A record-breaking number of women were sworn into the House and Senate on Thursday.
Thursday’s House speaker vote and opening of the 116th Congress set up a striking visual moment in the lower chamber: On Democrats’ side of the aisle, a historically diverse class of women and people of color were clad in bright outfits as they were sworn in, while on the Republican side, a relatively homogeneous group of mostly white men wore nearly identical dark suits as they took their oaths.
