Blanche Lambert Lincoln
United States Senator, Arkansas

On November 3, 1998, Senator Blanche L. Lincoln made history when she became the youngest woman ever elected to the United States Senate at the age of 38. Lincoln has been tapped as the next Chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee. In the Committee’s 184-year history, she will be the first Arkansan and the first female to serve as Chairman. She follows in the footsteps of the onlyother woman to win a statewide U.S. Senate race in Arkansas and the first woman to chair a U.S. Senate committee, Hattie Caraway of Jonesboro. As a tribute to her predecessor, Lincoln uses the same desk on the Senate floor that Senator Caraway used more than 60 years ago.

Senator Lincoln’s tenure has been marked by an expanding list of accomplishments, a willingness to seek bipartisan solutions, and a fierce loyalty to the people of Arkansas and their values.

As Chairman of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, Senator Lincoln gives Arkansas a strong voice on issues important to rural America. Lincoln played a key role in brokering the compromise that led to passage of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008. Also known as the "farm bill," this legislation provides more resources for nutrition, conservation, rural development, and renewable energy than ever before. The 2008 farm bill also maintains a safety net for our family farmers who produce traditional commodity crops so that they can compete in the global marketplace.

Senator Lincoln also has emerged as a national leader in the fight against hunger. She founded and currently chairs the bipartisan Senate Hunger Caucus to help focus the attention of her colleagues and the nation on the millions of American families, especially children, who suffer from food insecurity.

As one of the Finance Committee’s top-ranking Democrats, Lincoln was named the first woman Democratic Senator to lead a Finance Committee Subcommittee and is Chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy for the 111th Congress.

In addition, Senator Lincoln serves on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and the Senate Special Committee on Aging. From these platforms, Lincoln will continue to be a leader on a wide range of issues, including farm policy, hunger, nutrition, forestry, social security, health care, tax policy, trade, energy policy, aging issues, and veteran’s benefits.

Having established her leadership on issues affecting working families and veterans, particularly those living in rural areas, Senator Lincoln was named by Majority Leader Harry Reid as Chair of Rural Outreach for the Senate Democratic Caucus. In that role, she helps frame the majority party’s initiatives to revitalize rural America, including new investments in biofuels development, farm programs, and education.

With an eye toward finally addressing the nation’s ever-increasing challenges, Senator Lincoln is at the forefront of efforts in Congress to end partisan bickering and get results for the American people. She helped form the Moderate Dems Working Group, a new coalition of 15 moderate Senate Democrats who work with Senate leadership and the new administration to craft common-sense solutions to our nation’s most-pressing priorities. In addition, she co-founded and currently co-chairs "The Third Way," an organization dedicated to crafting practical and creative solutions to old problems.

Senator Lincoln was first elected to public office in 1992 as U.S. Representative for Arkansas’s First Congressional District. Hailing from a seventh-generation Arkansas farm family, Lincoln is a Helena, Arkansas, native where her mother, Martha Kelly Lambert, still resides. Senator Lincoln received a bachelor’s degree from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia, and studied at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Senator Lincoln and her husband, Dr. Steve Lincoln, are the proud parents of twin boys, Reece and Bennett.