State Voices

I would say [the pressure on party leaders to increase diversity [is] almost exclusively [from] the outside activist groups where we’re saying, ‘We’re not willing to come to your event and applaud for you just because you’ve put women on the ballot. We want to see women in leadership. We want to see their agenda advancing during session. We want to see them being in the pipeline to become governor one day.’ And so there is starting to be this, ‘Yay we had a party! This is great. What next?’ We’re expecting things to be next and that’s definitely very much so on the liberal side. So there’s a lot of liberal [organizations]…they’re saying, ‘Okay that’s great but it’s not enough.’ I’m starting to hear it. Building up to 2022 I’m starting to hear it from my Republican friends as well. [Interview conducted in November 2021.]"

I just think that women are feeling empowered and motivated to step up and that’s what we’ve been waiting for. …It’s taken this cultural change across the country and a lot of great role models to inspire women to step up."

That’s really why the Anstine program [is] so important. [It] is to bring people together. And we create a safe environment for them to be real, and a supportive environment, and I think that’s the most valuable thing. You know, when I’m dead and gone, did I recruit a great candidate? Did I get someone elected? Big deal. But did we create a movement to support women to get involved in the process? And it’s that, it’s that collegial atmosphere that we created that I think [has] really made the biggest difference."

I absolutely have [been pressured to increase diversity in the Democratic Party]. …Because I am the first African American chair and then consequently the first African American woman chair that our party has had…there were some who just thought that automatically, like magic, then diversity would happen. That’s not how it works. And yeah, and so I get a lot of…pushback is not the right word but I get a lot of conversation about…‘Why aren’t you recruiting more diverse candidates? Why aren’t there more African Americans running? Why aren’t there more females? …What are you doing?’ And I’m like, so we all have to recruit. You bring me a candidate. You bring me somebody you think can be a candidate. Now, I’ll have that conversation. But understand that my eye is there because that’s my natural bent. But yeah, I get pushback because there was some implied magic and I never claimed the magic."

For me as a Black woman in a state where we are more of a minority…than in a lot of places in the nation, I…absolutely go after diversity in my recruitment. I am looking in different places than we normally look. I would love for there to be more Latinx representation, African American representation, LGBTQIA representation. That is a hyper focus of mine. But, in addition, we have a very active Sally’s List organization here in Oklahoma, which is…modeled after EMILY’s List, and they’re very active and a lot of our legislators were Sally’s List candidates. …We work pretty closely with them, and so there is a…direct focus in the state on recruiting women [and] training women."

Currently, there is not a statewide network [for Republican women in Illinois politics], which is what we’re trying to create. There is not…a safe place – meaning an organization women can go and know they will be accepted for who they are. …We have not attained that public awareness that we’re here and we exist. Women don’t know who to go to. They don’t know who to speak to. They don’t know where to start. …We’re trying to build and set that up. But again, you know, we’re doing it in our free time and it’s very hard to do without a lot of outside support. [Interview conducted in November 2021.]"

I don’t think the average person knows that the number [of Republican women in office in Illinois] is low because they don’t proactively think about it. It’s something that we, The Lincoln Series, have talked about but even when we talk about it, it has to be in such a way that we’re not pointing fingers saying, ‘It’s your fault.’ Instead, we try to point it out in the fashion of, ‘This is something we can all fix together.’ I don’t think there is a conscious awareness of the numbers until we point them out. As I said, our outreach has to be along the lines of, ‘Let’s grow these numbers.’ It has to be a positive declaration of the problem."

There is a definite understanding in the state that we need to diversify and recruit more candidates who don’t look like everybody else. This includes women. There’s definitely an understanding and a need, and there is an effort going on, but it is mostly at the House and Senate caucus level. Even at that level, I would say it’s not a 115% effort. It’s gaining traction but it’s not to the extent that it needs to be."

I think, in a positive [way], what has also really encouraged a lot of women to step up and run, particularly women of color, has been the racial justice movement. And we had a lot of women running in this cycle in 2021, first time candidates [who] really had never been involved. ….[It] seemed like there [were] two waves – the Me Too movement and then the racial justice movement. …And so that’s been, I think, really influential and…the reason why…women decided to [run for office]."

For the women who are running, most of them are aware of the type of culture that they are possibly…going to be a part of [in the state legislature]. And in some cases that is a motivator that they want to be a disruptor to that culture, that they see themselves as an agent of change – not just for their constituents in their district but [also] an agent of change within the institution itself."

[We need] support staff that understands women’s candidacies."

There is…a strong network of women of color who are in elective office in the southeastern region [of Pennsylvania]. And what I’ve observed is that a lot of those women of color are very wanting and willing to open the doors for other women of color’s campaigns, right? So there’s this network that they are creating by themselves to help one another’s campaigns. And I think potentially that could happen out here in the west, in the southwestern region."