New series highlights Girl Scouts in Congress

Sen. Elizabeth Warren — Chairwoman of Thin Mints? The Massachusetts Democrat says one of her favorite memories from her time as a Girl Scout was chairing the organization’s annual cookie-selling fundraiser.

{mosads}“I was a leader and also some years I was cookie chair, so I loved Girl Scout-ing for a very long time,” the potential 2016 presidential candidate said in an interview posted this week on the Girl Scouts of the USA website. “I’m a big believer in the cookie sales because I watched lots of girls take responsibility, and they’d sell the cookies, they kept count of how many boxes they owed people and how much money people owed them, and then they would come and count it out to me.”

The Warren sit-down, and ones with 21 other female lawmakers, are part of the group’s new video series, “Portraits in Leadership.”

The bipartisan series, in which Girl Scouts interview their local representatives, is about “bringing tomorrow’s female leaders together with those of today, passing on lessons about what it takes to succeed as women leaders in Congress and in life,” Girl Scouts of the USA CEO Anna Maria Chávez told ITK in a statement.

Seventy percent of the women in the Senate, and more than half of the women serving in the House, are Girl Scout alumnae, according to the youth leadership organization.

“It’s not only the Boy Scouts who have all the fun,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who was a Brownie Scout and a Girl Scout, says in her video interview. “I always said that if I followed the Girl Scout Law today, I would be a fantastic senator,” Mikulski tells Girl Scout Likhitha Butchireddygari.

The Girl Scout Law says Scouts will do their best to be “honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring,” among other qualities.

“If the entire Senate, guys and gals, followed the Girl Scout Law, we would be, I think, a better country and less deadlocked,” Mikulski says.