The League Turns 70: Where to Now? : Politics: The League of Women Voters faces dwindling funds and declining membership. But the public still holds the staunchly nonpartisan group in high esteem.

In February, 1920, with ratification of the 19th Amendment just months away, suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt founded the League of Women Voters of the United States. Faced with a newly enfranchised group of 20 million women who had been told it was unladylike to vote, the national nonpartisan league dedicated itself to eradicating that notion and educating women about the issues and their new responsibilities.

Seventy years later, with membership and funds declining, the league is still working hard to get out the vote, influence government policy and promote participation in the political process.

But in an age of glitz, celebrity, short attention spans and sound-bite campaigning, the league is seldom in the limelight. Its loyal members seem to see themselves, by choice, as a backstage organization out to preserve the democratic process. They know the league has a visibility problem, that it has a reputation for doing drudge work, that it is described in rather unglamorous terms: solid, stalwart, dedicated, naive, boring.

Can such an organization expect to be around for its 80th birthday in the year 2000?

This year, members of the Los Angeles League, which was also founded in 1920, will be celebrating and soul-searching. There is an anniversary brunch this weekend, a fund-raiser in the fall and, shortly, a letter that league president Lois Saffian will be sending to past presidents, asking, “Where do we go from here?”

“We’re facing a challenge right now as a volunteer organization,” Saffian said recently at the league’s offices in the Mid-Wilshire area. “How are we going to continue the program we’re known for with diminishing resources? . . . We have an important purpose that is never going to go away. What can we do to live up to that purpose?”

Said Paula Menkin, a member of the Los Angeles unit since 1946 and president from 1953 to 1955: “There’s nobody else who does these things. To me, the fact it’s not glamorous does not mean it’s not exciting. It is exciting. I’ve now spent close to 50 years being excited by the issues. . . . Who else sits at city council meetings and watchdogs things for citizens? Nobody else would study the state Constitution, the city and county charters. These are the nuts and bolts of government.”

But hard work alone will not ensure its future.

“I am both confident and worried,” Saffian said. “The need is always there. By definition, democracy means government open to change by people, but people have got to know how to do it. People who want to keep (democracy) going gravitate toward the league.”

The national and local organizations have always been strapped for money, Saffian said, and nothing has changed.

“We’re not terribly sophisticated in raising money,” she said. “We’re so focused on accomplishments and issues, we’ve had a hard time to get members to support us. They’ll say, ‘We’re not here to raise money.’ ”

The diminishing resources that most concern Saffian are people--the men and women who do the work (the league has admitted men since 1974). Los Angeles membership is 940, down from about 1,200 when Saffian took over the presidency three years ago. (At its peak, membership was about 1,600.)

Paradoxically, some observers say that the league has never been so powerful. One political consultant, Steven M. Glazer, said that invariably public opinion polls give the league one of the highest credibility ratings of any organization.

“As a result, they’re being catered to by Republicans and Democrats,” Glazer said of the league, which, for example, this year is backing ballot measures supporting a largely Republican-backed reapportionment initiative, bipartisan state and local ethics reform measures and a transportation ballot measure led by Gov. George Deukmejian.

“That is enormous clout to have. I don’t even think they recognize the extent of it, but it’s recognized by other insiders. They have this white hat image. They seem like these little mice at times, but they’re the mice that roar.”

Traditionally, league members have been educated, middle-class homemakers who joined in an era when they were expected not to work for money.

Ann Lane, a fire commissioner for the city for the past 13 years, joined the league in 1953.

“We had children, and we had to get out of the house to talk of something other than diapers,” she said. “It was intellectually stimulating, and there were not a lot of other opportunities.”

Members did and still do put in vast amounts of time studying issues, analyzing materials, monitoring governmental meetings, writing reports, helping to draft legislation, lobbying and speaking to groups on various issues.

The organization is frequently described as a leadership training ground for future public life, and the Los Angeles league is proud of members like former City Council President Pat Russell and Councilwoman Joy Picus. The league is “the single most important influence in my life that made me go into public life,” Picus said recently.

“It was a career,” Lane said. “I put in about 25 hours a week.”

But few women are willing or able to do that kind of work any more. They are working full-time or are unwilling to perform such skilled labor for no pay--or they prefer single-issue causes because the results are more tangible and the process quicker.

The league has always prided itself on being a multi-issue organization. In the early years league members nationwide supported collective bargaining, child labor laws, minimum wage legislation, and federal aid for maternal and child care programs. They fought the spoils system and promoted the merit system in government employment, backed Social Security, and discouraged isolationism.

