Washington State Senator Karen Keiser, the author of Getting Elected is the Easy Part: Working and Winning in the State Legislature, has had a highly successful tenure working in the Washington State Legislature.
She was appointed to a House seat in 1995, and then won election the following year. Similarly, Keiser was appointed to the WA State Senate in 2001 and has won re-election six times since. With nearly three decades as a representative and senator, she is well-qualified to write knowledgeably both about how to achieve success in a state legislature and why that’s important.
State legislatures, Keiser argues, are crucial venues for those working to support progressive legislation. This is a dramatic change. For much of American history (especially since the Confederate insurrection) states’ rights was the rallying cry used by those opposing government efforts to expand civil and economic rights.
However, with the 2020 presidential election, Keiser explains, the role of the legislature in more progressive states has changed.
State governments in many “blue” and “purple” states – including Washington State– are now instruments to bring political and economic rights to minorities, poor people, women, and working people. State governments have not just the responsibility, Keiser writes, but the obligation to oppose the extreme right winglaws and mandates originating at the federal level.
What is needed for states like Washington to be more effective in the struggle for equality of opportunity?
Keiser correlates the gender of elected representatives in the Washington state legislature with success with progressive legislation.
In her experience, the more women representatives there, are the more support there is for such legislation. Getting more women nominated and elected – in 2022, women were 20% to 25% of the Washington State Legislature — is a long-term project definitely worth the effort, time, and money.
From the book:
… we failed to build the kind of pipeline that’s been in place for so many male legislators. Creating an infrastructure of support, mentoring, networking, and fundraising are all needed to build and maintain an open pipeline for women – especially women of color and young women – to enter the fantastic career of politics and lawmaking. (p. 59)
In addition, Keiser writes about sexism and racism among elected representatives (including from her personal experience). It is ugly. And it’s a struggle worth engaging in. “Silence,” she says, “is the enemy of justice.”
Why is it that so many representatives in the Washington State Legislature are older, white, male, and affluent?
Keiser tells us it’s structural.
Working in the Legislature is complex. It’s demanding of time and energy. For most the pay is not sufficient to support a family. Long hours, travel, important meetings often held in the afternoon and evening, are hard to overcome obstacles for those with children at home. This affects women, people of color, and less wealthy representatives more than men. The life experiences of many white, male, affluent representatives leave them less able to empathize with problems particular to working people, minorities, people of color, and women.
Despite all this – or because of it – the successful legislator must learn to work “across the aisle,” to use Keiser’s apt phrase.
And by this phrase, she does not mean only the political party aisle.
Getting Elected is the Easy Part is intended as a primer, or beginner’s guide, for newly elected legislators on how to be effective as a representative or state senator. Working as a representative or senator, she tells us, is a complicated process. The legislature includes its own rules and norms that the beginner must master to be effective for their constituents.
These are a few of the many how-to points that Keiser discusses:
- How to draft a bill that reflects your goals
- How to develop mentors, and as well as personal relationships within the legislature
- How to work with advocates who will support your bill
- How to win assignment to committees that focus on your primary legislative interests
- How to work with lobbyists who, although they are paid advocates for a specific client, have extensive knowledge and relationships within the legislature that can be useful to you as a legislator
Getting Elected also includes an extensive glossary of legislative terms, and a bibliography.
Washington State Senator Karen Keiser has thought deeply about her extensive experience in the State Legislature. Getting Elected is the Easy Part – although not a page turner – is worth the read, both for its practical advice and its political wisdom.
It sounds like a worthwhile read. I believe Karen was at one time, a TV journalist for KSTW 11 in the Seattle area.