State Voices

[In] movement spaces oftentimes the enemy of movement is usually the government. The enemy of movement is that politician who stands in the way of that appropriation that you never seem to get, and you start to see that as your target, your enemies. So the concept of going [into government as an elected official] is very difficult."

I was living with my mom who allowed me to go and do this, who said, ‘I see the potential here…and I recognize that you won’t pay rent and that you won’t be able to contribute but I think that this is an investment in your future.’” Lee added, “There are so many Black girls who aren’t able to make long-term investments in their future because they have to make short-term decisions for their livelihood."

I see [the Allegheny County Party Democratic Committee] as becoming, in too many instances, kind of a gatekeeping organization. …It’s become this really incestuous club where people who had been able to amass some sort of influence – I don’t even like to always call it power, but an influence or a proximity to power – they are able to use it to control the politics of their very hyper-localized communities. And the problem with that is that what it does is it ends up perpetuating this kind of phenomenon where our elected officials don’t always reflect their communities. …The people who have the relationships with those committees, who have those pre-existing networks, what they do is they use them to shut out newcomers, to shut out new blood. And they convince newcomers that this is an endeavor that they shouldn’t take up because you’ll be shunned or you will be curb-stomped. But it’s a deterrent. It had served as a deterrent for so long, and then we came and ran, seeing that for exactly what is was, and just making a plan to go around it. And what we were able to do is really lay bare their shortcomings, some of their blind spots, and also some of their weaknesses. And [we were] able to build an apparatus or build infrastructure to counteract it."

I think that what we’re not seeing at the pace that we need it [are] supports for women who are already elected. And I think that’s because so few have gone there, right? So if you have walked in those shoes to know what supports we even need…we’re still figuring out how to do that."

I had never considered running for office myself, but I was organizing. I was an organizer and I was looking for opportunities and really testing a theory that I really believed that particularly…Black and brown folks, marginalized folks, would be more inclined to vote and to participate in the electoral process if they saw themselves – like their whole selves – reflected in that process, [if] they saw [their] whole selves reflected in candidates who could show up as themselves [and] who were, of course, centering their political needs, centering the unique experiences and perspectives of our communities and campaigns."

I went to the person who ran campaigns for the Illinois House Republicans and I said, ‘I’m running for Mike Bost’s seat.’ And…this guy said to me, ‘Well, Terri, any place else in the state you would win. I’m just not sure that your district is ready for a woman yet.’ And that was 2014."

I don’t even remember the event and I do not remember the issue, but there were four or five older white men standing in like a little semicircle. And I was talking to them at this reception and one of them said, ‘What does your husband think about that?’ Out of my mouth came, ‘Well, on this, whatever I tell him to think.’ So the other guys that were standing there started laughing. And then I was golden. But I came home I told my husband and my son who was about I think he was maybe 19 or 20 then, I said, ‘Listen, until Union County gets a little more used to me and [to] having a woman running things, I need for one of you guys to be with me at the event.’…Sometimes women get so caught up in proving their femininity that they forget that it is hard for some, and so bear with them a little bit. It’s a big change for them."

I don’t want to like say this is true of every Democrat woman that I know in the legislature but there is a sense that many of the Democrats that Mike Madigan chose in the last few cycles either tended to be women who were easily instructed on what to do. I don’t think they’re manipulated, but they definitely could be told what to do. …That’s no reflection on their intelligence or their level of education, I just think [Madigan] picked people that would do what he told them to do."

The conversation of the fact that a woman [candidate] is more electable is definitely being talked about [with our party leadership] but it’s being women-led. We tell them a woman is perceived to be a cleaner candidate. Generally, they are not bringing in as much baggage."

Now, what Speaker Madigan did very well was, he picked a template. So I’ll use myself for an example. I win two to one over a Democrat white male in what looks to be a runaway for the Democrats, right? So the next election, I think, Speaker Madigan sat down and said what does that race look like? Who is Terri Bryant? So Terri Bryant is a mother, a wife, there’s some Department of Corrections or law enforcement involved. …She’s got teacher support, [a] little bit of a southern accent maybe. …And what is the body type, right? Look at the body type, look at hair color, …that must be what that District kind of looks like. So who do they recruit to run against me? They recruit a teacher whose husband is a correctional officer, who has a close to the same body type, …about the same age, married. And for this district you have to have very conservative values. Does she have those conservative values? So she’s a pro-life, pro-gun Democrat woman who looks and walks and talks like Terri Bryant. So that’s who they recruit."

My feeling is that [the culture in the state Capitol has] gotten better mostly because there are more women in leadership. …They have cleaned house a little bit. I think that [political leaders], and I think from a purely political standpoint, there was a phase where they realized that these guys [engaged in sexual harassment and abuse] were a liability and so they were like, ‘Let’s clear them out before we lose the seats.’"

There’s just blatant misogyny and people speaking over you where people [are] attributing things that you said to somebody else after that man repeated it. Like those are the things that we all know happen. It’s just different when it happens at a city council level. It’s one thing for me to be hanging out at a bar and if a guy talks over me, it’s another thing. When something that Rosanna [Rodríguez] said got directly attributed to another city councilperson and now that councilperson gets the credit, that’s not right. …Those sorts of behaviors become higher stakes when you are in a higher-stakes position."