Women and Politics

In the past two decades, I’ve often found myself asking, “Where are all the pro-choice Republican women?”

But today, despite her second place finish in the GOP primary for Congress in KS-04, I’m inspired by Jean Kurtis Schodorf’s dedication to public service and record of defending women’s reproductive health choices. And as always, I want to thank Schodorf for running for higher office, and encourage her to run again - because we only lose when women don’t run.

In her near decade of service as a State Senator and 12 years as a school board member, Schodorf has proven her commitment to both traditional Republican values and women’s rights.

While pushing for fiscal responsibility and responsible governance, she simultaneously defended women in the Kansas Legislature by opposing legislation to limit women’s access to comprehensive sexual healthcare. This past July, Schodorf received the Planned Parenthood Republicans for Choice Barry Goldwater Award for her efforts in supporting and protecting women’s health.

Unfortunately, Schodorf has become a rarity in today’s political climate. Since the GOP’s platform turned extremely anti-choice in 1992, the number of Republican women candidates who support the entire spectrum of reproductive health choices (publicly) has dwindled drastically.

Before this, organizations like WCF were able to endorse Republicans and Democrats alike–and neither was more difficult to come by.

But as we know by today’s divisive environment, defense of choice has become an almost absolutely unacceptable quality in a Republican candidate–as we saw last year with Dede Scozzafava in NY-23.

Schodorf should serve as a role model for all women public servants–but especially for those Republicans courageous enough to challenge the party’s anti-choice tenets and stand up for women’s rights.

Schodorf is also an inspiration for mothers serving in public office. A mother of three, Schodorf served on the Wichita School Board for 12 years and is now serving her third term in the Kansas State Senate–supporting women’s reproductive health choices all the while. Now that’s my kind of Mama Grizzly.

Women’s health should not be a divisive issue in party politics. We need more candidates like Schodorf who are willing to make a difference by fighting for what is right, no matter what adversity they may face because of it. I commend Schodorf on being such a strong, persistent, and inspiring leader, and look forward to supporting her throughout the entirety of her public life.

I’ll also continue to encourage more women–from both parties–to follow her example.

Crossposted from the Huffington Post.

Yesterday’s primaries brought huge victories for women across the country—many who succeeded against great odds, such as Sen. Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas and victim of egregious misogyny and racism, Nikki Haley, in South Carolina.

But the biggest headline we’re still seeing is how many of yesterday’s victorious women belong to the Republican party. Winning the GOP nomination last night were Carly Fiorina for U.S. Senate in California, Meg Whitman for California Governor, and anti-establishment candidate Sharron Angle for U.S. Senate in Nevada.

Though some of these women don’t share WCF’s views on reproductive health choices, I am encouraged. This sudden deluge of victories has forced the country to stand up and take notice of women’s political power.

That said, I want to ask these candidates one question: If elected, what will you do to advance women’s rights?

Many of you prevailed in spite of the Political Establishment. Now, it is my great hope that you will use your hard-earned collective power to help us break up the Good Ol’ Boys’ Club and change the many existing harmful views against women.

It is my firm belief that we need more women in government—but it’s essential that they use their leadership to protect and empower all women in America.

That means working to turn the tide of the Establishment, which continually looks to restrict women’s freedoms across the board.

We all know how difficult it is for Republican women to defend reproductive health choices. The party’s vicious attacks against Dede Scozzafava last year were a prime example of this.

In fact, RNC member Bill Crocker said in January,

“No more Scozzafavas, please. No more Specters, please. No more Chafees, please.”

Well at WCF, we want many more Scozzafavas, please. At WCF, we constantly look for Republican candidates who do support health choices, work to provide a safe haven for those women, and find new ways to recruit pro-choice Republican women.

Moderate Republican Woman shouldn’t be a bad word. We want both parties to acknowledge that most Americans believe health choices should be left up to the individual, not the government or a politician.

So as the country lies in wait to see how many new GOP women will be elected this November, I challenge  these women to take a stand for their gender—not work against it.

Cross-posted from my account at The Huffington Post

Will 2010 go down in history as the “Anti-Year of the Woman?”

Given the track record for women candidates already this year, I would say it’s a distinct possibility. So far, we’ve seen Dede Scozzafava, Martha Coakley, Jennifer Brunner, Connie Saltonstall, Colleen Hanabusa, Elaine Marshall, and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter stunted, dismissed, and undermined by their own political parties.

These women come from both sides of the aisle, which is one of the many important points made by National Journal reporter Erin McPike in her recent piece about the struggle of female candidates.

The obstacles to women’s political success are many: lack of party support, lack of recruitment, ingrained sexism, and male-dominated leadership of both parties.

