Public Eye

When Rep. Linda Sanchez, who represents a good chunk of our Whittier circulation area, gives birth in a few months, she'll be just the eighth woman to have a baby while actually serving in the House.

I'm thinking no senators have had a baby while serving, but the stats I've seen just refer to the generic "Congress."

And I'm thinking that this is absolutely the first time that an unmarried woman will have had a baby while representing a congressional district. Sanchez and her boyfriend of two years, a divorced man who already has older kids, have delayed the marriage thing for a bit. A fact that seems to be causing remarkably little controversy. What a sign of how different such things are than just a decade or two ago. The lack of kerfuffle about it is in great part a tribute to Sanchez herself -- a solid, responsible, fascinating person with, well, a good job who's hardly likely to end up on the welfare rolls.

But she is going to be juggling a newborn soon along with her career, and all of us who've been there know that there's just no substitute for the experience.

Here's a YouTube clip from an ABC News segment on Sanchez and other Capitol Hill moms:

http://www.youtube.com/user/LindaTSanchez

This note just in from Marsha Catron of Sanchez's office. That's quite a gap between Yvonne Burke and the '90s!:

For your research, here's a list of women who have given birth while serving in Congress (Note Gillibrand gave birth while a Rep, before becoming Senator):

1. Yvonne Braithwaite Burke (73)
2. Enid Greene (95)
3. Susan Molinari (96)
4. Blanche Lincoln (96)
5. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (07)
6. Kirsten Gillibrand (08)
7. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (08)
8. Linda Sánchez (expected May 09)