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Tammy Baldwin (D) of Wisconsin

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a progressive Democrat, made history on election night, becoming the first openly gay person and first Wisconsin woman elected to the Senate.

Her agenda includes securing funding for education, retirement security for seniors, resources for veterans, and support for small businesses, issues she carries over from her 14-year tenure in the House.

Elected in 1998, Baldwin’s voting record has consistently been ranked as one of the most liberal, according to the National Journal. She opposed the war in Iraq, cosponsored a bill to impeach then-Vice President Dick Cheney, and heavily criticized Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget blueprint. Another top issue for Baldwin is access to healthcare: She championed a section in Obama’s health-care reform law that allowed young people to stay on their parent’s insurance until age 26.

Ted Cruz (R) of Texas

Will tea party-backed Sen. Ted Cruz be a no-compromise conservative? As Americans push for more bipartisan cooperation in Washington, Senator Cruz’s brand of conservatism could make him a polarizing figure.

To Cruz, the election presented voters with opposite visions for America’s future.

“Two visions: We can continue down the road of the Obama Democrats, towards more and more spending, debt and government control of the economy and our lives,” he said in his speech at the Republican National Convention. “Or we can return to the founding principles of our nation – free markets, fiscal responsibility, and individual liberty.”

Joe Donnelly (D) of Indiana

Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana vowed to bring “Hoosier common sense” to the Senate during his campaign, a promise the moderate Democrat is likely to keep during the 113th Congress.

“I want to be a senator for everyone, and that’s what our tradition has been,” he told the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette after his win.

His willingness to work across the aisle will be a refreshing quality for a Senate that has been marred by partisan gridlock.

Deb Fischer (R) of Nebraska

A former cattle rancher and state legislator, Sen. Deb Fischer is the only new Republican woman elected to the Senate this year.

A conservative with borderline tea party leanings, Senator Fischer believes in a limited federal government, gun rights, and absolutely no tax increases.

The answer to the nation’s fiscal problems is spending cuts, she said. As a state senator, Fischer said she based her decisions on priorities that she believed were the state’s responsibility.

Jeff Flake (R) of Arizona

Jeff Flake enters the Senate as one of the leading Republican voices on the issue of fiscal responsibility.

“With the exception of Rep. Paul Ryan, perhaps no candidate for federal office in this election cycle is more committed to forcing sanity back into the nation's finances,” wrote the Arizona Republic in endorsing Mr. Flake.

During his six terms in the House, Flake took a hard stand against earmarks, leading reform on the practice and also ruffling the GOP leadership. He also went against the party line by voting against President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 and the 2003 legislation that would have expanded benefits for prescription drugs under Medicare. He also joined Democrats supporting an end to the trade embargo with Cuba and prohibiting workplace discrimination against gays, according to the National Journal.

In the Senate, he plans to pursue his “limited government, economic freedom, and individual responsibility” mantra – principles he advocated as executive director of the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank.

Flake also expects to play a role in bipartisan immigration reform this year, he told The Hill, joining fellow Republicans Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida.

Martin Heinrich (D) of New Mexico

Martin Heinrich’s election to the Senate gives the Democrat a new platform to pursue his top issues: energy independence and environmental conservation.

With an engineering background, Senator Heinrich favors innovation as the solution to the country’s energy problems. Heinrich told The Hill that he sees New Mexico’s federal research laboratories as potential innovation hubs, going beyond their current role in promoting nuclear deterrence.

Heidi Heitkamp (D) of North Dakota

The independent-leaning Democrat defines herself as a moderate intent on breaking partisan gridlock in Congress. Ms. Heitkamp distanced herself from the Obama administration, criticizing the president for not supporting coal and oil – two of North Dakota’s main industries. Before running for Senate, Heitkamp was director of a Dakota Gasification plant, which takes carbon dioxide from coal processing and sends it to Canada for use in oil extraction – a process used in clean coal technology.