Yes, the odds stacked against women candidates seem insurmountable. However, I am proud to say that the Women’s Campaign Forum (WCF) has been addressing each of these problems since 1974–and we’re not about to give up now.

WCF is the oldest national non-partisan organization dedicated to increasing women’s political participation, at all levels of office. We support women from the very earliest stages of their political careers.

Here’s how we tackle four of the biggest problems facing women candidates:

Lack of Party Support

We know the old boys’ club is alive and well on both sides of the aisle. As each woman this year has been squeezed out or rejected by their own party, WCF has been right there by their side. We watched, many times in shock, at how the political system blatantly damaged talented female candidates.

But this is exactly why WCF exists. We aren’t about politics as usual. We don’t wait for the masses and establishment to throw their collective weight behind a woman to support her–we’re there from the very beginning.

We invest in the woman–not just the particular race she happens to be in at that time. We focus on the political careers of our candidates, seeing their individual gifts and talents.

Not bound by party politics, WCF has been able to uniquely support women in this intimate way for 36 years.

But electing women from both parties is the only way we will ever reach gender equality in our government. A non-partisan approach is essential. We will continue to look for ways to invest in women Republican candidates who support reproductive health choices to ensure that the road to women’s equal representation is paved.

Women’s Lack of Recruitment

Thanks to the brilliant research of Jennifer Lawless, we know that women are:

• 50% less likely than men to seriously consider running for office.
• 30% less likely to actually run.
• One-third less likely to view themselves as qualified to run for office.
• One-third less likely to be asked to run for office.

WCF’s She Should Run program addresses these facts head-on. We know that if women aren’t even thinking about running for office that they need to be asked–a lot. She Should Run’s easy online platform helps us encourage women across the country to consider running for office, no matter what political party they may choose.

Through She Should Run, women are asked to consider running by someone they know and trust–which often greatly impacts a woman’s decision to become a candidate.

Ingrained Sexism

Sexism remains one of the largest factors hurting women candidates. WCF has repeatedly spoken out against misogynistic remarks made about women public figures from both parties. We work with our candidates to ensure they are prepared to handle the toxic political atmosphere that has been created for women.

When the sexism was flung most recently at Sen. Olympia Snowe, Sen. Susan Collins, Martha Coakley, Rep. Betty Sutton, Sen. Mary Landrieu, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Sen. Barbara Boxer, Secretary Jennifer Brunner, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, WCF and I were there speaking out and saying, “not on our watch.”

Male-Dominated Party Leadership

The list of Republican and Democratic Party leaders provided by McPike speaks for itself: Women have almost no power in their own political party. Clearly women can’t rely on anyone else but ourselves to increase our numbers in public office.

This is why WCF stresses the importance of women’s mentorship at all levels of office as well as positions of support. As was recently reported by Erika Lovley in POLITICO, women are still largely underrepresented in the offices of Congressional members. We look to help foster women helping each other during our Hill’s Got Talent and Hail to the Chiefs special programs.

We know that if we want to see real change, we must see more women at the top.

I hope that many will stand with us to work for women’s leadership at all levels of office, across the country, and from all political parties.

If we truly want to advance women’s rights, we need women who support reproductive health choices for all. If we truly want to reach gender equality in our government, we must support women on both sides of the aisle.

Strange winds are blowing from Washington to Ohio to Hawaii.

In the Buckeye State, polls continue to show that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is hot on the heels of Lt. Governor Lee Fisher in the Democratic Primary Election for U.S. Senate set for May 4th.  This is a true testament to Brunner’s grassroots support in Ohio, considering the fact that her fundraising has been put in a choke-hold by the boys at the top.

Brunner is a popular statewide elected official who is well-respected as a reformer in the daunting realm of electoral oversight, yet somehow she has only encountered resistance and neglect from the party elite.

Meanwhile in Hawaii, State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa (D) will face former Congressman Ed Case (D) and Councilman Charles Djou (R) in a winner-take-all special election for U.S. Congress on May 22nd. With two viable Democrats running in a tight race, the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is worried that this heavily-Democratic district might slip away from them.

Although the DCCC generally stays out of primary races, Chairman Chris Van Hollen has indicated that they will not rule out an endorsement, and several sources have indicated that his organization is leaning toward Case.

This is perplexing to say the least. Hanabusa already has the endorsements of both Hawaii Senators and most major Hawaii labor groups, and has handily out-raised Case throughout the race. Hanabusa has served in the Hawaii State Senate for twelve years—she was the first woman to head either legislative house in Hawaii and is the first Asian-American women to lead a state legislative body.

In short, she is a viable and eminently qualified candidate with considerable local support. The only advantage Case seems to have is that he entered Congress in 2003 as part of the same cohort as some DCCC leadership—though we trust that such relationships would not effect the Committee’s decisions.

