The Firsts: The Inside Story of the Women Reshaping Congress

by Jennifer Steinhauer

Overview

A riveting inside look at the women behind the headlines.

In the November 2018 midterms, the greatest number of women in history were elected to Congress. It was a group diverse in background, age, professional experience, and ideology. And from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and "the Squad" to a group with national security backgrounds calling themselves "the Badasses," from the first two Native American women to the first two Muslim women, all were swept into office on an enormous wave of grassroots support.

Here, New York Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer chronicles these women's first year in Congress, following their shift from trailblazing campaigns to the daily work of governance. In committee rooms, offices, visits back home with their constituents, and conversations in the halls of the Capitol, she probes the question: Will Washington, with its hidebound traditions and overpriced housing and petty power struggles, change the changemakers? Or will this Congress, which looks a little more like today's America, truly be the start of something new?

Vivid and smart, The Firsts delivers fresh details, inside access, historical perspective, and expert analysis as these women--inspiring, controversial, talented, and rebellious--do something surprising: make Congress essential again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616209995
Publisher:	Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication date:	03/10/2020
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Jennifer Steinhauer has covered numerous high-profile beats in her twenty-five-year reporting career at the New York Times, from City Hall bureau chief and Los Angeles bureau chief to Capitol Hill. She won the Newswoman’s Club of New York Front Page Deadline Reporting Award in 2006 for her reporting on Hurricane Katrina. She has written a novel about the television business, and two cookbooks.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The New Arrivals 1

11 French Heels, Kidney Punches, and the Dead Husbands' Club 13

12 They Did It Their Way 36

13 Now What? 67

14 Whose Party Is It, Anyway? 98

15 Reclaiming Their Time 123

16 Crisis at the Border 143

17 This Is What Diversity Looks Like 158

18 Lived Experiences 184

19 The Lasts 199

110 To Impeach or Not to Impeach 215

111 Paving the Way 225

Epilogue 235

Acknowledgments 245

Endnotes 247

Index 265

Editorial Reviews

03/01/2020

Thirty-five new congresswomen were sworn in when the 116th Congress convened in January 2019. It resulted in a record number of women in Congress: 106 in the House of Representatives and 25 in the Senate. Even more historic is the number of "Firsts" included in the new members of Congress: the first two Muslim women; the first two Native women; the first African American or Latinx women from their state or district, or combinations of these distinctions. Steinhauer interviewed these women about their reasons for running for office and the goals they hope to accomplish, observing them at town halls and noting their alliances with other freshmen and veteran congressmen and senators. The book is filled with reports on how, as candidates, the women campaigned and met with potential voters in order to raise awareness of political issues. Steinhauer also covers higher-profile women, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley, and their relationship to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. VERDICT Steinhauer provides an in-depth look at the women who historically changed the face and composition of Congress. Readers interested in women in politics and government will enjoy the book and appreciate the author's thorough research.—Jill Ortner, SUNY Buffalo Libs.

Library Journal

2020-01-12
The 2018 electoral cycle was a good one for women—well, at least some women, as New York Times reporter Steinhauer shows.

In the wake of the "blue wave" anti-Trump backlash of 2018, the largest number of women ever elected to Congress took the oath of office. Some of them have since become household names—e.g., Rashida Tlaib, a daughter of Palestinian immigrants who set off shock waves when she pledged about Trump that she was going to "impeach the motherfucker," forcing an issue that the Democratic leadership had been trying to keep under wraps. The class of 2018 found 106 women in the House and 25 in the Senate, and of the 35 newcomers that year, all but one was a Democrat. As for the Republican women, Steinhauer writes, "their numbers in the House fell from twenty-three to thirteen, the biggest percentage drop ever and the lowest number overall in a generation." There are numerous reasons for that fall, she ventures, including both revulsion among women for the sitting president and the lack of an effort among Republicans to recruit women to their cause. Instead, the Capitol now includes women such as Kyrsten Sinema, who immediately tested the Senate's dress code by wearing a sleeveless outfit instead of the usual business suit. That example seems trivial compared to the weightier intentions of the incoming class, who, by Steinhauer's reckoning, were fueled by Trump to run for Congress just as other Americans rushed to enlist in the service following 9/11, "as part of a larger national emergency response." The analogy won't please the likes of Joni Ernst and Martha McSally, but the larger point is that women hitherto excluded from the system—Arab Americans from Michigan, Native Americans from Kansas and New Mexico, African Americans and Latinas and members of other underserved populations—are now actively involved and pressing for accelerated reforms, to say nothing of the chance to influence the entrenched leadership.

A fine lesson in civics and political journalism and must reading for anyone contemplating working in electoral politics.

Kirkus Reviews

With a journalist’s eye for the telling detail, and valuable experience covering Congress for The New York Times, Steinhauer is often a few steps ahead of the newcomers. She conveys throughout admiration, sympathy and compassion for her subjects while they learn the hard way that hidebound traditions, a rigid seniority system and encrusted modes of governance do not yield readily to even the strongest convictions. The Firsts is an intimately told story, with detailed and thought-provoking portraits spliced in along the way. Steinhauer makes herself a character in her account, sharing with readers some witty and at times acerbic observations that keep the narrative moving along.”
—The New York Times Book Review

"Steinhauer provides an in-depth look at the women who historically changed the face and composition of Congress. Readers interested in women in politics and government will enjoy the book and appreciate the author’s thorough research."
—Library Journal

“Anyone interested in government, especially women in government, will find this book informative and empowering.”
—Booklist

“A fine lesson in civics and political journalism and must reading for anyone contemplating working in electoral politics.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“If suffragists, who got American women the right to vote 100 years ago, could watch our celebrations this year I am sure they would want people to read The Firsts. Why? Women are still less than 25% of Congress. Read The Firsts, run, and join them. Imagine half the Congress being female. Finish the dream.”
—Former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, Colorado

“The Firsts stands out as one of the most important and best reported books written during the extraordinary political chapter in which we are living. One part ‘you go, girl,’ one part ‘I feel your pain, sister,’ and one part ‘we are here to stay,’ it’s the most sweeping storytelling I’ve read about the 2018 class of women who arrived in Congress and have already left their mark.”
—Nicolle Wallace, author and anchor, Deadline: White House on MSNBC

 

From the Publisher