State Voices

You cannot eliminate…the salary factor as a hindrance [to women’s representation] because the women who are in leadership…they are already leading a company or they are a business owner or founder. That’s a hard position to step away from for a $40,000 [legislative] salary or whatever it is now. …I mean just something abysmal, right? And I know they say it’s a part-time job, but it’s not. And not to mention, when you are in those positions, the risk is high to make yourself political on one side or the other and does that harm or hurt your business in any way? Women are kind of willing to play that out a little bit. And especially if they’re the breadwinner for their family, which we know four in ten women are the breadwinners for their families, that’s a tough consideration to take."

The leadership has made a concerted effort to recruit female candidates. …They want women in their caucus. …I think so much of [the hurdle to increasing women’s political representation] is internal issues that are broad for women of imposter syndrome. And I think that women in general want to know that everything is kind of like buttoned up and, ‘What’s the plan?’ and, ‘What’s the path?’ is what I see from a lot of candidates. And then the dudes are a little bit more like, ‘Whatever, I’ll do it.’ And I want women to feel the same way."

Women have to write checks. …And if you want to grow influence all money is, is access – its access and influence. It is not quid pro quo. It’s not any of that. It’s to open a door. And women are not giving. …If you want to affect political change and gain influence, it’s writing checks, hosting a fundraiser [and] knocking it out of the park. And then, you know what, you can do a hell [of a lot] more good often than being elected. …But that’s where women have got to get more engaged. Just go knock some doors on a Saturday and write a check for $250 [and] your influence just skyrockets."

There [were] two things that happened simultaneously that I could kind of put my finger on [that contributed to the increase of women in politics]. It was one, women just coming to the revelation that these guys are screwing this thing up and we’re going to get in the game because this can be better. We can be better than this. There was that element. But I also think…that, at the same time, …there was this recognition of realizing that women are just formidable candidates."

Most people who are involved in politics, there’s somebody who’s their champion. There’s somebody who looks out for them. …Their family [is] involved in politics or they come from money. Girl, I don’t have any of that pedigree. My parents never made $50,000 combined my entire life, okay, and they’re hard-working people. They came to Illinois during the great migration for the job opportunities and were just real hard-working southern, God-fearing people."

One of the things that I have made it [my] business to do for the last seven years is to help women, but in particular help African American women, particularly financially because it is probably the biggest hurdle that African American women run into when they want to run for office because running for office is just really freakin’ expensive."

There were practically [no women lobbyists] when I first got [to the Illinois legislature] and then their numbers have increased very significantly. There’s a whole organization of women lobbyists. …Their numbers have really proliferated. It’s quite a joy to see. I would think then it’s true of lobbyists of color and I think it got to the point where the Black members [indicated] if you don’t have a Black person lobbying, I’m not going to be for you. I mean it became kind of crass, I would say. And I don’t think that the women use that strategy in quite the same way, but there’s no question there’s been a big improvement."

Our actual political environment in the [Oklahoma State] Capitol is still very stunted by traditional gender roles. So I’m all for thinking about it as a high-level game of chess or something like that. But that is what it is. And I think whenever it is that women realize that in their journey, it sort of leads you down one of two paths. You either go, ‘Oh, okay, well I’ll just sort of play into this and do…what I need to do and take on the role that I need to take on in order to get things done for people who aren’t here.’ Or it goes completely the opposite and it just kind of eats you up, or can eat a person up, when there’s a lashing out and isolation that happens. …I’ve seen that happen so many times where somebody who doesn’t want to take on that antiquated [gender] role, and rightly so, is completely iced out in a very high school or middle school kind of way. And it’s so frustrating to see because you’re like, well yeah, I mean you just have to make a decision about which way that you want to go, but really we shouldn’t have to."

To me at this point, as a Democrat and a woman in a huge supermajority legislature, it feels like martyrdom. [Interview conducted in February 2022 before Bell left the legislature.]"

Turns out there was a lobbyist who…they were worried that [our majority leader] was going to be extra high-strung because she’s pregnant, right? …And I almost lost my mind. Because I mean no one would question a man who is 38 if his wife was pregnant – [asking] how is he going to be a father and do his job or anything like that. I mean, it didn’t feel like we were in 2021. It felt like we were in 1950. So I mean those things persist and they present themselves in all kinds of new interesting ways. But they’re there."

I haven’t [seen a support infrastructure for Black women in Nevada politics]. That’s something…that we need to work on. I think it’s often one of the last groups to be looked at when it comes to these types of things is Black women, right? So yes we have women and we want to generally increase diversity, but that comes in the form of – you know, we’ve got a speaker of the Assembly right now [who’s] a Black man, right? The attorney general was a Black man. But the Black women piece has been neglected a bit. [Interview conducted in February 2022.]"

I think the party has, in fact, focused on women but not Black women in particular. But ‘the party apparatus,’ of course, it’s always beneficial to have them pushing for something, right? If the Democratic Party in the State of Nevada decided we’re going to elevate Black women, they could do it today, you know. …[The ‘party appartus’ is] all the traditional folks you would think, the Governor the people who run the party. And I think to some extent, right, they are on board in theory. But, again, it’s a different thing when it comes down to practical decisions like who [are] you going to appoint? [Interview conducted in February 2022.]"