Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., the first black woman elected to Congress from Alabama, is the president of this year's small Democratic freshmen class. Those nine freshmen, dubbed the "noble nine" by supporters, elected the Harvard-educated lawyer as the leader of a small, but diverse class that includes four women, four African Americans and one openly gay member and one who identifies as Buddhist.

After winning her first House term with 73% of the vote in Alabama's 7th Congressional District, Sewell established herself as a reliably liberal vote. She supported the president's health care bill as well as ...