Rep. Linda Sanchez: Pregnant Now, Marriage Later



**An updated version of this story appears in the print edition of Fri., Nov. 21 and online here.**



Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) is pregnant with her first child, the Los Angeles Times reports this morning. Which is hardly unusual -- several other congresswomen have given birth in office -- except for the fact that Sanchez isn't married . . . yet.

The dad is Sanchez's serious beau of more than a year, Connecticut consultant Jim Sullivan, and she tells LAT op-ed columnist Patt Morrison that they're "unofficially engaged." But since she's 39, they didn't want to wait any longer to start making a family.

So, no wedding date set yet. Their baby is due May 21, the Times reports.

"I don't know how it'll be received," Sanchez told Morrison. "I hope people will recognize that to be able to plan that in your life -- I don't think that marriage and childbirth are black and white. There are certain instances in which you have to do things in reverse order."

Sanchez -- who with older sib Rep. Loretta Sanchez is half of Congress's first sister act -- easily won reelection in her SoCal district this month; it's a pretty safe seat. Still, her decision is a powerful sign of the times, Morrison writes:

Twenty years ago, it simply wouldn't have been possible -- pregnant, single and a member of Congress? Oh, the scandal! But Hester Prynne has morphed into Juno MacGuff . . . and "unwed mother" has been recast as "single mom." Who do we have to thank for that? Thousands, from Madonna to Dan Quayle. In 1992, Quayle waged moral warfare on the sitcom character "Murphy Brown" -- famous, rich, single and pregnant. . . . And, of course, Bristol Palin.

Read more about Sanchez in The Reliable Source on Friday..



