The Congressional Ceiling

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When Martha Coakley lost to Scott Brown in Massachusetts last month, some couldn’t help but point to the fact that Coakley was a woman, and perhaps that was the reason for her loss. Wendy Kaminer, in the virtual pages of the Atlantic, called it the “Emily’s List effect”: nominating pro-choice women for office just because they are women and not necessarily because they are good candidates.

Over the past decade, female representation in Congress has increased from 13 to 17 percent, hardly a momentous shift. Today, 90 of Congress’ 535 members of are women. In local government, female representation is slightly higher at 24 percent. This underrepresentation translates into unfriendly policies for women, as many women’s rights activists have seen with the Stupak and Nelson amendments to the health care reform bills. EMILY’s List, one of the largest PACs providing millions of dollars to female candidates around the country, is one of the groups working to change those numbers.

“When women run, they win at the same rate as men,” says Julie Daniels, Political Programs Manager at the Women’s Campaign Forum; the problem is that not enough women think about running.

WCF is addressing the social and psychological impediments that keep women from running for office. Rather than simply search for female candidates to support, they seek to increase the number of women running across the board. A 2004 study (PDF) shows that women need to be asked six times by people they trust before they will run for office, so WFC launched She Should Run, an online nomination tool launched in 2007 to provide women with one of those six critical asks. “Women are not socialized to take leadership roles,” Daniels says; twice as many men consider running for office.

“Several friends had asked me to consider running,” says Garnet Lewis, who ran for State Representative in Michigan’s 98th district in 2008. A few years ago, Lewis attended one of many Run Girl Run workshops held in Michigan to encourage and train women to enter politics. Inspired, she decided to run.

The next hurdle was money. Women simply are not taught to compete and sell themselves in the same way that men are, Daniels explains, and this makes fundraising the number one challenge for female candidates. “Once I decided to run,” says Lewis, “women’s organizations sought me out.” Both EMILY’s List and its Michigan equivalent, MI List, contacted Lewis and offered their support. Their training and fundraising were crucial; women’s organizations, as well as the gay and lesbian Victory Fund and local labor organizations, contributed 35 percent of the $145,000 Lewis raised. Fundraising weighs heavily on anyone considering a run for office, says Lewis, and the help of pro-female candidate organizations is key.

Even with the support of such organizations, Lewis says her pro-choice stance was a big challenge. “It’s hard being a pro-choice female candidate in this day and age,” she told me, “it’s a lot of pressure from the pro-life side.”

Running in a conservative area, Lewis was aware that her pro-choice beliefs could be an issue. During her campaign, men would ask Lewis if she was pro-choice or pro-life; they said wouldn’t vote for her because abortion was a chief concern. At The Daily Beast, Hugh Ryan cited a 2009 Gallup poll showing that only 39 percent of men identify as pro-choice, he concludes that “On the pro-choice side, abortion is seen as a women’s issue, while on the pro-life side, it’s seen as a religious issue that knows no gender boundaries.”

Lewis ran for a seat long held by Republicans and lost, but she says the journey itself was worthwhile. For her campaign staff, made up mostly of female volunteers, the campaign was an empowering experience. Several of her former volunteers are now considering their own run for office. Lewis’ former staffer and friend Toni Sessions is currently running for state representative in the Michigan’s 99th District. With current levels of under representation of women and people of color in public office and the concomitant effect on women’s legislative battles, one of the best ways to get women into politics is by example.

So for all the work groups that try to elect women to office do, more is needed. Recently, large feminist organizations like EMILY’s List have come under fire from those like Kaminer for pouring money into ineffective electoral strategies. Critics want a new strategy going forward. An angry blogger on Daily Kos set off a firestorm when she railed against large feminist organizations for their stale, ineffective strategies: “They’ve failed to adapt their movement and their message to a new era and a new generation of would-be feminists. Where are the bumper sticker slogans, the tactics, the refreshed, revised 21st century approach to a problem as old as time?”

As a result, EMILY’s List is trying to reinvent itself in the Internet era. Founder Ellen Malcolm recently stepped down and made way for a new president, the 36-year-old progressive campaign and Internet guru, Stephanie Schriock. The organization portrayed the shift as passing the torch from Malcolm’s second-wave generation of feminists to techy Millennials like Schriock. Time will tell if this new strategy will improve its slipping fundraising numbers. Julie Daniels is more skeptical of the Internet as the women’s movement’s cure-all. “Not everyone has a computer, but it’s one more resource that’s out there,” she says. Certainly, it’s a resource young people are likely to latch on to.

Lewis plans to run again if redistricting reduces her district’s conservative edge, showing that even a loss hasn’t caused her to lose her taste for political office. If more women enter government, reproductive rights and other women’s issues like pay equity and child care will certainly fare better. Perhaps one day, the “EMILY’s List effect” will have a different meaning.

Pema Levy is a staff writer for Campus Progress.