Los Angeles Times Interview : Anita Perez Ferguson : On Bringing Women-- and the Personal--into Public Office

More women now serve in the U.S. Congress than ever before, but the bigger story may be how much stronger women are at the state legislative level. “That’s where our critical mass is sitting,” says Anita Perez Ferguson, president of the National Women’s Political Caucus, which has helped train many of those women. Where women comprise 10% of the U.S. Congress, they are 21% of state legislators--with California right at that national average. If Congress shifts more government functions to the states, women will have more impact, Ferguson said, adding that those state offices are often stepping stones to Congress.

The caucus, founded 25 years ago as a major political arm of the women’s movement, supports Democrats and Republicans who are pro-choice and agree on other key women’s issues. This year it has endorsed 25 congressional challengers who have won their primaries and 27 of the incumbent female House members. With endorsement comes more training, publicity and, at times, financial support. “There’s a huge number of open seats,” said Ferguson. “We wish we could have fielded a woman candidate for all the open seats because that’s the best opportunity.”

Ferguson, 47, elected caucus president last August, grew up amid a large extended Latino family in Montebello. She attended East Los Angeles Community College, received her B.A. from Westmont College in Montecito and has master’s degrees in counseling psychology and management. She and her husband, Bill Ferguson, taught in Nairobi, Kenya, and worked with refugees in Somalia in the early 1980s. He’s now assistant director of the National Assn. of Conflict Mediation in Washington. Seeing her country from the outside and how its decisions affect people around the world rekindled an interest in politics begun during East L.A. student demonstrations in the late 1960s.

Personal experience figures in the training Ferguson gives candidates. In 1990, she challenged a 16-year incumbent, Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Santa Barbara), losing but receiving 45% of the vote. In 1992, redistricting pitted her against Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), in a more conservative district. She lost again, but was able to raise $750,000 for her campaign.

In 1990, many parents introduced their daughters to candidate Ferguson, telling them, “Someday you could be running for Congress.” They called her “mijita Anita”--”my little daughter Anita”--as though she were a member of the family. Someone even made “Mijita Anita” bumper stickers. “I still see them around the district.” Ferguson says.

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Question: Has the drumbeat of criticism directed at Hillary Rodham Clinton, although she’s not an elected official, affected your ability to recruit candidates?

Answer: It certainly registers with potential candidates. The level of criticism directed against the first lady and the venom or the depths to which people feel free to criticize is a concern to women considering public office.

Q: Are they thinking, “If she has to deal with this, what’s going to happen to me?”

A: Exactly . . . . There is a level of candidate, or public-figure, abuse which seems heightened today. It does not escape the notice of women considering running for public office.

Most of them are still willing to consider running, but need to have the issues talked through in their own life. Frequently, I find that the concerns that our potential candidates have about their private lives, their children’s or husband’s lives, are not as devastating as they might think. So many families encounter personal concerns--whether they be economic or a run-in with the law or a divorce--that we actually talk about how those can help you identify with the public more than fearing that there would be some revelation.

Q: With many prominent women in Congress leaving--for example, Rep. Patricia Schroeder and Sen. Nancy Landen Kassebaum--how do you convince women they should run?

A: The number of women leaving is small in proportion to their numbers in Congress and far below the number of men that are leaving--so that is not a significant area for us. For each woman who is going out, other women are stepping up to bat.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro [D-Conn.] has already taken over a good amount of the leadership on the Democratic side. She has a good, strong voice and a clear vision and a similar style to what we’ve seen from Schroeder--a pretty much out-front, honest, shoot-from-the-hip style which is both refreshing and keeps issues moving along. In the Senate, with Kassebaum, we see Sen. Olympia Snowe [R-Maine] with very similar views.

Q: What advantages do you think female candidates still have?

A: Female candidates still have the advantage of public opinion about them that is more favorable than a male candidate from the beginning. It doesn’t mean that they will experience either less criticism or that their popularity might not drop once people get to know them. But a larger percentage of the public say they feel the woman candidate is more trustworthy, more honest, is going to communicate more clearly to them about her beliefs than the average male candidate--both of them starting from the same position as a new face in town.

Women candidates tend to start from a point of narrative that is both personal and understandable. Male candidates tend not to start from that. They have a more technical bent or talk more numerically than personally.

Q: What is the National Women’s Political Caucus doing to help women candidates?

A: Since the last election we have increased our training and continue to start at the beginning of the pipeline. Rather than only working with women candidates at the federal level, we continue to feed the level of municipal, county and state legislative races as well. We trained over 2,500 women, just in two years, all around the country.

