Wanted: Women willing to run for office

At a time when women’s repro­duc­tive rights are under attack in state leg­is­la­tures across the coun­try, there might soon be no female Demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nors to push back. The only two such gov­er­nors left in office — Washington’s Chris Gre­goire and North Carolina’s Bev Pur­due — are leav­ing office in 2013, and only one state, New Hamp­shire, has nom­i­nat­ed a Demo­c­ra­t­ic woman for gov­er­nor this year. In oth­er words, women are los­ing ground.

 “We might as well turn the clock back 50 years, because that’s the last time we were with­out a sit­ting woman gov­er­nor who sup­port­ed repro­duc­tive choic­es and options, and that’s what we’re look­ing at again,” said Sam Ben­nett, pres­i­dent and CEO of the Wom­en’s Cam­paign Fund.

In 2006, Gov­er­nor Gre­goire stood up for Wash­ing­ton women when the State Board of Phar­ma­cy pro­posed a rule allow­ing phar­ma­cists to refuse to dis­pense med­ica­tion, includ­ing the emer­gency con­tra­cep­tive Plan B, because of moral objec­tions. Gov­er­nor Gre­goire pushed for and nego­ti­at­ed a com­pro­mise with the board that pro­tect­ed wom­en’s access to Plan B, and she con­tin­ues to defend that com­pro­mise as it is lit­i­gat­ed in fed­er­al court.

Con­tra­cep­tion, until recent­ly an accept­ed part of our cul­ture and a pri­ma­ry fac­tor in 20^th cen­tu­ry women’s empow­er­ment and acqui­si­tion of free­doms, is the lat­est thing that “free­dom-lov­ing” con­ser­v­a­tives love to hate. Since August 1st, the Patient Pro­tect Act has guar­an­teed women no-cost con­tra­cep­tion, but efforts to ease reli­gious objec­tions to this pro­vi­sion weren’t enough for many state legislatures:

Nine states have con­sid­ered leg­is­la­tion or bal­lot mea­sures that would either reject the fed­er­al reg­u­la­tion or under­mine con­tra­cep­tive cov­er­age in state law.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leg­isla­tive Cam­paign Com­mit­tee (DLCC) has a roundup of oth­er appalling Repub­li­can attacks on wom­en’s rights this year:

Repub­li­can leg­is­la­tures across the Unit­ed States have repealed equal pay guar­an­tees, made it legal to fire women for using con­tra­cep­tion, forced women to under­go unnec­es­sary and inva­sive ultra-sounds before hav­ing an abor­tion, silenced two female Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­is­la­tors in Michi­gan after using med­ical­ly cor­rect terms to speak out against anti-choice leg­is­la­tion, and called a sex­u­al assault vic­tim “defec­tive.”

While Demo­c­ra­t­ic men have long sup­port­ed wom­en’s rights, women pro­vide a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive from men and bring dif­fer­ent styles and skills to the polit­i­cal table. In fact, last week NPR report­ed that the stocks of com­pa­nies with women on their boards out­per­form those with all-male boards — fur­ther proof that a bal­anced approach is better.

While the major­i­ty of women cur­rent­ly serv­ing in state leg­is­la­tures are Demo­c­ra­t­ic, the total num­ber of female leg­is­la­tors has been stag­nant at around 23% for over a decade. Thank­ful­ly, researchers are inves­ti­gat­ing what we can do as a soci­ety to encour­age women to run for office and increase this num­ber. Inter­est­ing­ly, on aver­age, when women run, they tend to win their races as often as men do. What is real­ly need­ed is for more women to be recruit­ed to run for office, and these can­di­dates need female elect­ed offi­cials to men­tor them. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty could facil­i­tate this process, as it often has a pow­er­ful role in can­di­date recruit­ment and funding.

To have a tru­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­ra­cy and a bal­anced per­spec­tive from our polit­i­cal lead­er­ship, women need to step up, and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty and women office­hold­ers must sup­port and encour­age them to run for office. Kudos to the ladies tak­ing a chance and run­ning for office this elec­tion sea­son. Your coun­try and your sis­ters need you.