State Voices

I don’t think that there’s social barriers [to increasing Republican women’s political representation] if that’s what you’re asking. I think the barriers are [women] need more training and they need more campaign consulting…and messaging."

I think my experience seeing people struggle both as candidates and as elected officials has made me much less sanguine about [saying] just like, ‘Yeah, everyone should run for office. Like come on, it’s great.’ …I take that responsibility a lot more seriously than I used to, …particularly with working-class women who are mothers. I’ve just had a lot of the conversations with people who are thinking about it and someone’s in their ear telling them they should run and I was like, ‘I just want to be really honest with you about what this is going to be. You are going to be knocking doors every night and every weekend in the freezing cold. …You’re going to have to take a leave from your job.’ …And for a lot of [candidates] it means losing their health insurance, certainly losing their income. That can be…really, really difficult. …[And] the tradeoffs are really important. Those legislative and political accomplishments couldn’t happen without people making these sacrifices, but we should still be honest about what the sacrifices are."

I do think that being in office can be a conservatizing experience. In my experience people generally don’t go into office and become radicalized by that experience. …[There are] so many other vectors and pressures on people who hold those offices. So we really try to be very selective about who we endorse for public office and making sure that the people we endorse for public office come from a background that indicates that they have some experience and deep-rootedness in standing up to power. Whether that’s being a worker who has gone on strike or a community organizer who’s led sit-ins and hunger strikes, they need some experience about directly taking on people with power. [That] is really important, I think, to shaping who those people will be in office."

You get a lot of turnover [in the state legislature] because it’s a huge sacrifice and it’s difficult to get mothers that have kids. …I mean that’s the hardest thing for me on top of the fact that, as a woman, you’re asked how you can leave your kids. I know my male counterparts with children have never once been asked that question, like not a single time…never. So you have added societal and peer pressure…that I think we need to recognize."

I think when you get more women into those positions [of political power], they bring more women with them. You know what I mean? …I brought Asian American [people] with me. …I was on an endorsement committee and I was like, ‘Where do I find people? And so, who are the people I went to? Who were the people that I brought in? [An] Asian American woman and an Asian American man – those were the two people I brought to the table. So I think once you get people in there, they start to encourage their friends and their peers to be that voice and encourage them. I think that’s how [the female majority] happened. [It] was [that kind of] momentum."

This wouldn’t be specific to women, but I would say the divisiveness of politics today and the social media, how hateful politics has become, I think is turning off more good people [from] wanting to get involved – male and female both. And that is a very disturbing trend because…it can get to a point where it’s just not worth it. And if it’s already hard for a woman to run, then that could be the deal-breaker for them."

I think [term limits have] helped in Oklahoma. I don’t think that has been hurtful. I think that [it] has helped get more women involved because, I think, with no term limits you can kind of turn into smoke-filled room, back-room politics. There [are] definitely positives and definitely negatives to term limits. But I do think it has gotten more female representation, I do. There’s more seats opening up all the time."

Things nationally drive kind of what happens in the state because the national narrative is now much more…‘Hey, we need to recruit more minority candidates.’ …Because people are talking about it nationally, people are going to talk about it at a state level. So as an elected official I can tell you there’s really not a day that goes by where I’m not in some conversation where we’re talking about getting more representation of Hispanics, African Americans, female candidates on this board or this commission or this state agency or running for office. …If we’re having more of those conversations, it’s going to turn into more candidates. It just is and we’re seeing that."

[Political consultants] are a heck of a lot more powerful than the average citizen realizes and certainly we need more women involved, not just in the fundraising niche but in the general consulting world as well."

I won’t say that local parties have been an intentional impediment to women running for office. But I do think that there is great disparity of focus among counties when it comes to recruiting and supporting women candidates. While some clearly understand the importance of more women holding public office, others just don’t see it as a priority."

If [Asian Americans] want more people like us to run for office we have to get them into trainings or places for introductions so they can do this, right? …I’m asking that we have qualified people that we put them through the training to get qualified and that you do not dismiss us. Pay attention to us, right? …We are seeing the needle move. But I think it’s also because we better prepare and train. Because in the past…[political leaders] always tell me there’s no group that would give to [Asian Americans], or there’s no one that can run for that, or, there’s no Asian that we can find for something. …Let’s make sure we have the people that [are] interested and send them to some training…[so political leaders can’t say] ‘We don’t have anyone that’s qualified.’ I always get that all the time, ‘We don’t have anyone that’s qualified.’ So I said, ‘Okay, …Let’s start training some people and start getting them qualified.’ How simple is that?"

I look at corporate boards now. …It is dominated by men and frankly it is dominated by white men. We need to change that because…I think that’s a path to making a difference."