Wins Cast 2 Women in New Roles

Their paths meandered over familiar ground well-traveled by women in the latter half of the 20th century: In an age of limited choices defined by gender, both Fran Pavley and Carol Liu became teachers as young women fresh out of college, got married and had children.

Both eventually became activists, committed to such causes as education and the environment, and wound up deeply involved in their small-town governments as mayors and councilwomen.

And Tuesday, in perhaps another sign of their times, Pavley and Liu both resoundingly won seats in the state Assembly in districts that hug opposite sides of the San Fernando Valley like bookends. Liu’s election marks the first time a woman has represented the Pasadena-centered 44th Assembly District.

“It’s so exciting, isn’t it?” Liu said the morning after her victory. “It just kind of snuck up on people.”

Both Pavley and Liu faced female Republicans in the general election. In the 41st Assembly District, which stretches from Santa Monica to Agoura Hills, Pavley soundly defeated child safety advocate Jayne Murphy Shapiro. Pavley claimed 60.4% of the vote to win the open seat vacated by Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), leaving Shapiro with 35.1% in the reliably Democratic district.

Liu, meanwhile, beat conservative television commentator Susan Carpenter McMillan, 62.2% to 33.1%, for the open seat left by Assemblyman Jack Scott (D-Altadena).

Political observers have said that term limits for state lawmakers, approved by voters in 1990, have ushered in an era of new opportunities for women and people of color to win open seats. There are now 11 women in the state Senate and 20 in the Assembly, compared with six in the Senate and 22 in the Assembly eight years ago.

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At the same time, many women have racked up impressive records of work and community service, making them more viable candidates.

“The same thing happened in the U.S. Congress,” said Kuehl, who won election to a state Senate seat Tuesday. “I think all it is is the ability to build a resume for a generation that was only allowed to enter public service later in their lives. This is a logical extension to having barriers come down and allowing people to compete equally, based on their merits.”

But some wonder whether the job itself has the luster it once enjoyed. Term limits diminish the promise of job security and give fresh lawmakers less time to make their mark. And voters, eager to promote citizen politicians, stripped lawmakers of their publicly financed pensions a decade ago--and on Tuesday decisively rejected a ballot measure to reinstate them.

“We will undoubtedly be seeing more women going into politics, which is a long-term consequence of the women’s movement,” said Xandra Kayden, president of the Los Angeles League of Women Voters. “But it’s also a short-term consequence of term limits. The downside of that is . . . it’s a less attractive job. It’s very hard now in California to have a career in politics.”

For years, politics has been a part-time passion for Pavley and Liu. Pavley, 51, helped incorporate Agoura Hills in 1982, in part to protect the rustic area from excessive development. She became the first mayor of the hilly hamlet (population 22,000) and served for 15 years on the council.

Liu, 59, is still a councilwoman in La Canada Flintridge, a city of 21,000 people where she has also worn the mayor’s hat. She has been on the council for eight years, and the two women know each other from their days in the California League of Cities, where Pavley was president of the Los Angeles County contingent.

“A lot of women are involved in local government, but some of us are a little slower about taking this next step,” Liu said. “The women in the new [Assembly] class are generally women who have already raised their families, served time on local school boards, stuff like that.”

One big difference between Liu and Pavley is the amount of money they spent on their campaigns. Liu, who is married to a wealthy entrepreneur, poured nearly $700,000 of her own cash into the race, raising about $1.7 million overall. Pavley raised about $750,000 total.

Both newly minted assemblywomen have spent years in the classroom, giving them an edge among voters worried about the state of public schools. Pavley was a middle school teacher for 28 years, and Liu taught junior high and high school students for 14 years before becoming a school district administrator.

“I think the timing was very good, with education being the No. 1 topic of concern in the district, if not statewide,” said Pavley. She supports early childhood education programs, charter schools and a statewide push to attract and train 300,000 new teachers over the next 30 years.

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Pavley said she became a teacher because, given the standard menu of choices for women in the early 1970s, it appealed to her more than being a nurse, secretary or social worker. Leaving her longtime job at Chaparral Middle School in Moorpark this year to run for office marked the first September she had spent outside a classroom in, well, almost half a century.

“It’s the first time I haven’t either taught school or been going to school since I was five,” she said. She knew it was time to go when she met a student’s mother who, she realized with a shock, had been one of her students a generation earlier.

Though Liu hasn’t taught school for two decades, she agreed that education is the top priority in her district. “People want improvement in the public school system,” she said. “They also want to be assured that there’s someone who has experience in this area.” Liu favors smaller class sizes and hopes to use incentives to attract qualified teachers to understaffed school districts.

For now, though, Pavley and Liu will be students again. They are heading to Sacramento for a 10-day orientation for new lawmakers, a session crammed with more than a dozen binders full of legislative minutiae, led by the famously meticulous Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks).

“It’s back to school,” Pavley said. “So I’ll feel right at home.”

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Times staff writer Jean Guccione contributed to this story.