Public Service

For over a century, the Pacific Northwest has been a leader in electing women to Congress

Down a cor­ri­dor in the U.S. Capi­tol, near the office of House Major­i­ty Whip, stands the stat­ue of a deter­mined-look­ing woman bear­ing a sheaf of papers.

She was a pio­neer in the cor­ri­dors of pow­er and advo­cate of peace.

Jean­nette Pick­er­ing Rankin (1880–1973), a mem­ber of the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who was elect­ed in 1916 as the first woman to serve in the U.S. Con­gress. Glass neg­a­tive 5 x 7 in. or smaller.

Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jeanette Rankin of Mon­tana was the first woman elect­ed to fed­er­al office and the only mem­ber of Con­gress to vote against U.S. entry into both World Wars I and II.

She would live long enough to come to Seat­tle for a Viet­nam War protest.

She was, nat­u­ral­ly, a North­west­ern­er. Our cor­ner of Amer­i­ca has put more women in high office, and ear­li­er, than any­place else in the country.

Speak­ing of the cor­ri­dors of pow­er, Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray-D-Wash­ing­ton, for­mer preschool teacher from Shore­line, is the new­ly mint­ed chair of the Sen­ate Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee and Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore of the U.S. Senate.

Map­ping the his­to­ry and rise of women in our region’s pol­i­tics is a fas­ci­nat­ing enter­prise, full of very dif­fer­ent back­grounds, beliefs, char­ac­ters and contributions.

As this is writ­ten, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal of Seat­tle, is a pan­elist on a CNN Sun­day talk show, in her role as chair of the one hun­dred mem­ber Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gres­sive Caucus.

A col­league, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Suzan Del­Bene, has just fin­ished a term chair­ing the cen­ter-left New Democ­rats, and has been giv­en the cov­et­ed post as head of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gres­sion­al Cam­paign Committee.

The far right has been rep­re­sent­ed by such folk as the late Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Helen Chenoweth, R‑Idaho, who sug­gest­ed we pay for nation­al parks by allow­ing hunt­ing, and could not under­stand why fish runs were con­sid­ered endan­gered when she could by canned salmon in any supermarket.

Two-term Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Lin­da Smith, R‑Washington, came out of Phyl­lis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, and lost to Mur­ray in the state’s first Sen­ate con­test to fea­ture a square-off between two women, in the 1998 midterms.

As long ago as 1962, the region was rep­re­sent­ed in the House four women of very dif­fer­ent temperament.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Edith Green, D‑Oregon, a prick­ly for­mer school­teacher, cham­pi­oned fed­er­al aid to edu­ca­tion and head­ed state pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns of John and Robert Kennedy.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gra­cie Pfost, D‑Idaho, was nick­named “Hell’s Belle” for cham­pi­oning a (nev­er built) high dam in Hells Canyon on the Snake River.

Two “gen­tle ladies” from Wash­ing­ton, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Julia But­ler Hansen and Repub­li­can Cather­ine May, joined across par­ty lines as ear­ly advo­cates of pro­hi­bi­tion against sex-based discrimination.

Hansen would become chair of the Inte­ri­or sub­com­mit­tee of the House Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee, and boss of fed­er­al spend­ing on pub­lic lands. She was bud­dies with House Speak­er Carl Albert, anoth­er source of power.

Why the North­west? We’re a region set­tled large­ly by peo­ple who left behind ingrown tra­di­tions from else­where. Senior­i­ty-cen­tered polit­i­cal machines have nev­er flour­ished in the Fourth Cor­ner. Hence, there were no patron­age bar­ri­ers, and wait-your-turn argu­ments did not res­onate. Mur­ray was elect­ed to the U.S. Sen­ate after less than a term in the Wash­ing­ton State Senate.

There were only sev­en­teen women in the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives when Ore­gon vot­ers sent Edith Green there in 1954.

Today, there are one hun­dred and twen­ty-four women, pri­mar­i­ly Democrats.

Ser­vice in a man’s Con­gress some­times required stubbornness.

Con­gres­sion­al por­trait of Edith Louise Star­rett Green (Jan­u­ary 17, 1910 – April 21, 1987)

Women had to fight for access to the Senate’s mem­bers-only swim­ming pool and gym and to get their own work­out room. The guys had enjoyed splash­ing around in their birth­day suits.

