Regardless of the outcome of next week’s elections, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will make history in 2025 when the panel for the first time will have a woman as one of its two leaders.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., is poised to succeed Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md., as either the chair or ranking member of the panel, depending on which party wins the Senate. Cardin is retiring at the end of the 118th Congress.
Shaheen, now in her third term, has specialized in foreign policy, particularly transatlantic issues. She also has a strong working relationship with the current ranking member and possible next chairman, Jim Risch, R-Idaho. The two previously overlapped as leaders of the Senate Small Business Committee for one year in 2017.