Both Brunner and Hanabusa are qualified, well-liked candidates who hold statewide leadership positions. The voters have already signaled their support in the polls – so why are the boys at the top holding back? Why do national committees continue to tilt the playing field in favor of male candidates, without clear justification?

And this certainly isn’t just a Democratic issue: Let us not forget how the National Republican Congressional Committee abandoned Dede Scozzafava in NY-23 last October, which cost them the race.

This trend of blocking and abandoning female candidates is greatly disturbing, to say the least. We must stand up and tell the old boys’ club: Let voters decide. The games stop now.

This post was submitted by Jean Qiao, WCF Communications Fellow

America is hungry for moderate republican women.

In her recent appearance on Fox’s America’s News HQ, WCF President/CEO Sam Bennett argued that in order for the GOP to succeed in gaining more votes the 2010 election cycle, they must recruit more women.

When talking about the special election for Massachusetts Senate, Bennett said:

“Brown took that seat again in no small part because he was in the middle of the ground and he supports, as a majority of the Americans want to see supported, an American’s right to choose their own reproductive choices and options”

Believe it or not, only 21 Republican women serve in the 111th U.S. Congress; four in the Senate and 17 in the House of Representatives. With Republican women representing only 4% of Congress, you would think that the GOP would take the hint and rally its support behind their moderate women candidates.

Apparently numbers is not enough of a wake-up-call. Let’s not forget the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional district last year. The Republican Party decided to back Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman, drastically yanking their support at the last minute for previously RNC-endorsed candidate Dede Scozzafava,  leading to the suspension of her campaign.

If the majority of the American people support women’s reproductive freedoms, isn’t it about time the GOP jump on that bandwagon as well?

Click here to see the full Fox America’s News HQ video on WCF’s YouTube channel.

WCF-endorsed former candidate for NY-23

Remember Dede? She was edged out of the race for Congress in NY-23 because she dared to be a female moderate Republican. After suspending her race, she endorsed the Democratic candidate Bill Owens, who ended up winning over the GOP-backed Conservative candidate.

In a recent interview with CNN, Dede recounted how atrocious the attacks against her truly were:

“The attacks were pretty vicious, especially since it was coming from people who identify themselves as Republicans.”

Robo calls from her Conservative opponent used terms like “homo-lover” and “child-killer” to describe her.

About the outside Republicans who swooped in to oppose her, such as Sarah Palin, Dede said:

“They had no understanding of who I was and no understanding of the issues that drove the district. So for people to come out and be endorsing a candidate in a race in a place that they knew nothing about, I thought it was pretty disingenuous.”

To top it all off, Dede has now been strong-armed out of her state Assembly seat. POLITICO says that Assembly Minority Leader Brain Kolb had been receiving complaints about Dede from his members, and decided to “have a frank discussion” with her. Aka, ask her to resign.

But even after all of this—after her party turned against her, viciously attacked her, and now dumped her—Dede says she plans to remain a Republican. She hopes the party can be unified moving forward so that they can agree on core principals.

Dede says she has no regrets about her decisions, even her support of the Democratic candidate:

“I do not regret, at all, the endorsement,” she said. “And I do not regret running.”

Dede, we don’t regret you running, either. Not even a little bit. Thank you for being brave enough to stand up and say, “I’m a female Republican who supports reproductive choices and gay rights, and that’s OK.”

Thank you for helping to put another crack in the political glass ceiling. Your story will help inspire future women candidates who dare to break the mold.

I am saddened to learn that Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava has suspended her campaign for the NY-23 special election. Her decision comes after weeks of Republicans putting their support behind Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.

Dede represented a beacon of hope—hope that we could move beyond partisan politics. Hope that the Republican party would support more women.

But thanks in no small part to a vocal minority, NY-23 has lost the most experienced candidate in the race. They have lost the candidate who was born and raised in their district and would have most accurately represented their values.

Senior White House Advisor Valerie Jarrett remarked on ABC’s “This Week”:

“It’s rather telling when the Republican Party forces out a moderate Republican.”

Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod agreed, saying:

“It sends a clear message to moderates within that party that there’s no room at the inn for them.”

WCF will continue to fight for women like Dede—because there should be room at the inn for moderate women Republican candidates.

Despite the disappointment over losing such a qualified woman leader, we have to remember this: Every time a woman runs, we all win, regardless of the outcome. Research shows that far fewer women than men consider running for office, and of those, significantly fewer actually run.

So every woman who runs for office serves as a role model and takes us one step closer to overcoming this ambition gap. Thank you, Dede, for being such a strong leader and for bravely stepping up to run for Congress.