เ

Women Win Elections at State Levels

By Pat Randle

The major networks and newspapers labelled women among the big losers in this November's political races. Women, particularly some of the. high-visibility candidates, didn't fare too well. Somehow the fact that Millicent Fenwick lost in New Jersey became equated with an overall loss by "women" and "feminists". The networks left it at that level of analysis; women candidates for Congress and governorships didn't win big, so women lost big.

The analysts also noted that NOW didn't support some of the women who lost. Many of those women were Republicans who voted against the NOW platform, and who ran against men who were closer to NOW's stands on the issues the organization chose to emphasize.

The only other occurrence the media found "newsworthy" about women in the 1982 election is that the "gender gap" is widening. Women are more likely than men to vote for candidates who oppose heavy deferise spending and support human services such as Aid to Dependent Children.

There was a lot going on that the "news analysts" failed to notice. Many victories didn't attract attention because they occurred at "lower" levels-in the state legislatures. State legislatures wield an enormous amount of power. The ERA lost in the statehouses across the country, not in Congress. And the people who later go on to win Congressional and gubernatorial seats often start out in the state legislature.

In Cuyahoga County, five of the fourteen representatives who will go to the statehouse are women. It's not representative of women in the entire population, 51 percent, but it's a far cry from the 4 percent of women who hold office in Congress. In the Ohio Legislature, Mary Boyle of Cleveland Heights will be the new majority whip. In Cuyahoga County, Elaine Fortney, a veteran campaign pro, is doing the day-today work of running the Democratic Party.

Another important trend which the mainstream media generally ignored was that 1982 heralded a new involvement of women's organizations in electoral politics. NOW learned the necessity of getting involved in electoral politics from the battles for the ERA, which was defeated on the state level. Kay Frano, President of Cleveland NOW, pointed out that the ERA loss brought the lesson home. "They'll have us dissipate our energy and march our feet into the ground as long as it doesn't get us where we want to be going," Frano said. "We have to try a new direction. We have to meet them on their own ground-but not become the same."

Chris Link of Education for Freedom of Choice in " Ohio (EFCO) said that 1982 was a good year for reproductive rights campaigning. Describing the work of the Cleveland Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL), one of the most active reproductive rights groups in this area, Link explained, "Clearly, one of their best results was moving the reproductive rights issue back into a spectrum where candidates could feel comfortable with it. In the 1980 elections, the whole reproductive rights movement finally woke up and realized that single issue politics fits electoral action very well. If you're bugging a legislator on a particular issue and you can prove you've got clout, either through voters or fundraising, you're going to have some standing with that' candidate."

Cleveland Women Working is another local group moving into electoral politics. Frances Sheehan ex-

•

plained that CWW is a direct action organization that usually targets specific corporations. This year, however, the organization polled its members and came up with a "Working Women's Agenda" that includes issues such as pay equity, pension reform, support for affirmative action and flextime. The organization interviewed candidates and publicized their stances on the Working Women's Agenda. Finally, CWW held its first candidates' forum.

Prior to 1982, Sheehan explained, "We'd never actually gotten involved in electoral politics to try and affect who gets elected. We thought it was rather dirty business, corrupt, etc.—all the stereotypes that are unfortunately half-true about electoral politics. What we did have, for the past two years, is a campaign against National City Bank. We were very pleased. We'd gotten the Labor Department to file discrimination charges against National City, and National City stood to pay $15 million in back pay to women and minorities. It would have been the first major bank settlement around discrimination law. It was very exciting and it was certainly well-deserved money for the women and minorities who worked there. Unfortunately, President, Reagan was elected. He fired all the lawyers on the case, reassigned them and there was a whole backroom deal in which National City just had to institute job posting which, according to its employees, is a joke. They do provide somewhat more educational funding for their employees, but it's sure not $15 million in back pay." The National City Bank setback boosted CWW into the electoral arena. "What we learned from that. lesson is that you can exercise a very well-strategized and carried-out campaign, and yet if the people who are in office don't cooperate with you and undermine what you're doing, you end up being a lot less effective. Getting involved in electoral politics, for us, was

Women's Press, Feb/Mar. 1980

really a matter of feeling we didn't have any other choice."

In questioning candidates, CWW sticks to "issues that directly affect office workers," Sheehan said. "We're as much a'labor organization as a women's organization." The group will continue its concentration on direct.action, and will be involved in electoral politics only on issues that relate directly to of fice workers in the workplace.

For feminists who want to take a more comprehensive approach, the dilemma remains: How do you choose between candidates when one is good on

"women's" issues such as abortion and equal pay, and the other is good on other issues such as more general economic reforms and defense spending? "There are going to be some really difficult issues for women in the 1984 election," said Chris Link. "John Glenn is being trotted out as the possible Democratic Party nominee. Speaking for myself, I think that Glenn is very good on women's issues and stinks on defense. He's a fiscal conservative, and I think we'll see a lot of Reagan-like policies from him, without all the 'nasty' stuff on 'social issues'."

In a system where money plays an increasingly important role in the political process, how do women, who lack economic power, gain political power? "We are never going to be able to match corporations or right-wing groups dollar for dollar," Link said. "We've got to have massive restructuring of the laws around political action committees, and there's never going to be a time when minorities and women are able to match that kind of money. It just isn't going to happen."

Kay Frano echoed similar sentiments. While NOW has political action committees that donate money to candidates, Frano agrees that NOW will not be able to compete with the Chamber of Commerce and other right-wing PACS in fund-raising ability. The alternative is for women to develop political power through a method other than financing campaigns. And that's exactly what they're starting to do through organizations such as NOW and CARAL. "Where we can match and supersede them, and they've seen this in CARAL, is by providing the foot soldiers, the campaign workers," Link said. “Any smart campaign organizer will tell you that one good, steady volunteer is worth a $1,000 contribution to a campaign."

CARAL, Link said, took a methodical approach in deciding whom to work for in 1982. “You have to look for people with winning potential. CARAL· started out with a real grass roots effort, making sure members were registered to vote, then funneling people into campaigns at a very basic level-envelope stuffing, the scutwork." CARAL supporters took care to get involved in campaigns where the races were fairly close, Link said, so that their work would really, have an effect. "Surprisingly, for the people who had any ambition to be doing more, it was very easy for them in a matter of weeks to move into key roles in the campaigns."

In national and statewide elections, the important races are the primaries, Link said. "A lot of the women's organizations got in early on Dick Celeste's race. In March of last year, nobody thought Dick had a snowball's chance in hell. It was the same with Ed Feighan. He won the primary by a thousand votes-and that's the kind of race women's organizations have to get involved in. Ed Feighan won because he was good on a lot of issues NOW and CARAL supported. CARAL had at least 800 members alone." She points out that Feighan, who in 1980 supported an amendment to ban abortion, is now strongly pro-choice, a result, Link feels, of CARAL's help on his campaign. By working closely with a candidate, and helping when help is first needed, campaign workers can develop a trust with that candidate. Later, that translates into clout on the issues.

After the primaries, CARAL shifted its efforts to people who really needed the help. In the general election, CARAL focused on the state legislature, where it could have the most impact and where, Link

·(continued on page 15)

Bat.December, 1982 What She Wants/Page 3