Women to Play Largest Role Ever in Legislature

The dinner was a tribute to eight “retiring Democratic senators” who, niceties aside, were being booted out of office by term limits.

But anyone who read the invitation carefully knew that the $1,000-a-head cost of the farewell would enrich a fund seeking to boost women candidates into the very seats opened up by those “retirements.”

That irony was not lost on state Sen. Dede Alpert, organizer and emcee of the August event and founder of the new Democratic Women Leaders Fund.

“When we said our goodbyes this year, the people retiring had 250 years of service to the Legislature,” said Alpert (D-Coronado). “Truthfully, I don’t support term limits, but it has given women opportunities in the Senate.”

When the 1999-2000 session begins, California will have a record 10 women senators--nine Democrats, one Republican--up from six last year and now a quarter of the state’s more powerful, and entrenched, legislative body.

The California Assembly, meanwhile, will retain its numbers of the previous session: 20, also a quarter of that house.

It marks the first time California, once a women’s-movement hothouse, has jumped above the national average for women legislators. And that milestone is expected to significantly alter the kinds of bills that are introduced.

Because all of the newcomers are Democrats--thanks in part to Alpert’s unprecedented fund-raising--and because the new governor is a Democrat too, those bills are considered likely to pass.

With women as a driving force, Californians may even witness the resolution of such meaty issues as health maintenance organization reform and improved public child care, as well as smaller strides: one-stop clinics for women with AIDS, for instance, and an increase in after-school tutoring.

“Women are focused on the issues that impact the everyday person’s day-to-day life: child care, welfare reform, after-school care, education,” said Elizabeth McCallum, director of the Women’s Appointment Project, a parallel effort to bring more women into Gov.-elect Gray Davis’ administration. “Maybe that is a sexist thing to say, but it’s true.”

Although Democratic men in the upper house have been solid “yes” votes for such issues, Senate Leader John Burton (D-San Francisco) said they have been far less likely to propose bills.

“People bring to the Legislature their life’s experiences, their biases,” he said. “To that extent, maybe I never would’ve thought of it, but when somebody raises the issue, I say, ‘Of course!’ ”

As Jackie Speier, one of the newly elected senators, put it: “If you don’t walk in high heels, it’s hard to appreciate what it’s like.”

As an assemblywoman, Speier sponsored a watershed bill to reduce charges for dry cleaning women’s clothes so that they match that for men’s. After a two-year hiatus from the Legislature, the Bay Area Democrat intends to renew efforts to require health plans to cover birth control--a bill that once passed but was vetoed by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Neither she nor any of the women who will serve with her in the Senate intend to limit themselves to so-called women’s issues. But they say those issues will be a significant part of their platforms.

They have a foundation. California’s female legislators have previously nudged male colleagues to focus on child care in welfare reform, increase maternity hospital stays, enforce child support laws and require University of California clinical trials to reflect the state’s population, which is half female.

Nationwide, the number of women serving in state legislatures has grown slowly, from 4% in 1969 to 22% today, according to the Center for the American Woman and Politics at Rutgers University.

California Trails Others in Numbers

California’s full-time Legislature has consistently trailed such flagship states as Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, where the less grueling schedules and more rapid turnover of part-time legislatures have long attracted women. It still dawdles far behind Washington state, where women are almost half the Senate.

Reasons for California’s laggardly pace include the state’s size, which complicates leaving family at home for a trip to the statehouse. The lack of term limits until 1990 also played a pivotal role.

“The California Legislature is so prestigious and so powerful and so professional that before term limits, its legislators tended to be in there for the long term,” said Beth Reingold, who teaches political science and women’s studies at Emory University in Atlanta.

Alpert had grown impatient with merely applauding as the number of women senators crept up from one: Rose Ann Vuich, elected 22 years ago. Taking a page from the national Emily’s List political action committee, formed in 1985 to support abortion-rights candidates, Alpert jump-started the California Women Leaders Fund last year with her own campaign money.

Fund Provided More Political Muscle

A flier sent to thousands of women posed the question: “Can we elect more Democratic women to the Senate this November than the total number elected in the last 150 years?” Since that historical total was only eight, the answer turned out to be yes.

When the fall election rolled around, the fund had grown to more than $350,000, with donations ranging from $100,000 from the California Democratic Party to $1,000 from author Judith Krantz.

Three of the six women who won on Nov. 3 benefited from the fund. Three others were so far ahead they transferred campaign dollars to Sacramento Assemblywoman Deborah Ortiz, who was struggling against a millionaire Republican woman for a seat held for 16 years by Sen. Leroy Greene.

