State Voices

I will tell you in the past five years I would tell you that there has not been any effort by the party regulars in Illinois to try and have a diverse face. …I think they’re perfectly happy to look exactly like they do. [Interview conducted in July 2022.]"

When I think about power, I think of it as a constant moving structure. And it’s more collected and shared, and not forced and pushed, because when you force and push something, you can’t really move it. You could try but it’s going to take a lot of effort. But if you engage with it, then it often will move by itself. …And then it’s more of a collective power, but not for the reasons that advocates talk about collectivity, but more because of the energy that transpires when you share that movement with others."

I’ve been someone who over the years [has] helped sponsor the Anstine program. I understand the value of it. I’m reaching out to them for candidates or for folks to help in different areas. …The program is great, but it’s up to the rest of us to help utilize those folks afterwards. Or else we’re right back to gender-specific training. But if there’s no follow up, if there’s no ask afterwards, if there’s no keeping them involved in politics, then they fall off to the wayside. Yeah, that’s what we don’t want. And that’s on all of us to do. Look, in some ways, this is probably, I don’t want to set anything backwards or make it sound bad. But women aren’t going to solve this problem by themselves. They need all the folks who are in the establishment who are kind of the old white men, [they] have to welcome them in and bring them in and find opportunities. Because if not, it’s hard to do yourself if you’re on the outside. It’s hard to get on the inside. It’s a very difficult process and it’s intimidating, and it isn’t something that anybody would want to do. The number one reason people don’t get involved in politics is because they aren’t asked. It’s not because they don’t believe in it. It’s not because they don’t have a desire to change things. It’s not that they don’t want to be part of it. It’s that they don’t get asked. And I think that’s even more heightened with women. If we’re not asking them to do things, if we’re not inviting them in, if we’re not telling them we want their perspective, then they’ve got other stuff to do, just like everyone does. But if you’re not in their face, like trying to make opportunities for them, then it’s not going to be their priority."

The woman who was in charge of the webinar said… ‘Legislatures are a team sport. They’re a collective. And a woman doesn’t have any more power than the group has.’ That’s a good way to look at it. She says, ‘We won’t make real progress with women in politics until we have more women who are executives.’ And having been the chair of the Nevada Gaming Control Board – an executive branch position – and the executive of that particular branch, I found what she had to say incredibly enlightening because she’s absolutely right. Until you are the final and sole decision-maker, women can be in legislatures and that’s a wonderful thing – I don’t want to minimize that – but the true power lies in the executive. …So we’re making progress with women in legislatures…but until we have more women executives, we’re not really making progress. And I mean that not just for Nevada, I mean that as a country."

What I will tell you is when I was the speaker I put a lot of women that were uncomfortable into leadership roles [like] the chair of [a committee]. [Women would say], ‘I don’t know anything about tax.’ [I would say] ‘I know, but you’re going to be okay. I will help you do this.’"

I think the biggest impediment to women in general is the fundraising aspect of things. Whenever I get a phone call from a candidate who maybe is running for Assembly, I always find that women have a tendency to sort of like apologize in their requests. And I’m like, ‘Do you think a guy would ever do that when they call up someone? They’re not going to. You deserve this. Make your strongest case.’ And so I think that type of coaching is important."

My involvement was because I felt as a Latina, as a woman, I was not being represented fairly and [my predecessor on the county board] happened to be a Latino man but he just wasn’t representing the values of the district or wasn’t being forthcoming in sharing what was going on in the county so I ran. I didn’t ask for permission. …It was the same thing when I ran for the state legislature. I went and ran for it. I knew I could do a really good job. I had all this experience. I worked hard and I knew I could win this and I could go down in Springfield and represent it."

I think one of the things that we need to start focusing on, or women need to really kind of involve themselves [in], is all levels at government. Sometimes you have women who want to run for the highest seat which is great. I think that awesome. But we also keep forgetting our city councils and school boards and even county boards, right? There [are] many opportunities to serve and we need women to serve at all levels. As I say, you are either at the table or on the menu and it’s very important for women of all diverse backgrounds to serve at all levels of government."

I don’t want to recruit women just for the sake of recruiting women. You want the best candidate. But when you look out there in the communities, there are good females that are great businesswomen. Like nobody had looked at me and I don’t know why. When I called my state rep, she said, ‘It never occurred to me that you’d be interested. You have the perfect resume.’"

I’m trying to get out there and be supportive of females. But I think when you see that we don’t really have a bench, I think it shows the need for women to be active both as candidates but also we need people that will support candidates – voters, donors, activists – I think they have to work together hand in hand. [Interview conducted in June 2022.]"

On the Republican side there doesn’t seem to be much of a focus on building a bench, a solid bench of people that can move up. And so you look – it’s pretty bad when I run and I’ve never had any political experience. So I hope that we start to see that change a bit and I do think there seems to be a trend. I think we’re lagging, but I think there seems to be a recognition that females are doing quite well when they run. But still when you look at recruitment, it seems like men are still pushed more to take advantage of those political openings. ….[Republican leaders are] certainly talking about [women in politics] more…because now they are looking to recruit me for everything. …I’m the only bench we have right now. [Interview conducted in June 2022.]"

I was the first woman majority whip in the House. And guess what? Some guy said, ‘I just got elected to this new position they created for me, vice chair of the Democratic Caucus, and I’m going to be in that office, not Orrock. That’s going to be my office.’ …I realized oh no they fully intend to do this. Nobody’s going to stick up for me. That speaker is not going to stick up for me against his buddy who’s pitching a fit that he’s going to be in that office. So I got my girlfriends and we went down on the weekend and moved my stuff into the office. …It took that for me to be able to be in the majority whip’s office…sitting right beside the majority leader. …I had to look out for my damn self."