Leslie Byrne (D-Va.) and Karan English (D-Ariz.) entered an elevator with some other members. One of them, an older gentleman, eyed the women tentatively.
“It sure is nice to have you ladies here,” the congressman announced to the full elevator. “It spiffs the place up.”
Leslie looked over at Karan, stifling a groan. Then Leslie, who couldn’t resist, replied sotto voce, “Yup, chicks in Congress.”
-From “A Woman’s Place,” by Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (D-Pa.).
They were lionized by the media and given the spotlight at the Democratic National Convention. They doubled the number of women in the Senate and increased their ranks in the House by two-thirds.
But after the champagne high of 1992 had faded, Congress’ largest-ever class of freshman women arrived in Washington to find themselves still not quite equal: relegated to a bathroom distant from the House floor; having no locker room in the Capitol gym; stopped by parking attendants and Capitol police from entering “Members Only” entrances. At committee hearings, chairmen recognized them by their first names, not with the honorific (“my esteemed colleague”) used for male members.
Clearly, changing Congress is going to take more than one Year of the Woman.
Those hoping for another wave of women to increase the pace of change will likely be disappointed this November. There is no Anita Hill outrage to galvanize women voters, no check-writing scandal nor reapportionment to hasten incumbents’ retirements.
Although more women will be on major-party ballots for Congress than ever before, they will have shots at less than half as many open seats as they did in 1992. In addition, Democratic women (three-quarters of the women in Congress are Democrats) may be hurt by President Clinton’s unpopularity.
But while women acknowledge they will struggle to hold their own in Congress, they predict advances at the state level.
“The good news is, 1992 wasn’t just a blip on the screen,” says Lucy Baruch, director of information at Rutgers University’s Center for the American Woman and Politics.
It will be less dramatic than in 1992, Baruch and others say, but women’s progress will continue:
– A record 10 women are running for governor in eight states. Women currently hold the governorships of New Jersey, Texas, Oregon and Kansas.
– Five states – Texas, California, Hawaii, Maine and Rhode Island – will have women as major-party nominees for both the U.S. Senate and governor.
– There are now nearly 50 women’s PACs and fund-raising networks, up from 42 in 1992, according to Baruch. Two-thirds are bipartisan; Democratic groups outnumber Republican ones 2-1. Those groups that state a position on abortion rights say they are in favor of them.
– EMILY’s List, which gave more to congressional candidates than any other organization in 1992, has boosted membership and contributions by 40 percent. The fund, which contributes to Democratic women who support abortion rights, has 34,000 donors, up from 3,000 in 1990.
– The bipartisan Women’s Campaign Fund, which doubled its donor base in 1990-92, has increased it by a third, to 20,000.
The women’s fund-raising organizations have been crucial to the advances of women candidates, providing both seed money and moral support.
Margolies-Mezvinsky last month grossed more than $150,000 at a benefit headlined by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, National Organization for Women President Patricia Ireland, and Amy Conroy, chief of the Women’s Campaign Fund.
The event was partly a celebration of the initiatives that women in Congress had helped enact: Family and Medical Leave, limits on abortion protests at clinics, increased funding for breast-cancer research, new controls on handguns and assault weapons, a 5 percent goal for federal contracts to businesses owned by women.
The women also talked of the work to be done. Seventy-four years after winning the right to vote, they said, women hold only 10 percent of Congress: 47 seats in the House, seven in the Senate.
“There are more members in the footwear caucus, the mushroom caucus, and the boating caucus than there are in the women’s caucus,” Margolies-Mezvinsky said.
Officials of the largest women’s fund-raising groups don’t expect to make much headway in Congress this year.
“The (freshman) women in ’92 in the House won a disproportionate share of the closest races. Women like Marjorie, Lynn Schenk (D-Calif.), Jane Harman (D-Calif.), Elizabeth Furse (D-Ore.) won in essentially Republican districts,” said Ellen Malcolm, president of EMILY’s List. “That’s going to make it more difficult for these women to hold their seats.”
“In the House we expect to consolidate our gains in 1992 and move up slightly,” said Pat Reilly, spokeswoman for the National Women’s Political Caucus.
At least 111 women will be major-party candidates for the House, up from 106 in 1992. But only 16 will have a shot at an open seat, down from 39.
“Winning has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with incumbency,” said Jody Newman, executive director of the National Women’s Political Caucus.
A study released by the caucus last month found that when incumbency was factored out, women candidates have been as successful as men.
The study looked at more than 50,000 candidates for Congress, governor and state legislatures since 1972. It found that incumbents won 16 times as often as challengers for the U.S. House and 10 times as often for state legislatures.
It is at the state and local level, where all but five of the 1992 House newcomers previously held office, that women’s progress is most evident.
Women are mayors of 18 of the nation’s 100 largest cities and hold 20 percent of statewide offices and state legislative seats. Pennsylvania (10 percent) and New Jersey (12 percent) are among the laggards.
“Mississippi (at 11 percent) has now beaten us (in Pennsylvania), which ought to tell us something,” Neuman said.
Neuman acknowledges there is less excitement about women candidates than two years ago. But she and others say that is partly an indication that the movement is maturing: Women candidates are no longer a novelty.
“If people don’t think it’s peculiar,” says Neuman, “they can evaluate (women) candidates based on their stands on the issues – rather than whether they’re home with their children.”
