Women’s Rights

OVERVIEW:

• Women are only 18 percent of Congress and 24 percent of state legislators.
• Most women candidates are significantly underfunded compared to men.
• Issues like domestic violence, women’s healthcare, and the poverty of female-headed poor families are neglected by most politicians today.
• Women, according to national polls, are generally more supportive of social problems supporting poor people, of education and health care programs, and less supportive of military action

IN-DEPTH:

According to the Center for American Women and Politics, women hold only 22 percent of statewide elected offices, 24 percent of state legislative offices and less than 20 percent of the seats in Congress. Considering that women make up over half the U.S. population, these numbers are painfully low. The present system of private campaign funding by a small group of wealthy individuals is inaccessible for most women who would like to run for office. Men contribute the majority of campaign money to candidates. Women still earn less than men, and contribute significantly less to political campaigns.

Women’s serious fundraising disadvantage is a major source of their under-representation in elective office. With Fair Elections, however, women have a chance to run for office without depending on big contributions. Fair elections systems play to women’s strengths and make it more affordable to run for office.

WOMEN, POLITICS AND FAIR ELECTIONS

Women candidates have especially been hurt by private big money dominating politics.  Fortunately, in increasing numbers of states, cities and counties,  candidates from all backgrounds have the opportunity to mount competitive campaigns for office by collecting small donations and then receiving a public grant to fund their campaigns. Fair Elections, by eliminating politicians’ dependence on big money, is today strengthening democracy and  creating a political system where all voices are equal.

In 1996, Maine voters approved the Maine Fair Elections Act. Today, 84 percent of the legislature consists of Fair Elections candidates. Farmers, waitresses, librarians, and small business owners have consistently run and won “Fair.”

More women today are running in Maine thanks to Fair Elections. In the 2006 election cycle, nearly one third of all Senate candidates were women and 28 percent of House candidates were women. Eighteen percent more women have run for office under Fair Elections than in the decade before the law was implemented.

Women candidates in Maine cite the Fair Elections law as a “very” important factor in their decision to run for office. Rep. Deborah Simpson (D-Auburn, ME) is in office today because of Fair Elections. Just a few years ago, she was a waitress in a diner, going to college, and raising her young child by herself. She was politically involved but never considered being able to run for office. Then Fair Elections came along.

“The tipping thing for me was that I could see that with Fair Elections it was doable,” says Simpson. “I could manage to get the qualifying contributions and the budget to campaign. I’d have the resources without having to figure out how to ask for money from donors when I really didn’t live in that world.” Today, as chair of the Maine House judiciary committee, she’s in office advocating for those who don’t have a voice. “Every year I try to do things I think make the laws work better for people—especially for people who have difficulty.”

Rep. Nancy Smith, a farmer, also has praise for Fair Elections: “I’m a farmer and I think it’s important that farmers have their voice in the legislature but farmers don’t have access to buckets of money and our friends don’t have buckets of money.”  And Rep. Hannah Pingree, at 28 the youngest person and only the third woman to be elected Majority Leader, was also elected “Fair.”

Now serving as President Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security, former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano (D-AZ) was reelected twice, after being the first governor ever elected using full public financing of elections. Overall, nine of 11 statewide officials and 42 percent of the AZ legislature used the state’s Fair Elections system to win their races.

On her first day in office in 2003, Arizona’s democratic governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona signed legislation allowing the state to buy prescription drugs in bulk to lower prices. “If I had not run Fair, I would surely have been paid visits by numerous campaign contributors representing pharmaceutical interests and the like, urging me either to shelve that idea or to create it in their image,” she said. “They would be wielding the implied threat to yank their support and shop for an opponent in four years.”

Of the 34 women who won state office in Arizona in 2006, 21 ran as Fair Elections candidates, including 18 of 31 legislators. In the 2006 primary election, 69 percent of female candidates used the Fair Elections program.

Since the implementation of the full public funding system in Arizona, the percentage of minority candidates has more than doubled. Participation by people of color and minority candidates has been higher than 50 percent in each election since the system began.

“When you think about Fair Election, the first word that comes to my mind is ‘fairness’ because it beings about inclusiveness, it also brings about a good amount of competitiveness and it opens it up in diversity, as well,” said Sen. Leah Landrum-Taylor, chair of the AZ. Legislative Black Caucus. And “The best thing about running Fair is that when you’re in office, no one can pressure you to vote in a certain way,” said Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a gay legislator, professor and former social worker  who now is a US Senator.

At the federal level, House of Representatives in 2019 passed the “For The People ACT” that includes public campaign financing “Fair and Fair Elections” and Senate members have sponsored a similar bill but not yet passed it.  As our political system is increasingly dominated by big money bundlers and wealthy political insiders,  Fair Elections is demonstrating that there is a way to make democracy about voters  and give women a real voice.