State Voices

Well as a female and as the first female in 25 years to be elected as a state party chairman, I’m aware of [pressure put on leaders to promote greater gender and racial diversity]. However, as a true Republican, we do not, in general, support promoting one gender over another for the purpose of promoting one gender over another. I would not go out and just recruit a female to run against a male just so we can potentially get another female in there to meet some type of a quota or some other type of parameter that’s being set. That being said, we actively recruit and encourage women and minorities. …We actively work with them and recruit them and provide any help and support we can, but we don’t choose to support one gender over another just for the purpose of being able to say we have…"

I think one of the differences is that in the Democrat Party it appears to us that they do target a female, put all the resources behind that female. And I’m not going to question motives…I’m not going to assign a motive behind any of this. But that is the practice that I’ve been told amongst the Democrat Party. …I’m not going to say that’s a bad thing. We [Republicans] are just very focused on…it being the will of the voters and fair, open elections. And I have not experienced or witnessed a prejudice as a woman that I think would cause me to not run or to be defeated in an election."

And I think that’s where we are in Oklahoma now. We’re to the point to where any woman that is interested in running will run…without prejudice. …I know they will run [with the] full support of the political parties here. And so…we’re just looking for the women who have the desire to step up and run."

It is not that Oklahomans won’t vote for women, that’s not the problem. It’s that we don’t have enough women that will run."

One of our goals [for PowHER PAC] isn’t just the financial support [for women candidates]; it’s the network that we’re missing. The good old boys’ club is the thing which we can complain about all day or we just create a good old girls’ club. So our goal is to create that good old girls’ club where we can support young women or just women; they don’t have to be young. [They] have to be interested, engaged women. [Interview conducted in February 2022.]"

I think that the value of having more women in elected office is that younger people can see that it is possible. …That is always the value of having people in public that are role models."

I do see a huge difference in the generations. These younger women coming up – they are much more likely to jump in and run [for political office]. They know they can do it. They’ve been leading at their universities and other places."

[The financial giving piece is] where I think we still struggle when you talk about [women]. I don’t have a list of the donors in front of me, but…if you took the top 50 donors in Pennsylvania, what percentage of those are males, white males? …Pretty high I’m sure. So how do we – because there are wealthy women out there – how do we get them more engaged in this process?"

The thinking that I think people have is that a white guy can represent anybody. You hear it in a lot of the conversations about the Supreme Court – ‘Hey, we can’t have a Black woman because she’s going to have her own agenda.’ Well, don’t you think the white guys have their own agenda, too? But it’s just a different way of thinking. It’s a universality that’s given to white men that’s not given to others. And so, in some areas and in some districts around the state, [party leaders are] willing to say, ‘Hey, this is a mostly white district so a woman would be okay, but Black women can only represent Black people.’ And that is kind of the thinking."

Just the fact that I walked in the room with [Speaker Madigan] gave me immediately a sense of credibility, but I still had to earn it, right? …Behind the scenes, [I] had to earn it in order to get into that [leadership role]. And then in public with the members and with others I still had to prove to them, to some extent, that I was in that position for a reason. I don’t necessarily think men ever feel that same way."

Let me start by saying while I’m very proud to hold the title as the first Latina in the state Senate, it is crazy and a little bit infuriating that it took until 2017 for that to happen. Yes, [I’m] super proud [and] happy to carry that with me for the rest of my life but I, from day one, felt a supreme sense of responsibly to make sure that that door that was opened for me was torn off its hinges for other Latinas and other women, and women of color more specifically, who were thinking about being in the political space."

There are serious structural barriers that make [the legislature] difficult to serve in. It is a part-time body that meets every other year for 120 days. You are only paid when you are in session despite having tons of work outside of session. You are not assigned any sort of assistant outside of the session. And there are term limits, so you get really good at what you are doing and then you are termed out and you are up for election every two years in the Assembly or four years in the Senate. …Even if you can make it work for a session, making it work for six sessions assumes you have a job that is okay with you missing the time necessary to fulfill your duties to the people who you serve. It assumes that perhaps you are independently wealthy or have some sort of financial grounding so you can miss work for six months every other year. And it means that you have to have a family life that allows you to uproot from southern Nevada to northern Nevada in those cases, unless you live in Carson City. And that’s hard. I think that a lot of things have to be in place for serving in the legislature to make sense, and that’s not unique to Latinas or any other group. It’s just a tough body to enter into, I think. But there are lots of other levels of potential offices to run in that don’t have the same structural barriers."