I 
110TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 996 
To provide for the issuance of a semipostal in order to afford a convenient 
means by which members of the public may contribute towards the 
acquisition of works of art to honor female pioneers in Government 
service. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 12, 2007 
Ms. KAPTUR (for herself, Mrs. CAPPS, Ms. NORTON, Mrs. MALONEY of New 
York, Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD, Ms. DELAURO, Ms. CORRINE 
BROWN of Florida, Mrs. JONES of Ohio, Mr. PALLONE, Ms. HIRONO, Mr. 
REHBERG, Ms. WATERS, Ms. BERKLEY, and Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ) 
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
Oversight and Government Reform, and in addition to the Committee on 
House Administration, for a period to be subsequently determined by the 
Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within 
the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To provide for the issuance of a semipostal in order to 
afford a convenient means by which members of the 
public may contribute towards the acquisition of works 
of art to honor female pioneers in Government service. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
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SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Honoring Female Con-
gressional Pioneers Act of 2007’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds as follows: 
(1) The 74 women currently serving in the 
House of Representatives owe a debt of gratitude to 
all of their foremothers who broke down barriers 
both in their election to, and in the important legis-
lative work they accomplished as Members of, the 
House of Representatives. 
(2) Four women in particular stand out for 
their status as the ‘‘first’’ women in certain cat-
egories. 
(3) In 1916, Jeannette Rankin broke new 
ground by becoming the first woman elected to the 
House of Representatives, representing the State of 
Montana, first from 1917 to 1919 and later from 
1941 to 1943. 
(4) Jeannette Rankin’s first election was all the 
more remarkable, considering that it came 3 years 
before women’s suffrage was a legally guaranteed 
right throughout the United States. 
(5) Jeannette Rankin directly contributed to a 
woman’s right to vote when she introduced a resolu-
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tion in 1919 to support a women’s suffrage amend-
ment to the Constitution of the United States. 
(6) Jeannette Rankin remained true to her 
pacifistic ideals both by voting against the declara-
tions of World War I and World War II—and in 
fact was the only Representative to vote against the 
declaration of World War II—and by working tire-
lessly to promote peace during her years outside of 
Congress. 
(7) In 1924, Mary Teresa Norton became the 
first Democratic woman elected to the House of 
Representatives—and one of a small number of 
women during that period who were elected in their 
own right and not to replace their husbands—rep-
resenting New Jersey’s Twelfth Congressional Dis-
trict from 1925 to 1951. 
(8) Mary Norton served as the chair of the 
Committee on the District of Columbia from 1931 to 
1937, effectively governing the city which at that 
time had no municipal government of its own. 
(9) In 1934, Mary Norton became the first 
woman to chair a major political party in a State as 
head of the New Jersey State Committee. 
(10) Mary Norton was instrumental in the 
drafting and passage in 1938 of a major piece of 
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal: the 
Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a min-
imum wage, a maximum workweek, overtime pay, 
and a prohibition on child labor. 
(11) In 1964, Patsy Takemoto Mink became 
the first Asian-American woman elected to the 
House of Representatives, representing Hawaii’s 
Second Congressional District from 1965 to 1977 
and again from 1991 until her death in 2002. 
(12) Patsy Mink secured an assignment to the 
Committee on Education and Labor, for which her 
previous expertise and interests made her well-suit-
ed, and used her time on that Committee to intro-
duce the first child care bill, as well as bills to pro-
vide for bilingual education, student loans, special 
education, and the Head Start program. 
(13) Patsy Mink gained passage in 1965 of leg-
islation to support the construction of schools in the 
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. 
(14) Patsy Mink established the Democratic 
Women’s Caucus in 1995 and served as its first 
chair. 
(15) In 1968, Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm 
made history by becoming the first African-Amer-
ican woman elected to the House of Representatives, 
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