Incumbency Is the Key, Women Officeholders Say

Orange County’s women legislators said they believed that they probably had encountered sex discrimination when they first ran for election, but that as incumbents, they had not had that complaint.

Orange County Supervisor Harriett Wieder, who was reelected in June and raised a $269,455 war chest, said she learned to sell herself early, not by asking for something for herself but for “a cause.”

Although she has no trouble raising money now, Wieder recalled some “patronizing comments” when she first ran for supervisor eight years ago.

“Nine out of 10 women are not there when the deals are made,” she said. “Scratch the top woman right, and there will be horror stories right on down the line because they are not there and they’re shut out. . . . You cannot tell me it (a person’s sex) doesn’t make a difference.”

Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress), now running for reelection, has amassed $85,000 so far this year but remembers well her first campaign in 1980 when she raised just $12,000 for the primary. Some business leaders were reluctant to give then, she said, and the watchword about her campaign was that “they understood it was very difficult for a woman to win.”

But now, as a two-term incumbent, Allen believes that “the woman argument is not really a valid argument for me. . . . It may make a difference once you’re running. But once you’re an incumbent . . . there’s that trust that a woman can be able to lead. . . . And once you’ve already done that, it’s not that hard” to raise money.

State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) this winter started a political action committee with Sen. Rebecca Morgan (R-Los Altos) to boost the candidacies of Republican women. Although women running for the Legislature are underrepresented and often underfunded, the former schoolteacher says that she has no trouble raising money for her own campaign these days.

But she does remember her first campaign, in 1976, for the Assembly--a race she lost. She recalls “a credibility problem” at first. Her opponent’s literature said, “She’s a nice lady, but. . . . “

Bergeson ran two years later and won. She now is chairwoman of the Local Governments Committee in the Senate and the Senate Select Committee for Planning for California’s growth. With several $100,000 Assembly races and a $500,000 Senate race under her belt, Bergeson doesn’t think she has been discriminated against in fund raising.

“In the beginning the amounts may have been smaller. . . . That’s not the case now,” Bergeson said. “‘Incumbency, I don’t think, has a gender.

“But sometimes I think a woman--or anyone really--doesn’t like to raise money. It’s not a pleasant task. It’s a personal call. You have to get in the position where you’re asking for money for yourself. And sometimes women don’t see themselves as money raisers.”