Part One: Lisa Blunt Rochester; New Female Senators Seated

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

Decades before she raised her right hand and made history at the recent Jan. 3 swearing-in ceremony for U.S. Senators on Capitol Hill, Lisa Blunt Rochester  spent her life on the sidelines, watching her father participate in proceedings at Wilmington City Council meetings in Delaware.

Blunt Rochester was one of two Black women who were sworn into office as a U.S. Senator, on Jan. 3. The second is Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland.

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Blunt Rochester watched her dad, Ted Blunt, an educator, negotiate at city council meetings in Wilmington, where he served for nearly 25 years. He went on to become president of the local city council.

He also was connected to President Joe Biden for decades.

One of her two sisters worked in Biden’s Senate office. Biden campaigned with her father. Biden not only tapped the up and coming trailblazing senator to co chair his campaign in 2020 and 2024, Blunt Rochester served on the committee that chose Kamala Harris to be his vice president.

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“In this moment people feel excited, emboldened, scared, anxious, not sure what is on the horizon,” she said at her recent oath-of-office ceremony on  Capitol Hill. “But I want you to know that no matter what, we will rise,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Blunt Rochester said she was “elated” to be representing the state as its newest senator.

“I am truly proud, humble, honored, ready, that’s the word – ready,” she said.

Blunt Rochester, 62, was elected in November 2024 after serving four terms as Delaware’s sole representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. She first ran for office in 2016 and served as the state’s first female and first Black member of Congress. She also served as a former deputy secretary of the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, and was appointed Delaware’s first female and first Black labor secretary in 1998. Later, she managed Delaware’s workforce as state personnel director.

Dressed in white at her recent oath-of-office ceremony, to draw attention to the nation’s suffragettes, Blunt Rochester wore white like trailblazing Black Maryland senator Angela Alsobrooks and Congressperson Andy Kim of New Jersey, the first Korean American to join the U.S. Senate.

At the Democratic National Convention that began on Aug. 22, 2024, women also wore white suits, white dresses and at least one pair of white lace socks inside of the Chicago arena, to honor the legacy of suffragists who fought to give women the right to vote – and to celebrate the first Black and Indian American woman to become a major party’s nominee.

“Wearing white today reminds everybody that this is women on the move, women who have suffered, who are now taking their rightful place in leadership of Democratic Party politics in a profound way,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who wore a white pantsuit over a colorful blouse to the 2024 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

In Washington, D.C., several prominent political leaders attended Blunt Rochester’s recent oath-of-office ceremony including Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.). The Senate minority leader lauded Blunt Rochester as “one of the most effective” members of Congress and also “one of the most beloved.” He called her a “bright light,” after a difficult election.

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“Being in the minority in the Senate where the minority has real power, sometimes it’s real fun and we’re going to have fun,” he told her. “We’re going to have fun in making sure we block the bad things they are trying to do.”

Meanwhile, Maryland’s first Black governor, Moore, said Blunt Rochester’s election sends a statement “to the ancestors … to our children.”

“She’s someone who isn’t just gonna make history by her swearing in but by the work she does on Capitol Hill,” Moore said.

She has repeatedly introduced the Clean Slate Act to seal the records of people with low-level drug offenses, part of her jobs agenda. And she touts working on a gun violence prevention bill as a cosponsor that passed the House in 2022.

She said in her campaign that she would fight efforts to privatize Medicare and Medicaid.

Recent photos show Blunt Rochester standing beside Sarah McBride, who officially became the first transgender person to serve in Congress, and was recently sworn into Blunt Rochester’s former Congressional seat in the House, despite GOP efforts to block transgenders from using public restrooms in the building.

Blunt Rochester, who was born in Philadelphia and raised in Wilmington, said on Capitol Hill as snow started to fall outside on Jan. 3 during her swearing-in ceremony that she felt nothing but gratitude for her supporters.

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Blunt Rochester’s husband, Charles Rochester, died unexpectedly from blood clots in 2014, according to news reports. She is the mother of two children, Alyssa Bradley and Alex T. Bradley, who are both in their 30s, as well a daughter-in-law, Ebony. Both of her children live in Wilmington.  Her closest group of friends is made up of 14 Black women from five families who call themselves the LYLAS (Love You Like a Sister).