ing a series of nine­ty-one men in the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly-defined role.

With the office of Speak­er of the House cur­rent­ly vacant, Mur­ray is sec­ond in line to the pres­i­den­cy, after Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Harris.

“I hope that when young women now see me in this posi­tion they see they can accom­plish any­thing they set their mind to,” said Mur­ray in sub­se­quent remarks.

“I hope they see that they not only belong in Con­gress — but that their voic­es are need­ed here in Con­gress. We need their per­spec­tives and their insight — and we need a Con­gress that looks like America.”

“The year that I was first elect­ed to the Sen­ate, there were three oth­er women elect­ed to the Sen­ate with me, and twen­ty-four in the House,” she recollected.

“And that was enough for them to call it the ‘year of the woman.’ ”

“Well, today, we have more women serv­ing in the Sen­ate than when I first start­ed — but you know what: we need more. We need more women in lead­er­ship roles, and more women at the deci­sion mak­ing table.”

“But today real­ly is a sign of the progress I have fought for, for a very long time. And I hope we con­tin­ue to build on that progress.”

“We need to make every year the ‘year of the women.’ I do care deeply about the work we do here in Con­gress, and how that work can help friends and neigh­bors that I grew up with and the con­stituents that I rep­re­sent. I real­ly look for­ward to the oppor­tu­ni­ty to serve our coun­try as Pres­i­dent Pro Tem.”

Watch the swearing-in:

Mur­ray was accom­pa­nied to the dais by her pre­de­ces­sor Patrick Leahy of Ver­mont, where she took the oath in front of her col­leagues. It was admin­is­tered by Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris. The first woman to be Vice Pres­i­dent got to swear in the first woman Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore… now that’s cool!

If you’re not famil­iar with the posi­tion of Pres­i­dent Pro Tem (pro tem­pore is Latin for the time being), here’s some use­ful back­ground from Wikipedia:

The pres­i­dent pro tem­pore of the Unit­ed States Sen­ate (often short­ened to pres­i­dent pro tem) is the sec­ond-high­est-rank­ing offi­cial of the Unit­ed States Sen­ate, after the vice pres­i­dent. Accord­ing to Arti­cle One, Sec­tion Three of the Unit­ed States Con­sti­tu­tion, the vice pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States is the pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate (despite not being a sen­a­tor), and the Sen­ate must choose a pres­i­dent pro tem­pore to act in the vice pres­i­den­t’s absence.

The pres­i­dent pro tem­pore is elect­ed by the Sen­ate as a whole, usu­al­ly by a res­o­lu­tion which is adopt­ed by unan­i­mous con­sent with­out a for­mal vote. The Con­sti­tu­tion does not spec­i­fy who can serve in this posi­tion, but the Sen­ate has always elect­ed one of its cur­rent mem­bers. Unlike the vice pres­i­dent, the pres­i­dent pro tem­pore can­not cast a tie-break­ing vote when the Sen­ate is equal­ly divid­ed. The pres­i­dent pro tem­pore has enjoyed many priv­i­leges and some lim­it­ed powers.

Dur­ing the vice pres­i­den­t’s absence, the pres­i­dent pro tem­pore is empow­ered to pre­side over Sen­ate ses­sions. Except when nec­es­sary or to high­light impor­tant votes, the vice pres­i­dent and the pres­i­dent pro tem­pore rarely pre­side; instead, the duty of pre­sid­ing offi­cer is rotat­ed among junior U.S. sen­a­tors of the major­i­ty par­ty to give them expe­ri­ence in par­lia­men­tary procedure.

Unlike the Speak­er of the House, the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore is not held by the per­son con­sid­ered to be the leader of the Sen­ate’s major­i­ty cau­cus. That’s a dif­fer­ent posi­tion… the posi­tion of Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader. (The House also has a Major­i­ty Leader, who is the usu­al­ly the chief deputy of the Speaker.)

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, the most senior mem­ber of the major­i­ty cau­cus has been elect­ed Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore by the body — but not always. Dianne Fein­stein of Cal­i­for­nia has more senior­i­ty than Mur­ray, but did not want the posi­tion. Mur­ray was next in line after Fein­stein and accept­ed the responsibility.

Mur­ray was also sworn in for her sixth term as a sen­a­tor today, after vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton over­whelm­ing­ly backed her reelec­tion cam­paign. She has now won half a dozen con­sec­u­tive statewide elec­tions: 1992, 1998, 2004, 2010, 2016, and 2022. In addi­tion to becom­ing Pres­i­dent Pro Tem, Mur­ray is the new chair of the extreme­ly pow­er­ful Sen­ate Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee, also suc­ceed­ing Leahy.

Appro­pri­a­tions is one of three U.S. Sen­ate fis­cal com­mit­tees; the oth­ers are Finance and Bud­get. While all three com­mit­tees have names that sound like they have some­thing to do with mon­ey, they have dif­fer­ent scopes. Wikipedia:

The Bud­get Com­mit­tee should not be con­fused with the Finance Com­mit­tee and the Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee, both of which have dif­fer­ent juris­dic­tions: The Finance Com­mit­tee is anal­o­gous to the Ways and Means Com­mit­tee in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives; it has leg­isla­tive juris­dic­tion in the areas of tax­es, Social Secu­ri­ty, Medicare, [and] Med­ic­aid. […] The Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee has leg­isla­tive juris­dic­tion over appro­pri­a­tions bills, which pro­vide fund­ing for gov­ern­ment programs.

While the bud­get res­o­lu­tion pre­pared by the Bud­get Com­mit­tee sets out a broad blue­print for the Con­gress with respect to the total lev­els of rev­enues and spend­ing for the gov­ern­ment as a whole, these oth­er Com­mit­tees pre­pare bills for spe­cif­ic tax and spend­ing policies.

Since Appro­pri­a­tions decides what projects get fund­ed, it is a very impor­tant and pow­er­ful com­mit­tee. Mur­ray was already a vet­er­an appro­pri­a­tor before this Con­gress, but now she’s the Chair of the whole oper­a­tion, just as the leg­endary Sen­a­tor War­ren (“Mag­gie”) Mag­nu­son once was decades ago.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Sen­a­tor Mur­ray on her new respon­si­bil­i­ties; the Unit­ed States will assured­ly be well served with her in both of these impor­tant roles.