Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., made headlines twice this week. TIME named the 44-year-old senator to its 2026 TIME100. Next is a list of rising figures.
The magazine said she has learned to wield influence in Donald Trump's Republican Party while avoiding its hardest edges and called her an increasingly consequential player in the Senate, partly because she works across the aisle.
On Tuesday, her reaction at a hearing with former Special Counsel Jack Smith went viral. Sen. Eric Schmitt, seated next to her, suggested Smith had attended an Atlanta Hawks game in 2024 as part of a claim he had coordinated with Georgia prosecutors. Smith said he had actually attended a Maryland-Iowa women's college basketball game, and the claim fell apart. Cameras caught Britt's stunned expression. She has not commented publicly. Britt was elected in 2022 as Alabama's first elected woman senator and is expected to become the state's senior senator in January 2027.
Britt Lands on TIME's Rising Stars List for Balancing Party Loyalty With Her Own Agenda
When TIME released its 2026 TIME100 Next list this week, one of the names came from Alabama. Senator Katie Britt, 44, is among the 100 rising figures the magazine picked from politics, business, entertainment, science, and other fields. For someone who has only been in Washington since January 2023, that is a notable place to land.
TIME's profile makes a fairly simple point. Britt has worked out how to carry real weight inside a Republican Party shaped by Donald Trump without taking on its roughest edges. The magazine also calls her an increasingly important player in the Senate, partly because she is willing to work across the aisle.
Her recent record backs that up. She joined Republican Jon Husted and Democrat Mark Warner on a bill that would give parents the right to know if their children are in dangerous or risky interactions on social media. She teamed up with Michigan Democrat Elissa Slotkin on the Ovarian Cancer IMPACT Act, which aims to widen access to genetic testing, hereditary cancer risk assessment, and specialist care. She has also worked with Chris Coons, James Lankford, and Brian Schatz on AI safety and transparency legislation. Those are not the partnerships of a senator who only shows up for party fights.
Her influence started early. TIME notes that Mitch McConnell, then the Senate Republican leader, invited her to join weekly GOP leadership meetings as an adviser soon after she won her seat. First-year senators rarely get that kind of access.
Then there is IVF. In 2024, an Alabama Supreme Court ruling disrupted fertility services in her home state, and Britt advocated for protecting access. She has also spent time on child care policy and on keeping kids safer online. A list like this is a snapshot, not a final verdict, and people will read it differently depending on their politics. Still, it shows that national attention is now on her work and not only on her speeches.
A Stunned Look Goes Viral After Schmitt's Jack Smith Perjury Claim Falls Apart
Not every moment that puts a senator in the headlines is one she planned. On Tuesday, during a hearing with former Special Counsel Jack Smith, Britt ended up in the middle of a clip that spread across social media within hours.
The setup was this. Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt, who was sitting right next to Britt, suggested Smith had attended an Atlanta Hawks game in 2024. Schmitt was pushing a theory that Smith had coordinated with Georgia prosecutors, including Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, in the cases against Donald Trump and his allies. The implication was that Smith had lied under oath about it.
It fell apart almost immediately. Smith explained that the game he attended was a women's college basketball matchup between Maryland and Iowa. "Hawks" in this case referred to the Iowa Hawkeyes, and he was nowhere near Willis in Atlanta.
The hearing room camera cut to Britt at exactly that moment. Her eyes widened, she closed her mouth slowly, and she looked like she was trying to disappear into her chair. People online compared it to a scene from a workplace sitcom. One journalist pointed out that as a former congressional staffer herself, she knew exactly what a staff mistake looks like when it plays out live.
A few things are worth keeping in mind. Britt did not say anything about it, and her office had not responded to a request for comment when the stories came out. Much of the coverage came from outlets and commentators who were already critical of Schmitt, so the jokes tell you more about the online mood than about what she was actually thinking. What is clear is that a single camera shot can overshadow hours of testimony and turn a quiet reaction into the story of the day.
Katie Britt: Alabama Native, Wife of a Former NFL Tackle, and Mother of Two
Before the Senate, before the speeches, Katie Britt was Katie Boyd, a kid from Enterprise, Alabama. She was born on February 2, 1982, to Julian and Debra Boyd, who ran their own small business. As a girl she worked at the family company, which shaped how she talks about work and opportunity today. She often describes herself as the daughter of two small business owners.
She graduated from Enterprise High School in 2000 and went on to the University of Alabama. Local coverage from her hometown also noted that she was named first runner-up in America's Junior Miss as a young woman. She earned a political science degree in 2004 and later came back to the same university for law school, finishing her law degree in 2013.
Her husband is Wesley Britt, a former NFL offensive tackle. The two live in Montgomery with their two children. When she was sworn in, her family watched from the Senate gallery, and she has said that seeing her kids smiling down at her reminded her what the job is for. At the time, her office noted she was the only Republican mother of school-aged children serving in the Senate, a detail she has leaned on when talking about families, child care and online safety.
Britt has also spoken about a close call with a tornado in Tuscaloosa and how it taught her that every day is a gift. It is a small detail, but it says something about how she frames her own story, as someone who has seen how quickly things can change.
She is also a person who spends a lot of time on planes between Alabama and Washington, which is a reality for most senators with young kids at home. Her family life is not separate from her politics. It shows up in the bills she introduces and the way she explains them.
From Shelby's Chief of Staff to Alabama's First Elected Woman Senator: Katie Britt's Rise
Britt's path to the Senate did not start with a campaign. It started in someone else's office. In 2004, right after college, she joined Sen. Richard Shelby's staff as deputy press secretary. She later moved up to press secretary and stayed through 2007. After that, she worked as a special assistant to University of Alabama president Robert Witt and then went to law school.
Once she finished, she practiced law in Birmingham, first at Johnston Barton Proctor & Rose and then at Butler Snow. In 2015, she returned to Shelby's orbit as deputy campaign manager and communications director on his reelection campaign. After the win, she became his chief of staff in 2016 and also led his Judicial Nomination Task Force. Those years gave her an inside view of how the Senate really runs, which is something many first-time candidates do not have.
In 2018, she left to become president and CEO of the Business Council of Alabama, the first woman to lead the group. She held that job until 2021, a period that included the pandemic, when the council ran a "Keep Alabama Open" campaign while other states shut down.
On June 8, 2021, she announced she was running for Shelby's seat after his retirement. The Republican primary was tough. Trump first endorsed Rep. Mo Brooks, then withdrew that endorsement as Brooks fell in the polls, and backed Britt instead. She finished first in the initial vote and then beat Brooks in the runoff. In the general election she defeated Democrat Will Boyd by a wide margin, winning more than two thirds of the vote.
That made her the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama. Two women had served before her, but both were appointed. She took the oath on January 3, 2023, escorted by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, and nearly 500 Alabamians traveled to Washington to be there.
In the Senate she serves on Appropriations, Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Judiciary, and Rules and Administration. Her first big national spotlight came in March 2024, when she gave the Republican response to the State of the Union from her kitchen. The speech got mixed reviews, and the New York Times called her account of a trafficking story highly misleading. Britt defended it as a way to highlight the wider problem of trafficking. Months later she spoke at the Republican National Convention.
Looking ahead, she is expected to become Alabama's senior senator when Tuberville leaves office in January 2027. For someone who started as a deputy press secretary, that is quite a climb.