We have also done what we called partnership training. We have partnered with an Hispanic organization, the National Council of La Raza, and will be training their women delegates. So we are targeting women of color from racial and ethnic groups. We are also targeting women in labor unions.

Q: In comparison with the Democratic EMILY’s List or GOP WISH List, your support is more technical assistance, training and publicity instead of the bucks?

A: That’s right. I’ve said before that if these other organizations are your bankers, we’re your teachers.

Q: In 1992, we had a rare convergence of factors--redistricting, retirements and the aftermath of the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas clash--that led to a record number of women getting elected to Congress. What’s the prognosis for this year?

A: I think we’re going to see between two and five seats taken by women that are not currently held by women; and hold the seats that we have.

Q: In 1994 there were at least five conservative Republican women who were elected to the House. Have the conservative Republicans figured they’re smart to run women?

A: I call 1994 the year that we played musical chairs. The music stopped on election day and the women’s numbers did not go down but they changed places in their chairs. There were progressive women we had supported--for example, the seat in Utah that was held by Karen Shepherd which turned over to Enid Greene. That is a huge change philosophically when we looked at the items those women were supporting.

The Republican women of all different philosophical bent are making a more rapid change now in terms of filling seats or running for office than are the Democratic women. Democratic women are still ahead of them. The Democratic women are keeping a slow, steady pace--more candidates, more winners--every year.

The Republican women had farther to go and, you’re absolutely right, the Republican Party is giving more emphasis; now realizing that, one, the public is more interested and gives a slight raise to a woman candidate and, two, a Republican woman is almost the best of all possible worlds because she carries that public image of honesty and also a sense of fiscal responsibility which the public is looking for. So she’s a very good combination in a candidate.

Q: Is this ascendancy of conservative Republicans in Congress posing a difficulty for the caucus to remain bipartisan?

A: Actually, there’s an increase in the number of Republican women that we have been supporting. In the past, there were so few Republican women out there running that our numbers were low. Now there’s a larger number and even though half of that number are very conservative, the other half are quite moderate in their views. So overall, we’re increasing our support for Republican women. We continue to struggle with that issue but the fact that there are more Republican women coming out to run for public office and that more fit our profile of interest is a good thing for us.

Q: What are the issues that may get women who didn’t vote in 1994 to vote in 1996?

A: Some of the issues that have been discussed and publicized highly through this last congressional session are likely to be those which are going to move women. The profiles that are done by both Celinda Lake and Linda Divall, one Democrat and one Republican pollster, tell us women’s ages and different stages in their lives affect which issues they are focused on. Older women, for example, are particularly concerned about Medicare and Social Security. Issues of financial security and personal security almost always top the list but get interpreted differently depending on your age, your educational background, your income, whether you live in an urban, suburban or rural setting and, finally, your marital status.

Q: In the presidential race, do you think President Clinton is counting on the gender gap too much? What does Robert Dole need to do from your perspective to close that gap?

A: The Clinton campaign is paying a lot of attention to the women’s vote. The Clinton Administration has made extra efforts not only to work on the appointment of more women to policy-making positions but also at higher levels. They’ve also given a lot of attention to the White House office of public liaison, which has a special women’s section that monitors issues for women. And the reelection campaign, a separate effort, is also working closely with women voters and women’s issues. So they don’t seem to be taking anything for granted--even though they have a considerable lead at this time. It is an earned lead, I believe, because of all the attention they’ve given.

The Republicans are now making specific efforts of their own. They have a lot of catch-up to do. Certain parts of the Republican Party are very aware that this could make a significant difference for them--to attract more women voters and supporters. We’ll see Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison [R-Tex.] at the forefront promoting Dole. It remains to be seen how much they will use Liddy Dole herself, who is an excellent spokesperson and who can do a lot to attract more women voters.

Q: How do you think the abortion issue is going to play out in this election?

A: The abortion issue is probably going to be at its height around August--when the conventions are run. It’s already a huge issue for the Republicans--from the session that they had in Texas electing their delegates pretty much based on their stand on that issue through to the platform battles that I’m sure will continue in the San Diego convention. The Democrats seem pretty solidified in their pro-choice support and also in not having to rehash that.

The Republicans are likely to use a decision of the president in regard to the so-called partial-birth abortion bill in the campaign. But all of the numbers tell us that the voters’ greatest focus, male and female, is the economy and security--and those are going to be the two leading issues up to election day.*