Women See Big Chance in ’92 Voting : Politics: Participants at convention of female state legislators say voters will be looking for outsiders in the next election.

The perennial refrain of underdogs--”wait till next year”--rattled around the old gingerbread hotel here this weekend.

The women uttering it--state legislators from around the nation gathered at the Hotel del Coronado for a quadrennial convention--remain convinced that the political tumult witnessed across the country this year will translate in 1992 into electoral victories for women.

“The climate is better now because people are looking for outsiders,” said U.S. Rep. Connie Morella (R-Md.). “Women fit the bill.”

Rep. Barbara Boxer of Marin County, speaking with Morella at a seminar, told delegates that her campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in California has been bolstered by fallout from the Senate hearings into the nomination of Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court.

“It has jump-started my Senate race,” said Boxer, pointing to increased donations and campaign volunteers. “Something is happening out there. Whether it lasts or not remains to be seen.”

Indeed, that caveat was uppermost in the minds of the estimated 900 delegates here this weekend.

The convention served as an emotional reminder of the Thomas hearings. On Friday night, University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harassment, captured the delegates’ hearts with her first speech since Thomas’ confirmation a month ago.

But it also served to remind the women how slow their progress has been. Ruth Mandel, director of Rutgers University’s Center for the American Woman and Politics, said that women are still underrepresented in public office.

While they comprise more than half of the population, women hold 18% of the seats in state legislatures and only 6% of the positions in Congress, she said. Only three women serve as governors.

Even events such as a 1989 Supreme Court decision allowing states to limit abortion rights--a moment heralded as the start of a new wave of political activity for women--have not readily translated into large gains, statistics show.

“We saw incremental progress again (after the abortion decision),” said Mandel, whose center sponsored the conference. “We continue to see an increase, but we didn’t see a spurt.”

Statistics measure only those who seek major offices, and Mandel said she was confident that women of all political leanings were becoming more active. She said she expects that the national exploration of sexual harassment prompted by the Thomas hearings will persuade more women to get involved in fund raising or running for office.

“There’s no question there are going to be consequences,” she said.

But while it dominated the proceedings here, resentment against sexual harassment may not be a potent political weapon by itself. For one thing, national polls showed that many women did not side with Hill’s allegations that she was harassed by Thomas when she worked for him.

“I’m picking up a lot of mixed messages from my constituents,” said Rep. Joan Kelly Horn, a Democrat from Missouri, the home state of Thomas’ mentor, Republican Sen. John Danforth. “A lot of women . . . really did not believe her.”

Mandel and others indicated that sexual harassment is a far more nebulous issue for voters.

“There isn’t going to be anyone in favor of it, so we’re not going to have a debate of that kind,” she said.

But many at the convention believe that the brew of issues percolating in the country--from the perception that elected officials are not serving their constituents, to outright anger over political scandals--may aid women candidates.

Wendy Sherman, a Washington-based political consultant, said she believes the Thomas hearings--which presented to the American public the almost entirely white male face of the Senate--will dovetail with concerns over the congressional check-bouncing controversy and perceptions fanned by Democrats that President Bush has ignored domestic problems. Women, she said, will be the beneficiaries.

“There are a lot of pieces that I think come together in this,” she said.

Mary Boergers, a Maryland state senator, said the country’s economic travails have given women “a wonderful opportunity” to dramatically increase their numbers in legislatures and Congress.

That, she said, is a more lasting issue than the emotional reaction to the Thomas hearings.

Voters are looking for politicians who are “honest and hard-working, who care for people--and that is how women are perceived,” she said.

“That’s more important than this bubble of anger that we are feeling.”

Indeed, many women are planning to run outsider’s campaigns. Boxer, a Democrat, has already run television commercials using the Thomas hearings as evidence that the Senate “is just not working now.”

But as Boergers noted, all of next year’s races will be overshadowed and affected by the presidential contest, and its parameters are far from certain.

“We don’t know the (Democratic) candidates yet,” she said. “They’re not even out of the box. . . . That will have such an overriding influence that it’s very hard to tell yet.”

While that race loomed large on the minds of many elected officials this weekend, the presidential candidates were absent. Convention organizers said they did not invite any candidates to appear so that the focus would remain on the convention itself.

Only one of the Democratic candidates--U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa--set up an information booth here. At the convention’s exhibit area, buttons touting all of the other candidates went unsold, but there was one button that was so popular the vendor was taking back orders.

“I believe Anita Hill,” the button read.