Since the 1950s the league has been at the forefront of many environmental issues. League members worked for civil rights, especially through voter registration, and, in Los Angeles, supported school desegregation and busing.

In addition, the league supports the equal rights amendment and takes a pro-choice position in the abortion debate.

But voting and governmental processes have been a primary focus, and last year the national league decided to scale down, declaring it could no longer be all things to all people. Its priorities are public campaign financing and voter registration and turnout. The league has worked for passage of the national voter registration act, commonly called the “motor voter” act, which includes provisions enabling people to register when they get their driver’s licenses. It passed the House in February.

The Los Angeles League appears to be headed in a similar direction.

“Locally, we’re very proud of our effort to get high school students registered,” Saffian said of their on-campus efforts.

Said lawyer Geoff Cowan, chairman of the city’s ethics code commission: “I think they’re needed now more than ever. They do the most thorough job in analyzing things. The support of the league on the city ethics (and campaign finance) ballot measure is so important. People tend to say, ‘If the league supports it, it must be OK.’ ”

That is a frequently heard description of the league and one that may become controversial in California in the coming months. The state league has endorsed--and helped write--Proposition 119, a reapportionment measure that would redraw state legislative districts, sponsored by San Mateo County Supervisor Tom Huening, who is a Republican.

“Sometimes the state takes a position (that) local can’t support,” Saffian said in reference to the measure. “We’re taking a no-action position.

“We’re not a rubber-stamp organization . . . but it’s important that we have the discipline not to undermine (the state league).”

Selma Calnan, a member of the East San Gabriel Valley League, was one of five statewide members who co-wrote the reapportionment study the league undertook in 1987. But she opposes the state league’s position and said of the restriction on opposition from a local unit, such as Los Angeles, “It’s ridiculous.”

Although Calnan said she is indebted to the league, she nonetheless has some harsh criticisms of the organization and said the reapportionment issue points up a fundamental weakness that goes back to its founding.

“Here they were, all innocent, feeling so righteous,” she said of suffragists in 1920. “They dove into partisan politics and got skunked. They retreated into the hills, and remained above it all. And that’s where they are today, above the partisan battle.

“They have a fastidious dislike for partisan politics and a great sense of certitude about their rightness. I’m probably that way, too, I guess. But they confirm their prejudices by only talking to each other.”

As a result, she said, the league is strong in its knowledge of governmental process but weak on political savvy. That lack of savvy, she said, led the state league in the late 1960s to support deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill.

“We were so naive. We thought the local governments would pick up the tab” and fund local programs for those released. “I feel personally ashamed of that.”

Hearing Calnan’s charges of naivete regarding reapportionment, Joy Picus said: “In a sense, much of what she says is true. The league is naive. But that’s important to their image.

“I commend the L.A. League for standing apart. It shows remarkable perception not to be part of that. It’s significant that the major league in the state has done so.”

Where, then, is the nonpartisan league’s strength?

“Overall, I think it’s a lot of wasted effort,” said political consultant Joe Cerrell, of Los Angeles-based Cerrell Associates Inc. Stressing he was more aware of league activities on a national level, he said it might be more effective locally.

“But nationally they’re a nice neuter group. I think they mean well, but their laundry list of accomplishments--I don’t think it’s a very long list. They do the presidential debates. Whoopee.”

The league, often a sponsor of local and primary debates, began sponsoring presidential debates in 1976, but in a struggle for control with the political parties in the 1988 election campaign, withdrew altogether.

“We live in a partisan world relative to state and national government,” Cerrell said. “I would like to harness all that energy into getting good people elected to office.”

Saffian took Cerrell’s criticisms to heart. “It’s really difficult to say where the league has been effective. It’s immeasurable, except where the league has taken the leadership, like the motor voter act.”

Cerrell’s criticism, she said, may relate to “our need to publicize ourselves in a more sophisticated way. Maybe we’ve been like the nuns, thinking God will take care of us because we’re so good and righteous. We need a good marketing plan. You wouldn’t start a business without one today. We never did that.” (Saffian said a public relations agency has agreed to take the L.A. League on as a pro bono client and will design a public relations campaign for the organization.)

If it is still around, what will the League look like in 2000?

“I hope we’re all around in the year 2000,” Saffian said, mentioning the precarious state of the human race and the planet.

Reflecting on the massive changes in so much of the world, she said the United States, in a crisis on so many fronts--education, the environment, homelessness, the national debt--probably will go through some major changes too, although not through a classic revolution.

“I think it would be playing its historic role, but in a probably different political environment. I hope that doesn’t sound too radical,” she said. “I have to believe it’s not all a waste of time. And if enough of us felt that way. . . .”