[Sacajaweau]

Pretty sneaky way to get women into Congress.

[x]

Many of those widows didn't run for re-election in their own right. Some didn't even serve until a November special election to fill the rest of the term. Others went on to long congressional careers.

If you've got a whole slew of politicians just aching to get into Congress, you can understand why governors or voters might just give the job to the widow and spare the state or district the whole electoral circus.