“Is there such a thing as clean coal?” Chris Matthews asked her in an interview.

“You betcha,” she replied.

Mazie Hirono (D) of Hawaii

Sen. Mazie Hirono is already racking up a list of firsts: She is the first Asian-American woman, Japanese immigrant, and Buddhist elected to the Senate.

“In the US Senate, I'm determined to continue reordering America's energy priorities – moving us from an economy where fossil fuel exploration makes only a few people wealthy, to an economy based on renewable energy innovation that creates jobs for thousands of people here in Hawaii and protects our air and water for generations to come,” she wrote in Honolulu’s Civil Beat.

Tim Kaine (D) of Virginia

During the campaign, former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine took the unusual approach of meeting with people who did not support him in an attempt to cultivate bipartisan cooperation before he was even elected. It’s an approach he will use in Washington to find common ground on divisive issues.

Kaine said his first order of business is to work with his Senate colleagues to find long-term solutions to the debt and deficit issues, reported the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Angus King (I) of Maine

Will Angus King be the king of bipartisanship in the Senate? During his campaign, the popular former governor of Maine repeatedly promised he would help break partisan gridlock in Congress. He is the first independent elected to the Senate from Maine. After meeting with Senate leaders, he announced on Nov. 14 his choice to caucus with the Democrats. They said he could maintain his independence on issues and votes and still be included in the committee process.

“By associating myself with one side, I am not in automatic opposition to the other,” he said in a statement about his decision. “In the situation of a Republican House, a Democratic Senate but with substantial powers in the minority, and a Democratic president, no one party can control the outcome of our collective deliberations."

Chris Murphy (D) of Connecticut

Chris Murphy may be the youngest senator, but he enters with six years of congressional experience already under his belt.

Elected to the House in 2006, then-Congressman Murphy spent three terms focusing on health-care reform and domestic manufacturing. He supported President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, fought for the end of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gays serving openly in the military, and advocated for the end of the Defense of Marriage Act. To promote US manufacturing, Murphy founded the Buy American Caucus, a bipartisan group that advocates for creating incentives for companies that keep jobs in the United States.

Brian Schatz (D) of Hawaii

Vice President Joe Biden swore him into the 112th Congress on Dec. 27, filling the seat of the late Sen. Daniel Inouye. Senator Schatz cast several important votes in his first week on the job: He supported the fiscal cliff deal and voted for a disaster aid package, which would have provided $60.4 billion for damage caused by hurricane Sandy.

Now as Hawaii’s senior senator, by one week, Schatz will turn his attention to securing federal funding for the Aloha state and fighting global warming.

Tim Scott (R) of South Carolina

Tim Scott is the first black senator in South Carolina’s history and also the first black Republican senator from any Southern state since the 1880s.

But Senator Scott’s hard-right political record may prevent him from garnering widespread approval. Scott will continue to champion his predecessor’s (Jim DeMint) tea party principles.

“I can walk away from the Senate knowing that someone is in this seat that is better than I am that will carry the voice of opportunity conservatism to the whole country in a way that I couldn’t do,” Mr. DeMint said at a press conference.

Elizabeth Warren (D) of Massachusetts

During the campaign, Warren continually criticized her opponent, Sen. Scott Brown, for caring more about “tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires” than working, middle-class families in Massachusetts. Although Senator Brown shared Kennedy’s bipartisanship strategy, his conservative values did not suit Massachusetts’ traditional liberalism, wrote the Boston Globe in its endorsement for Warren.

“She’s a relentless striver whose life story represents the best of American upward mobility,” the editorial said. “As a young mother, she worked her way through community colleges and state universities to become the nation’s top expert on financial consumer protection.”Lots more details at http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2013/0104/Senate-freshmen-What-t
he-14-new-members-bring-to-Capitol-Hill/Tammy-Baldwin-D-of-Wisconsin?nav=87-frontpage-entryInsideMonitor

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