Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D) Elected 1986, 3d term up 2004
Born:	July 20, 1936, Baltimore
Home:	Baltimore
Education:	Mt. St. Agnes Col., B.A. 1958, U. of MD, M.S.W. 1965
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	single
Elected  Office:	Baltimore City Cncl., 1971-76; U.S. House of Reps., 1976-86.
Professional Career:	Social worker, Baltimore Dept. of Social Svcs., 1965-70; Chmn., DNC Delegate Selection Comm., 1972; Adjunct prof., Loyola Col., 1972-76.
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Barbara Mikulski is a senator with deep roots in immigrant, urban America and a fascination for the new technology and jobs growing in edge cities and beyond, a person who doesn't look anything like a traditional politician but who has become a savvy Senate insider. Her roots are in east Baltimore, where her Polish immigrant parents ran a bakery, and she still lives in the city and commutes to Washington; she graduated from Mount St. Agnes College and got a social work degree at the University of Maryland. Mikulski got her start in politics as a social worker, organizing to stop a highway from going through Highlandtown. She won, and in the process was elected to the Baltimore City Council in 1971. She ran for the Senate in 1974, and got a respectable 43% against incumbent Charles Mathias; when Paul Sarbanes ran for the other Senate seat in 1976, Mikulski ran for his 3d District House seat and won. Ten years later, she gave up that seat for what seemed like a chancy Senate race. She won handily, with 50% in the primary to 31% for Montgomery County Congressman Michael Barnes and 14% for Governor Harry Hughes. In the general, she beat Linda Chavez (whom George W. Bush later nominated as Labor secretary in January 2001) 61%-39%.

Mikulski is loud and brash, humorous and warm, brusque and aggressive when she feels it is necessary, curious and thoughtful when encountering another new part of the world. One such world was the Senate. ''The House is a scrappy body, and I was scrappy in the body,'' she explained later. ''I knew the Senate was a different institution. I needed to know the rules.'' In her first term, she won a seat on the Appropriations Committee; within two years, she was chairman of a subcommittee, handling housing, space and veterans' programs; she was elected Democratic Caucus secretary in 1994, and so is a member of the Democratic leadership. She is also the Senate's chief superintendent of the space program and an enthusiast for space exploration. In February 2000, when the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous went into orbit around an asteroid, she and NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin high-fived each other. It does not hurt that some NASA facilities are in Maryland--the Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt and the Wallops Island flight facility--but she also keeps an eye on others. In May 2002, she was disappointed by the $15 billion budget for NASA--she wanted at least $17 billion. She has vowed to continue to raise funds for a mission to Pluto, the only unexplored plant in the solar system, stating, "Pluto is a bargain at less than $500 million." She cosponsored a bill in 2001 to see that federal employees who are in the Reserve forces get their full federal salary when called to active duty.

On domestic policy, Mikulski is a liberal who insists that ''where there are rights there are responsibilities'' and has criticized fellow Democrats for being ''angst-addicted.'' She voted for the Defense of Marriage Act. With Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, she sponsored a 2000 law to extend long-term care insurance for 13 million federal employees, military and their dependents. She passed an amendment in 2001 to spend $100 million over five years on 1,000 community technology centers to teach computer skills. She is capable of righteous indignation: During the hearings on Firestone tires in September 2000, she asked executives, "Where was your sense as a human being, as well as a corporation, to say, 'Look out, America, these tires are coming apart'?" She is not afraid to cast lonely votes. She was one of eight senators to vote against financial deregulation in November 1999, one of 19 to vote to cut most of the money for Plan Colombia in June 2000 and one of 15 to vote against PNTR with China in September 2000.

Mikulski is the senior woman in the Senate and convenes meetings of women senators. She has pushed many of what might be called women's issues--mammography clinic standards and homemaker IRAs, retaining a guaranteed benefit with inflation protection in Social Security reform. She was the chief Senate co-sponsor with John Chafee and his son and successor Lincoln Chafee of the 2000 breast cancer bill, providing Medicaid financing of mammograms and Pap tests; but she was denied a White House signing ceremony because the chief House sponsor was Rick Lazio, Hillary Rodham Clinton's opponent in the New York Senate race. In 2002, she set out to reauthorize her 1992 mammography quality standards law to provide for periodic testing of doctors who examine the X-rays. In 2001, she focused on the nursing shortage. "Nurses tell me they feel undervalued, overworked and underpaid." With Arkansas Sen. Tim Hutchinson, she sponsored a bill to encourage students to go into nursing, to provide scholarships for nurses who promise to work in underserved areas and to train nursing teachers. Mikulski's skills are not just political. She coauthored Capitol Offense and Capitol Venture, mystery novels featuring freshman Senator Eleanor "Norie" Gorzack of Pennsylvania.

Mikulski's toughest Senate election was her first, which she won fairly easily against strong competition. In 1992 and 1998 she was re-elected with 71%, first against Alan Keyes, a former Reagan appointee who has since run for president twice, and then against Ross Pierpont, a genial 81-year-old physician who had run for office and lost 14 times.

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DC Office
709 HSOB 20510, 202-224-4654; Fax: 202-224-8858; Web site: mikulski.senate.gov

State Offices
Annapolis, 410-263-1805; Baltimore,410-962-4510; Greenbelt,301-345-5517; Hagerstown,301-797-2826; Salisbury,410-546-7711.

Committees

• Democratic Conference Secretary
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• Appropriations: Commerce, Justice, State & Judiciary; Foreign Operations; Homeland Security; Interior; Transportation, Treasury & General Government; VA, HUD & Independent Agencies (RMM).
• Health, Education, Labor & Pensions: Aging (RMM).
• Intelligence (Select).

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	100	60	100	82	63	38	9	47	0	3	--
2001	95	--	100	100	--	--	5	43	12	--	0

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	82%	--	15%		71%	--	28%
Social	81%	--	8%		82%	--	0%
Foreign	61%	--	27%		96%	--	0%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 2. Expand Patients' Rights Y 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Permit ANWR Development N 5. Confirm Ashcroft as AG N 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts N		7. $ for Hate Crime Prosecution Y  8. Overseas Military Abortions Y  9. Bar Coop. with Intl. Court Y 10. Trade Promotion Authority N 11. Authorize Force in Iraq N 12. Homeland Sec. Dept. Union Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
1998 general	Barbara Mikulski (D)	1,062,810	71%	$3,014,312
	Ross Z. Pierpont (R)	444,637	30%	$297,768
1998 primary	Barbara Mikulski (D)	349,382	84%
	Ann L. Mallory (D)	43,120	10%
	Kauko H. Kokkonen (D)	21,658	5%
1992 general	Barbara Mikulski (D)	1,307,610	71%	$3,623,974
	Alan L. Keyes (R)	533,688	29%	$1,175,682
Prior winning percentages: 1986 (61%); 1984 House (68%); 1982 House (74%); 1980 House (76%); 1978 House (100%); 1976 House (75%)