State Voices

I think what mostly motivated me to consider [running for office] is just how much I know now about this office. There’s a lot [of information] that has been kept from the grassroots in terms of what this seat is capable of and now that we have that information I think it’s motivating others to consider it. And I should specify, it’s motivating other community leaders who already have decades, sometimes, of experience organizing at a grassroots level to consider coming into these sorts of positions of power."

Aldermen have a giant microphone, a giant platform of legitimacy where if you go out and you say something needs to happen, a lot of people are listening to you whether you can make that decision or not. …What you say changes the dialogue which then changes the culture."

There’s a widespread understanding now that…women candidates are attractive to voters. …The narrative around Doug Jones’ election to the U.S. Senate from Alabama is Black women drove that vote. And that is certainly part of the narrative — women and people of color driving new election outcomes. So it’s quite true that party leaders have started acting on that understanding."

The threats that were made to me personally — I had to…hire private security for the last month of the [2017] campaign because of death threats to our campaign office. …And it did not stop when I was elected either. …It was a common…thing for my husband and I to be out to dinner and someone would literally walk up to us at our table, dinner or breakfast, and start screaming at me. …It’s a real detriment [to getting people to run for office]. Yes, I get it that as a public servant you’re 24/7…still every person has a right to some privacy and a private life."

A lot of these organizations that get set up, they present themselves as bipartisan and then you go and look at who they supported and they really do tend to be one side or the other. I can’t think of any one organization that is truly focusing on women [that] supports both Republicans and Democrats."

I don’t know if it’s an experience that’s unique in western Pennsylvania but…you hear these stories of being a woman candidate and [needing to] be aware of what you’re wearing [and that] people are going to tell you that they don’t think that women should be in elected office. I didn’t run into any of that [in the 2020 election]. What I actually ran into was the opposite. I was knocking on doors and people [were] like, ‘Thank God a woman is running. We need more women. I’m so excited to support you.’"

Maybe the gap that exists is maybe not even necessarily getting women into office but getting women to the next level of office. …Because I do think there are a lot of times…people are really excited to elect a woman for state representative, for school board, for city council, for borough mayor, but then there isn’t necessarily the investment to get them to the next level. …And the recruitment that happens for those positions from the pool of elected leaders, if you will, often falls to men."

I was very cognizant of the realities when I first got elected. I knew based on my experience on the campaign trail…that it took a little bit longer for people to take me seriously and to give me the credit that they might automatically give to an older person or a man in my position. …The campaign trail kind of set me up for this mindset that I knew that I was going to have to work harder to be taken seriously. And I think that my physical appearance definitely had a hindrance on that because I was 24 by the time I got elected but I’ve always looked younger than I actually am. …So I made sure to be very prepared for committee meetings, for floor hearings."

[As a legislator,] I tried to thread the needle of speaking up just enough but that’s always a balance because, especially with women, I have found…people have a lower threshold for when a woman talks too much. …And so I went in with a mindset of ‘I need to find that balance of speaking up enough so that I am heard. But not too much so that I am written off as somebody who just talks all the time.’"

I think [term limits are] one of the reasons why our numbers [of women] have stayed pretty stagnant over the years. Because we have had several very experienced, obviously, legislators, who are women, term out. And they’re not always replaced by women. Usually they’re not, I would say, and so I think that [term limits] definitely contributed to our relatively low rate of female [state legislative] representation in Oklahoma. …When I first was elected I thought, ‘Wow 12 years, that’s a really long time,’ but now that 12 years has come and gone it hasn’t really seemed like that long of a time. And I now feel like I’m sort of getting kicked out just when I feel like I have a really good handle on all the ins and outs of things. [Interview conducted in June 2022 before Virgin left the legislature.]"

It’s not that all the power lies with lobbyists. But I think that their influence has increased because you see a whole lot of folks coming in because of term limits. You see these large freshman classes in our legislative bodies and they are always looking for information, they are looking for guidance. They are looking to really hit the ground running because they know that they have a limited time in the body. And so I think that lobbyists who have been around for decades are a natural place for them to go and to lean on. And when you make those friendships, those relationships, you’re of course more likely to let that person have influence on your policymaking decisions."

I think [a contributor to the increase in women’s political representation is] just being aware of the opportunities that are out there and that women can make great legislators. …We have different experiences than men. We have different makeups than men. We come from a different place than men and so I think just being aware of that and promoting it and, like myself, being out there and saying, ‘Look – this was my path. This is how I got here. This is how I decided to run.’ And then you look at somebody’s path and how they decided to run. What led them to that? Sharing the stories, I guess. Let other women know there isn’t just one right way to do it or there’s no right reason or certain background you have to have to run and be a good elected official."