State Voices

It was very frustrating in 2015. It was the Wendy Davis time. It was the time when a lot of Democrats thought white women in the suburbs were what’s going to win the Democratic Party everything. …And so the Democratic Party would invest a lot of money in those efforts."

I would say the lobby corps that lobbies the legislature… [is] still largely dominated by white men because corporations are still dominated by white men and those lobbyists are comfortable hiring people that look like them and people that talk like them and people that act like them. …I think [it] puts our female-majority legislature in a strange spot because [women legislators] are then not taken as seriously on the policy front or they are [viewed as] too progressive because they are advocating for two weeks of paid leave instead of one or whatever it is, right? That is a real argument that we had in the legislature with a female majority saying we want paid leave, and the corporate white lobbyists are like, ‘Why?’"

Status quo now for the Republicans [is]…the only way to beat a woman is with a woman. So it hasn’t taken very many cycles frankly for the Republicans to be like, ‘Let’s get this Annie Black, who doesn’t think she should wear a mask or whatever, to run in Mesquite. Let’s have this female cop run in this targeted senate district this time around.’ …They’re getting it. I mean they are coming for us."

Yeah, I mean look, 2014 cleaned a lot of things out. …The Democrats lost the majority in both houses in 2014 by a little over 2,000 votes. …What that did was effectively start us over. And so there was some intentionality about okay, how do we take it back? Analyzing the districts, analyzing the voters, analyzing the potential candidates, [and] recognizing that, again, Republicans were going to put up a bunch of white dudes who are crazy for reelection come 2016. And we had a chance to really go and talk to the Emerge graduates, to the party activists who had said for years they wanted to get involved in politics, and for the most part happened to be diverse and women. …We were not saying, ‘Let’s build a majority-woman legislature,’ but we were saying, ‘Let’s find a woman if there’s a woman in this seat that wants to run.’ The default is, ‘Let’s endorse the woman.’"

We do feel a tremendous amount of responsibility to [the majority-women legislature]."

When you run for office, one of the biggest barriers I think for women to even step up is family, right? And so we think about, should I run? I have small children. That’s a really massive consideration. Whereas you think a guy for ten seconds gives it more than that thought of whether or not they should run for office because of how it would impact their family? The expectation is, ‘My wife is going to pick up that slack and she’s going to be okay with that,’ right? It’s not like, ‘I’m going to be away from my kids, not going to get to see them every night. How’s that going to impact them?’ These feelings of massive guilt that come with stepping up for office – I felt it even though I talk about how important it is to not be that way. I mean, I’m human, right? I’m a mother."

So again, I’m never going to support a woman because she has a vagina. I’m only going to support a woman because she has the same politics that I have and she’s willing to stand up for my family. That would be the only way I would do that."

So I don’t think, from my perspective, any party leader has been any impediment to women in politics. I do think…with all due respect to my Democratic friends, there is this notion of identity politics and stepping aside for someone that’s better for the ticket that I don’t believe exists in the Republican Party. …It’s everybody’s right to run for an office. Nobody is going to clear the decks for somebody else on the Republican side. …Everybody that wants to run is going to get to run. And there’s not going to be any picking favorites or trying to skew things or figure out a ticket that gives somebody who’s at the top of a ticket a better likelihood of winning. And so I think that’s just a matter of difference of philosophy between the two parties. …Maybe it works out that you have these people who check these boxes, who brand these facets of the electorate. …I don’t think party leaders are an impediment in the Republican Party in Georgia to women running for office. But neither do I think that anybody in those roles [is] going to clear the decks just to have a women run for an office to fill a square."

I mean all of those organizations [for women in politics] – you rattle them off in your head or [are] making a little list talking about support [for] women to be in office – name one of them that support Republican women. …Not everybody is a cookie cutter in terms of ideology. And honestly I don’t think an echo chamber of ideas or litmus test of ideological purity benefits anyone in the world that we live in."

I think the women are, just for lack of a better word, maybe fed-up. And they are going for it. They’re really going for it. They are really putting themselves out there, living and being their authentic selves and just going for it."

Being in a minority party makes it harder…but I always say you have the bully pulpit, you have the podium. You can always use your words. And it matters. So whether you are in a minority or majority, words do matter. You have the ability to convene the media. You have the ability to go out and speak to groups of people."

I think being in elective office definitely gives you a position of influence, policy influence…clearly you have a vote."