On the pol­i­cy side, Edith Green tried to include gen­der non-dis­crim­i­na­tion lan­guage in the 1964 Civ­il Rights Act. She was laughed at, but had the last laugh eight years lat­er with pas­sage of the Equal Pay Act and Title IX, which opened col­lege ath­let­ics to women. Courage was required when Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jolene Unsoeld, D‑Washington, rep­re­sent­ing tim­ber towns of South­west Wash­ing­ton, refused to dem­a­gogue against courts’ deci­sions on pre­serv­ing old growth forests. She right­ly blamed log exports for plun­der­ing forests.

Pat­ty Murray’s ini­tial cause in Con­gress was get­ting more fed­er­al research mon­ey for dis­eases that impact women, her first Sen­ate floor speech talk­ing about ovar­i­an can­cer and friends who had died from it.

She was ini­tial spon­sor of the 1994 Vio­lence Against Women Act and has fought for twen­ty-eight years to strength­en it.

The Sen­ate now has twen­ty women sen­a­tors, who break bread togeth­er even though Sen­a­tor Mar­sha Black­burn, R‑Tennessee, blabs to right-wing media what gets dis­cussed. It was a lot lone­li­er when Pat­ty Mur­ray and Sen­a­tors Diane Fein­stein and Bar­bara Box­er, D‑California, were elect­ed in 1992. Elder­ly Sen­a­tor Strom Thur­mond of South Car­oli­na behaved inap­pro­pri­ate­ly toward Mur­ray in a Sen­a­tors-only ele­va­tor, not rec­og­niz­ing that she was a colleague.

On the flip side, it’s women who nowa­days demon­strate adult behav­ior and cross-the-aisles col­le­gial­i­ty in today’s polar­ized Congress.

A clas­sic exam­ple: Sen­a­tors Maria Cantwell, D‑Washington, and Lisa Murkows­ki, R‑Alaska, who after the 2014 elec­tion found them­selves the rank­ing Demo­c­rat and Repub­li­can chair of the Sen­ate Ener­gy and Nat­ur­al Resources Committee.

The two “gen­tle ladies” opposed each oth­er on open­ing the Arc­tic Refuge to oil drilling – Murkows­ki for, Cantwell against – but made com­mon cause in suc­cess­ful­ly push­ing for con­struc­tion of new U.S. polar icebreakers.

They appeared togeth­er in Seat­tle not long ago, cel­e­brat­ing the des­ig­na­tion of “nation­al” sta­tus for the Nordic Nation­al Mar­itime Museum.

One more lin­ger­ing obsta­cle, lack of mon­ey. Democ­rats took back the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in 2006, but with much grum­bling that Cam­paign Com­mit­tee chair Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rahm Emanuel had few women on his “A” list of House chal­lengers. Three months ago, Marie Glue­senkamp-Perez, D‑Washington, scored the nation’s biggest House upset with­out receiv­ing a dime from the DCCC. The next cycle promis­es to be dif­fer­ent with Del­Bene head­ing the DCCC.

The 2024 elec­tion will go down in “her-sto­ry” in the Northwest.

A Demo­c­rat, Tina Kotek, was elect­ed Gov­er­nor of Ore­gon, pre­vail­ing in a con­test of three women to suc­ceed anoth­er woman, Gov­er­nor Kate Brown. Kotek is the third woman to serve as Oregon’s gov­er­nor in the past thir­ty years. The state elect­ed a record four women to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Offi­cial con­gres­sion­al por­trait of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Marie Glue­senkamp Perez

Two women, Glue­senkamp-Perez in Wash­ing­ton and Rep. Mary Pel­tosa, D‑Alaska, flipped House seats pre­vi­ous­ly held by Repub­li­cans. The Ever­green State now has eight women in its twelve-per­son con­gres­sion­al delegation.

Pressed by Trump-endorsed oppo­nents, Sen­a­tors Mur­ray in Wash­ing­ton and Murkows­ki in Alas­ka both won reelection.

Once, long ago, one of the few paths to pub­lic office for women was to suc­ceed a deceased spouse or hus­band. Sen­a­tor Mau­reen Neu­berg­er, D‑Oregon was an exam­ple, in 1960 win­ning the seat held by her late hus­band Sen­a­tor Richard Neu­berg­er. (She won using a slo­gan, “Join the Mau­reen Corps.”)

As recent­ly, Sen. Bar­bara Mikul­s­ki, D‑Maryland, became the first female sen­a­tor elect­ed with no spousal or fam­i­ly bond.

Jeanette Rankin made it into Con­gress on her own – she was a women’s suf­frage advo­cate – but found the House a lone­ly home.

No more. How long will it be until a woman’s place is in that oth­er house down Penn­syl­va­nia Avenue – the White House?

Joel Connelly

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