DEMS/POLITICAL FIGURES: “Two political newcomers will be sworn into the nation’s most elite deliberative body Wednesday [1-3-18], with both Democrats vowing to work toward bipartisanship in a deeply divided U.S. Senate.
Tina Smith, who resigned at midnight as Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, will become the state’s junior senator. She will take office a day after Democratic Sen. Al Franken resigned amid sexual misconduct claims. She becomes the 22nd woman in this Senate, a record number.
Democrat Doug Jones, who notched an upset win last month in Alabama, will be sworn in to take the seat once held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Mr. Jones’s special-election victory winnowed Republican control of the chamber to 51 seats, while Democrats control 49…
Mr. Jones, who worked for elected officials in Alabama but had never been one, is a former U.S. attorney whose most-heralded career accomplishment was convicting two members of the Ku Klux Klan for their roles in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four girls…
She had previously worked as his chief of staff and as chief of staff for former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak. Ms. Smith, a native of New Mexico, once headed her own marketing firm and was an executive at Planned Parenthood for Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.”
-Julie Bykowicz, “Democrats Doug Jones, Tina Smith Take Oaths Wednesday,” The Wall Street Journal online, Jan. 3, 2018 08:00am