In all, Ortiz received $200,000 from the fund, another $50,000 directly from Alpert’s own campaign kitty and $40,000 from Sen. Betty Karnette of Long Beach. Incumbent Sen. Hilda Solis of El Monte transferred $70,000 to Ortiz, and two fellow senate freshmen--Speier and former Assemblywoman Martha Escutia of Bell--each pitched in $25,000.

Ortiz won 55% to 41%, spending nearly $1.7 million. She credits the Women’s Leadership Fund with giving her the financial fortitude it took to win.

In just two years in the Assembly, Ortiz had bills passed that provided academic after-school programs and early detection and treatment of ovarian cancer, from which her mother suffers.

Ortiz wants to continue her work in those areas. She also hopes for a repeat performance of what she witnessed in the Assembly, where women began getting their share of top committee assignments.

As news of new Senate committee assignments seeps out, women appear to have gained at least a third of the 24 chairmanships. Alpert will take the helm of the Senate Education Committee, an area that Davis calls his top concern.

The promise of more political muscle is what motivated Cathy Ann Connelly to contribute to the fund and co-host a reception for potential donors.

“I was not into numbers for numbers’ sake; I wanted women in positions of power--specifically Senate seats and Senate leadership positions,” said Connelly, Los Angeles president of public relations firm Stoorza, Ziegaus & Metzger.

Connelly believes women politicians are more likely to pursue issues of concern to her. Findings supporting her were published in the 1994 book “How Women Legislate,” by Georgetown University associate professor Sue Thomas.

Thomas, a political scientist, asked legislators across the country to list their five top-priority bills. She found 42% of women included at least one bill dealing with women, children and families while only 16% of men did.

Women also were twice as likely to get those bills passed.

Even state Sen. Cathie Wright of Simi Valley, whom Alpert calls “a minority of minorities” as the lone Republican woman senator, has broken with her party where families are concerned.

In 1997, Wright weathered the wrath of Republicans by backing the Democrats’ welfare reform proposal. Her reason: It protected women with babies. At the time of the vote, Wright was helping to raise her working daughter’s 10-month-old.

“From my own experience, I know there is a crisis in infant child care,” she said.

Where beliefs and research part ways is over whether women’s legislative style is also different; whether they are more focused on resolving than winning.

Reingold, at Emory University, quizzed legislators in California and Arizona on their views of “cut-throat” politicking. She found no differences between men and women on the spectrum from abhorrence to acceptance.

Alpert drew her own conclusions during her eight years in the statehouse, the last two in the Senate.

“Women more often come to the Legislature because of issue areas that they’re interested in, as opposed to the power of politics,” she said. “They tend also to come more experienced and balanced . . . a bit more pragmatic.”

Alpert based her observations in part on another phenomenon that is changing: women delaying entrance into politics until their children are grown.

When Alpert was elected to the Assembly, she was 45; her youngest son was finishing high school. Many of her male colleagues were far younger, some fresh out of law school.

In the upcoming session, women senators will be younger than the men, on average. The newly elected group of women averages 44 years and includes single women, women with school-age children and Escutia, 41, who is expecting her second son on Thanksgiving day.

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Women in the State Assembly

A record number of women will serve in California’s senate in the 1999-2000 session: 10 or a 40% increase from 1998. The increase for the first time bumps California above the national average in proportion of women state political leaders, though it still lags behind other western states.

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Senate % of Assembly % of seats Senate seats Assembly 1972 0 0% 2 2% 1974 0 0% 3 4% 1976 1 2% 5 6% 1978 2 5% 9 11% 1980 2 5% 10 12% 1982 2 5% 10 12% 1984 2 5% 12 15% 1986 4 10% 13 16% 1988 4 10% 13 16% 1990 5 12% 13 16% 1992 5 12% 16 20% 1994 5 12% 22 28% 1996 5 12% 19 24% 1998 6 15% 20 25% 1999 10 25% 20 25%

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Source: California Legislature Handbooks, 1972-1988, Pocket Directory of the California Legislature, 1990-1998 and the California Secretary of State’s Office.

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Percentage of women legislators in Western states

Washington: 41%

Arizona: 36%

Nevada: 36%

Colorado: 33%

Oregon: 30%

California: 25%

Nationwide: 22%

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Source: Center for the American Woman and Politics, Rutgers University, 1998.