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Subject: POLITICS=Record Numbers Of Women to Take Statehouse Seats<
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 09:18:27 EST
Message-ID: <27.1992Nov22.091827@AmeriCast.com>

POLITICS=Record Numbers Of Women to Take Statehouse Seats<

While the spotlight has been on the record number of women elect-
ed to the 103rd Congress - they will make up about 10 percent of
the 535 voting  members - women also will be represented in
record numbers in state legislatures across the country.

As a result of this month's elections, women will constitute 20
percent of state legislators in 1993, up from 5 percent in 1971
and 18 percent this year, according to the Center for the Ameri-
can Woman and Politics at Rutgers University. More than 60 per-
cent of them are Democrats; 38.5 percent are Republicans.

Ruth Mandel, the center's director, predicted that "these women
will have a distinctive impact on public policies, especially af-
fecting women, children and families."

The center's research shows that female legislators do more for
women and are more likely to conduct government business openly.

Washington state leads the nation with 38 percent of its legisla-
tors female. Washington also elected women to one of its two U.S.
Senate seats, three of its nine U.S. House seats and four of nine
elected executive offices.

In congressional and legislative races, according to Lucy Baruch,
the center's information coordinator, "women incumbents were
highly likely to win and women challenging incumbents had the
toughest races, winning only rarely."

She said it was "especially important for women to pursue nomina-
tions for open seats," noting that more than half the women who
sought open seats won.

First for L.A. Board<Former representative Yvonne Brathwaite
Burke (D-Calif.) became the first black elected to the Los
Angeles Board of Supervisors when the county registrar-recorder's
office Thursday declared her the winner over state Sen. Diane
Watson by 2,583 votes out of more than 400,000 cast.

Watson, however, has refused to concede defeat, asserting  her
campaign had found evidence of vote-tampering and improper count-
ing. She said she was considering calling for a recount or taking
court action.

Watson and Burke are both Democrats; the supervisor's race is
nonpartisan.

Burke was the first black woman ever elected to the state Assem-
bly, serving from 1967 to 1972, and later became California's
first black congresswoman.

She ran for state attorney general, losing to George Deukmejian
in 1978. Deukmejian later became governor.

Burke became the first black member of the board when she was ap-
pointed to a seat in 1979 by then-Gov. Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown
Jr. (D).  She lost an election a few months later to present
board Chairman Deane Dana.  GOP Freshmen Meet<Republican House
freshmen will gather today in Omaha for a summit on congressional
reforms, even though the Republican who planned the summit lost
his bid for a seat in Congress. What is more, the gathering will
be less grand than Tom Huening of Northern California, the origi-
nal organizer, had imagined.

More than 150 House candidates signed up for what was conceived
as a bipartisan mustering of rebels, but fewer than 20 of those
candidates won election.

At least 20 Republican members-elect now are expected to attend
the summit meetings, which begin informally today with a recep-
tion and are scheduled to conclude Tuesday.

Huening invited the 110 members of the Class of 1992 and then
turned over organizing duties to Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Florida
state senator and Republican freshman from the Miami area. A few
dropped out, others signed up, but no Democrats committed to
come.  Nearly all Democratic freshmen met privately with their
party's House leaders at three unprecedented regional meetings
the week after the election.

Unlike the Democratic meetings - which focused on the economy,
health care and deficit reduction - the Republican sessions in
Omaha are to center on changes in congressional rules and pro-
cedures. The call for congressional reform had been a major cam-
paign issue for most of these freshmen. The Republicans are to
hear presentations from Common Cause, the League of Women Voters
and U.S. Term Limits Campaign. - Maralee Schwartz>and Kenneth J.
Cooper>02:25 11-22C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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