State Voices

I would bet the data shows that [imposing term limits] does diversify but it doesn’t increase power because women are already…represented in lesser numbers. And then they start getting good at their policy area, learning their chairpersonship, and then they are termed out. Then they never get to the level that they should because term limits kick in and they are bumped out. …These powerhouse women then term out and they are not there to mentor other young women."

I think the strongest support once you are elected is finding other women who are in it with you. My two closest friends in the legislature were the two other women that I started in the legislature with because there we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed sitting in the state senate for the first time altogether. And that was really powerful."

I think there’s been an understanding that the [Democratic] party needs to move as its constituency moves and so there’s been deliberate efforts not only to diversify those running for office but [also] to diversity staff and diversity party leadership. And at all levels I think there’s been an acknowledgement that representation matters whether it’s in party leadership or elected leadership."

Over the last decade a program called Emerge has gained strong footing and gotten better and better at training women to run for office. And as a result there is this pool of women who are trained to be candidates who are either running for or preparing to run for office every cycle. And that kind of bench-building makes it so you have more women than men running for the legislature. It’s just – there’s more in the pool. So they get recruited and they have already shown an interest and without that kind of training program it goes back to this idea of you don’t know what you don’t know. You may be a woman who’s sitting around thinking it would be cool to be an Assembly member. No idea how to do it. But with training you get there. [Interview conducted in February 2022.]"

I have utilized my platform to share why it’s necessary [to have greater gender and racial diversity among elected officials]. …I always explain to the [Republican] party that…representation and symbolism are two totally different things. You are not playing identity politics when you are backing a minority who you know is qualified to operate in the role. What you are doing though is that you’re aiding and creating representation. If I didn’t see Condoleezza Rice, I don’t know – I mean who would I look up to, right? Who can I see? You need to see yourself."

I’ve always encouraged minorities and the parties to grow and to run, particularly women – [who] are a minority in the Republican Party – as well. So that is definitely an area…that we have encouraged, but we try our best to stay in the vein of meritocracy. …We believe that representation is definitely necessary. But to me representation means that, yes, you may fit a certain identifier but that’s not all of you; you have so much more. And we look for the so much more. …We’re anti-symbolism because symbolism has not vied well or shown to be productive or produce results. So for me – while I do look for females to run for office, I don’t look only for females for a symbolic reason. I look for women who are doing great things. We are accomplishing a lot. We’re extremely intelligent. We are as equal as everyone else and so I don’t have a problem looking for good quality candidates. And in doing so I’ve found females as well as other minorities in the group, too."

I think the more women can get a seat at the table where decisions are being made is important. So in the state government maybe it’s the chief of staff, senior advisor roles in the governor’s office [or] the attorney general’s office, or making sure that…women are not afraid to step into those roles where they’re not just in the room, but also putting themselves out there as being the spokesperson. …The more ubiquitous women are – speaking for the Department of Health or speaking for the Department of Education or secretary of state or all of those positions – and again, it doesn’t have to be the principal, it can be the spokesperson [or] the chief of staff. We’ve got to build the bench in that way."

[As a pregnant candidate for mayor,] there were people I know did not vote for me because they thought I was not going to take the job seriously enough because I was going to have a child."

I wasn’t sure yet exactly what I wanted to apply for. I had an idea of it and I was really able to plan things out through [Emerge]. And it was a really great bonding experience, too, with the other women involved in the program. I still talk to many of them. …And some of those connections were even more important than the training itself because you have those women you can rely on. They had come up and helped to canvas for me when I was running for office. We all are very supportive of one another and sometimes I think as a female candidate others might not feel like they have that support. So that network was really helpful and then in building my confidence, as all believing like, ‘Okay, now we have the skills and the tools and we really can run for office if that’s what we want to do.’"

Especially over the last four or five years, I think the Trump effect really hit women in particular – the need to be louder about women’s issues, the need to speak out against injustices against women, particularly women of color. Obviously the Women’s March [was] a more visible public moment where women finally felt like they were being heard. …And it’s so important for us to think about those sorts of moments because I think for a lot of people, including myself, that was the first time where we saw women…being noticed as leaders in these spaces and being asked to serve in these roles. …We saw a lot of opportunities where women kind of claimed organizing spaces and they claimed opportunities to lead campaigns for office, and they claimed opportunities to run for office."

Especially because our Georgia legislature and a lot of these places still have this good old boy, Georgia dynamic and because I went to the University of Georgia, because I’m a graduate of the major football school in our state, I had to use a lot of that to kind of make myself known to people. …I had to do a lot more of that than I think other people have to just because I have to make myself seem less new. And I did a lot of that when I ran for office, too. And so I remember making our campaign videos and making my promotional ads really tapping into the homegrown narrative that I had about – I went to the high school in the district. I went to the University of Georgia. I’ve been here all along and really having to make myself feel more natural to the state because it feels so unnatural when other people see me. So I think that’s a really distinct experience that I don’t think other people have to do because no one questions you when you look like every other person at the state legislature. But when you look like me there’s always sort of this outsider effect. And so I always feel like I have to do more to make myself feel less of an outsider in those spaces. …I feel like [this strategy is] less needed today because how things have changed even the last four years, right? We have more Muslim women elected to Congress now than we did before 2018. We have more women of color in our legislature today than we had back in 2018. So some of it has changed and so I feel like the political dynamics have shifted. But I also think that myself, as a person, I have really changed the way that I view my own connection to my community. [Interview conducted in January 2022.]"

I think as Asian American women…it’s [newer] for our community, [for] women from our community, to be in these positions of authority. I think, especially for me, when I was running I had to deal with a lot of older men asking me why I thought I was qualified to run. I had grown up in this Muslim community leader space where the only people who were thought to have any sort of influence were older men, business leaders, people that have played the game for many years. And so suddenly I came to the scene and was trying to make change happen and they didn’t take me seriously. They didn’t think that I was right to be in that space. And so I think for many Asian American women, we’re also dealing with the sexism within our own communities which we often have to rely on for fundraising support, community support."