NEWS

Miss. plants seeds to elect first woman to Congress

Deborah Barfield Berry
Clarion-Ledger Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Jennifer Gregory traveled to Rutgers University last week to scope out a program that trains women to run for office. She plans to set up a similar program in Mississippi — and maybe even help a candidate make history as the first woman from the state elected to Congress.

Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., stands with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., for a ceremonial swearing-in on Jan. 3, 2017. She made history as the first woman and African American to represent Delaware in Congress.

“We need to do a better job of empowering women and of training them,’’ said Gregory, program director for the Stennis Center for Public Service in Starkville, Miss. “We need more women in positions of influence. Hopefully that will materialize into a woman running for Congress and ultimately being elected.”

It’s a formidable challenge. Mississippi is one of only two states never to elect a woman to Congress. The other is Vermont. But the smaller, more liberal-leaning state has elected a woman to serve as governor, and Mississippi has not.

“It is a state with a very conservative political culture to say the least,” said Debbie Walsh, director of Rutger’s Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). “Women are kind of behind the eight ball there.”

Until recently, Iowa and Delaware were also among the states that hadn’t elected a woman to Congress. But Iowa elected Republican Joni Ernst to the Senate in 2014, and last year Delaware sent Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester to serve in the House.

Gregory hopes to capitalize on the growing interest of women in politics as evidenced by the thousands who joined the Women's March on Washington in January and the rally in Jackson, Mississippi.

Gregory attended the “Ready to Run” program hosted by CAWP so she can create a state version of the nonpartisan training program for women. Plans are already under way for “Mississippi Ready to Run” in Jackson in September.

“More than ever, people — and women in particular — are seeing that there is a place for them in the political process whether that be at the grass-roots level or Congress,’’ she said. “That momentum, that realization ... is a good boost to fuel these efforts."

Separately, the Stennis Center and the Mississippi University for Women run the Mississippi NEW (National Education for Women’s)  Leadership Program, a weeklong program aimed at encouraging college women to become more politically involved.

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Political experts said part of the challenge is convincing women to enter politics.

“We know from research that women tend to need more encouragement to run,” said Heather Ondercin, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi. “It’s hard any place to recruit women to run.”

Political experts said efforts to increase the number of women in Congress are also hampered by the small number of women in state legislatures, often the pipeline to statewide and federal offices.

Women make up 13.8 percent of Mississippi’s state legislature, according to CAWP. “You’re talking about a pretty small pool to draw on to run for these congressional seats,” Walsh said.

Mississippi is among the 10 states, most in the South, with the smallest number of female state legislators. The list includes Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming.

"It’s not just a Mississippi phenomenon,” Walsh said.

But other states in the South, including Louisiana and South Carolina, have elected female governors. In Louisiana, Mary Landrieu served as a Democratic senator for 18 years. Alabama has two women in the House, Reps. Martha Roby, a Republican, and Terri Sewell, a Democrat.

“Still Mississippi is sitting there with nothing,” Walsh said. “I’m not sure what is preventing Mississippi from getting out of that club.”

Ondercin said one factor is that the Republican Party is dominant in the state, and Republicans have not historically been as aggressive in recruiting and supporting female candidates as Democrats or special interest groups.

Joni Ernst, now Iowa's junior senator, thanks supporters in West Des Moines on Nov. 4, 2014, after defeating Democrat Rep. Bruce Braley for the Senate seat of Tom Harkin.

There have been four women elected to statewide offices in Mississippi, according to CAWP.

State Treasurer Lynn Fitch and Cindy Hyde-Smith, the commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce, both Republicans, are currently in office. Amy Tuck, a Republican, served as elected lieutenant governor from 2000 to 2008.

The late Evelyn Gandy, a Democrat, was the first woman elected state treasurer in 1960. She was also the first woman state insurance commissioner and first woman lieutenant governor.

“Mississippi is a hard place to serve as a leader in the political arena,'' said Fitch, who is serving her second term. "We’re certainly due to have women move to that leadership role in the U.S. Congress ... We’ve just been slow to cultivate individuals to move to that next step."

State Treasurer Lynn Fitch

Fitch and experts say fewer women in the Statehouse or Congress mean some issues, such as pay equity, may not be prioritized.

"It’s critical to have the women’s perspective in the Legislature, and I think it would be extremely important to have it from a U.S. (Congress) perspective,'' said Fitch. "We’ve not been able to close that gap, unfortunately.''

Fitch, who said Gandy was her mentor, is keeping her options open, but says she's focusing now on her job as treasurer. “I’ve always had a public service heart,’’ she said.

Ondercin said she doesn’t expect change soon, particularly since there aren’t likely to be open seats in the Mississippi delegation.

Republican Sen. Thad Cochran won his re-election bid in 2014. Republican Sen. Roger Wicker is up for re-election next year, but his leadership role in the Senate will probably ward off challenges.

“Unless an incumbent backs down, a change in the next election cycle is not likely to occur,'' said Ondercin. "It’s a very slow process to get changes in elected bodies. That’s true in Mississippi, but it’s also true in other states as well.”

Gregory said efforts to train and recruit more women is a start to someday electing a woman to represent Mississippi in Congress. “It’s something that might not happen overnight, but I definitely believe wholeheartedly that that will happen,’’ she said.

Follow Deborah Barfield Berry on Twitter: @dberrygannett