Valley Races Show Women Candidates in Short Supply

Something will be missing from ballots in the San Fernando Valley this November.

Women.

Of the Valley’s 21 Republican and Democratic nominees for Congress and the state Legislature, just two are women.

The Valley’s all-male congressional delegation is almost guaranteed to remain that way. Only two incumbents face serious opponents, and both challengers are men.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a setback, but it’s tough for a woman to get elected--anywhere,” said state Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), the speaker pro tem. “The Valley doesn’t have that many seats, which makes it even harder.”

Ten state lawmakers currently represent at least a portion of the Valley. Among them, Kuehl holds a seat in an Assembly district that includes Encino, and the district of state Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) stretches into Chatsworth and Northridge.

Whether the dearth of female candidates in 1998 is an anomaly, a continuation of male domination in Valley politics or a byproduct of California’s shifting political and economic scene, the trend defies the expected gains for women in the 1990s, especially with political term limits churning up more vacancies than ever.

Kuehl said term limits may even be a hindrance. When a seat in the Legislature opens up, five or six men often jump into the race, confident they’ll have the family and financial support necessary, she said.

Many well-qualified women choose not to run, either because of family obligations or because they lack the connections needed to raise campaign funds, Kuehl said.

“For men it’s kind of like, ‘What the hell, it’s worth a try,’ ” Kuehl said. “Whereas with women, they feel they have to be much more qualified, and most don’t have the network of business connections they need to draw on to raise money.”

Furthermore, under the state’s term limits, women who overcome the odds and win an election eventually will be ushered out of office. In California, senators are limited to two four-year terms and members of the Assembly to four two-year terms. Term limits do not affect members of Congress.

Kuehl can serve only one more term in the Assembly, and Wright faces the end of her current Senate career in two years.

The personal cost of running, and likely payoff, is enough to discourage many women, said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick, who represents the West Valley.

“Holding and running for office is a very, very difficult process and takes incredibly long hours,” Chick said. “A lot of women don’t have that time. It’s the female gender that bears children, and it’s the female gender that still is predominantly the key parent responsible for child care.”

Chick said that the phenomenon of women facing such obstacles is nationwide, not exclusive to the Valley. Just why there are so few women on the ballots this November is a mystery, she said.

Mark Petracca, a UC Irvine political scientist specializing in the effect of term limits, said there is no evidence they have reduced the number of women or minorities in the state Legislature or across the nation.

Statewide, just more than 25% of the Democratic and Republican candidates for Congress and the Legislature are women, election records show. In the Valley, women account for fewer than 10%.

The Valley fares better regarding incumbents. Twenty-seven of 120 legislators are women--23%. In the Valley, two of its 10 state lawmakers are women--just a shade below the statewide percentage.

The Valley has a high number of incumbents running for reelection in November compared with the rest of California. Only one of the 11 congressional and legislative battles in the Valley is over an open seat--or 9%. Statewide, 27% of the seats will be vacant, state election records show.

“There aren’t that many open seats, so there aren’t that many chances for women,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican political consultant. “In the year 2000 it could flip-flop and you’ll see the opposite.”

In reality, the Valley’s gender imbalance is a blip in the elections process, indicative of nothing, he said.

“Every president since Gerald Ford has been left-handed. Does that mean you have to be left-handed to be president? Or is it just a coincidence?” said Hoffenblum, publisher of the California Target Book, a political report that handicaps congressional and state legislative races.

Former Rep. Bobbi Fiedler of Northridge, the first and only woman elected to Congress from the Valley, believes the scant number of female candidates this year has more to do with the Valley’s political tranquillity than with sexism.

Fiedler, a Republican, broke into politics in the 1970s after leading campaigns against school busing, public exposure that propelled her to the Los Angeles County Board of Education and eventually Congress.

Today, very few high-profile civic movements are creating opportunities for newcomers to politics, she said.

“There aren’t a lot of issues, and where there are, like charter reform and secession, only men are visible,” Fiedler said.

Wright said the Valley’s suburban lifestyle and service-oriented economy tend to limit women to “more traditional positions,” such as small-business owners, teachers, nurses and mothers who opt to stay home.

In urban areas downtown and elsewhere, women often get thrust into more active roles, from those battling to move up the corporate food chain to mothers fighting for their children’s education and health care, Wright said.

“They’re already in the mix, and the first thing they know someone is telling them to run,” Wright said. “They’re ready. They’ve already been fighting.”

Wright offered a more critical analysis of the GOP’s lackluster track record in supporting female candidates, in the Valley and statewide. Wright lambasted the GOP leadership for letting her 1994 campaign for lieutenant governor wither.

In GOP primaries, in the Valley and across Southern California, the party will always favor a man running for office against a woman, Wright said.

“I think it’s unique to the Republicans,” she said.

Mike Madrid, political director of the California Republican Party, dismissed Wright’s criticism, saying the GOP has actively recruited and encouraged women to run for office in the state. The party wants to boost its numbers of female candidates, in part to hold onto female voters whose defections to the Democratic candidates has hurt the party.

“I’m not going to say it’s sour grapes on Sen. Wright’s part, but I think there is a lot more going on than she is aware of,” Madrid said. “In the final analysis, voters are going to vote for the best candidate that represents their views, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of gender, regardless of partisanship.”

Recruiting female candidates has become more difficult as more and more opportunities for women open up, in business and in other high-profile civic positions that don’t require the time or intense public scrutiny of running for office, Madrid said.

That’s a rosy version of reality--a little too rosy, said Joanne Baltierrez.

Baltierrez, the only woman on the San Fernando City Council, has been approached by Democratic Party officials to run for higher office. The opportunity may arise fast: state Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar) is considering stepping down to run for the Los Angeles City Council. Cardenas was the first Latino in the Valley elected to the Legislature. A minority woman has never been elected.

Baltierrez doubts she would run for Cardenas’ seat if it opens up this year. She has three children, all teenage boys, and little spare time.

“Because I’m a single parent, it poses a different circumstance for me, compared to a man whose wife can take care of their kids,” Baltierrez said. “I need to be an anchor for my children. Running for office is very time consuming and very expensive.”

Baltierrez said she will probably run for higher office in the future, when her children are older and she has more free time, but she still is worried about battling the “old boys club” that dominates the local political scene.

“It runs deep,” she said. “Sometimes, they just have a problem with a woman having an opinion.”