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The new female faces of the U.S. Senate

November 11, 2012 | 4:58 pm | Modified: November 11, 2012 at 5:00 pm
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Photo - U.S. Rep. Maize Hirono gives a victory speech at the Japanese Cultural Center, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012 in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)
U.S. Rep. Maize Hirono gives a victory speech at the Japanese Cultural Center, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012 in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

There will be a record 20 women in the U.S Senate come January, including five new female faces. Republican Deb Fischer will be joined by Democrats Mazie Hirono, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin and Heidi Heitkamp. So what do we know about these leading ladies?

First off, the Democrats are all friends, according to Hirono, who served in the U.S. House for Hawaii before being promoted by voters in her state to the senate. "We all had very, very competitive races, and we bonded because we did campaign together on a number of occasions," Hirono told Yeas & Nays. The Sen.-elect plans to return to D.C. as early as Monday. "I think we get bigger offices, so that will be a help," she laughed. She also got a personal call from POTUS on Thursday. "He said he thought he was going to be able to get more sleep, but I said, 'who can sleep at a time like this?' " she said.

On the subject of sleep, Baldwin, who's also coming from the House and will be the first openly gay lawmaker to serve in the Senate, tells Yeas & Nays that she's excited to get "a little sleep" before "getting ready to fight for hard working Wisconsinites in the U.S. Senate."

Warren, speaking at a press conference in Boston Thursday, said there's more work to do to get parity in the Senate. "This is 2012 and we're talking about 20 percent of the U.S. Senate will be all female -- that's not an overwhelming number yet," she said. "I don't have to remind anyone in this room women are half the population, so I think we're on the right trajectory, but there's still a lot of work to do."

Read Tuesday's Yeas & Nays to meet Republican Deb Fischer and Democrat Heidi Heitkamp.

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