As a Republican Woman who has worked her whole life for the Republican Party, I can assure you if women want to get ahead in politics, she should become a Republican...
Republican men are not afraid of strong Republican women.
Heather Wilson: Latest in Long History of Republican Firsts
By: Congressman Christopher Cox
Chairman, House Policy Committee
The election of Congress' newest Member, Heather Wilson, which came on the heels of the special election of Congresswoman Mary Bono on April 7, 1998, marked another Republican first in American history: U.S. Airforce Captain Wilson is the first female veteran, and the first Air Force Academy graduate - male or female- to win election to the United State Congress. (She is also a Rhodes Scholar with two Oxford degrees, and a former NATO arms control negotiator.)
This latest "first" for women is one of several milestones since the historic 1994 election, continuing a long-standing tradition of Republican women leading America.
While January 4, 1995, will be remembered in history as the date of the swearing in of the first Republican Congress in forty hears, it is also the first time in nearly twenty years that women were elected to chair standing committees of the House, and the first time in U.S. history that a woman chaired a Senate Committee. The House had not just one but two women elected to chair committees in the 104th Congress. Former Congresswoman Jan Meyers served as the Chair of the Committee on Small Business, while Congresswoman Nancy Johnson served as Chair of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. In the U.S. Senate, former Senator Nancy Kassebaum chaired the Committee on Labor and Human Resources.
The historic level of participation of women in the leadership of the 104th and 105th Congresses does not end there. Women also earned subcommittee chairmanships on two of the House's most exclusive Committees, the Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Appropriations. In the 105th Congress, the number of female Chairs has continued to grow. Republican women chair a record seven House Subcommittees, including some of the most powerful in the House, and three Senate Subcommittees. Never under Democratic rule did women wield such power.
Furthermore, three women served in the elected leadership of the House in the 104th Congress, and three women - Jennifer Dunn, Deborah Pryce, and Sue Myrick - served in the elected House leadership in the 105th Congress as well.
That it took a Republican Congress to achieve these firsts for women should come as no surprise to those who know the historical record. Throughout America's history, the Republican Party has been the leading champion of women's political equality.
By 1878, Republicans had already seated suffragettes at their state party conventions, and had adopted a resolution favoring the admission of women to politics. That same year, Senator A.A. Sargeant, a Republican from California, introduced the Susan B. Anthony Equal Suffrage Amendment. The American women's right to the vote was defeated four times by the Democrat-controlled Senate. But women's suffrage finally passed when the Republican Party regained control of Congress in 1919.
Twenty-six of the thirty-six states which ratified the constitutional amendment giving American women the vote were led by Republican legislators. Before the Amendment was adopted, twelve states - all Republican - had extended the vote to women.
Plainly, the Republican Party led the way for the women's movement into the 20th century. As these developments were occurring, in 1918, the first woman was elected to the House of Representatives. She was Jeanette Rankin of Montana, a Republican. A few years later, Republican U.S. Representative Florence Kahn became known as one of Congress's most effective leaders during her twelve years of service. GOP Representative Edith Rogers broke Kahn's record, serving thirty-five years in the House (from 1925 until 1960). During this period, she was named to head the Committee on Veterans Affairs and helped lead the fight for the GI Bill.
The 1952 election of President Eisenhower brought the appointment of Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce as the first woman ambassador to a major power. Eisenhower also appointed to the President's cabinet Oveta Culp Hobby, the first woman Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (now Health and Human Services).
During the 1950s and 1960s, some of the most important members of the House and Senate were Republican women: Rep. Frances Payne Bolton, the longest-serving woman sitting in the House of Representatives; Rep. Florence Dwyer, a key proponent of civil rights legislation and chief sponsor of the Consumer Protection Agency; Rep. Cecil Harden, who led reforms in armed forces procurement; Rep. Catherine May, author of a number of nutrition and hunger laws; Rep. Katharine St. George, who drafted the first Equal Rights Amendment in 1950 and authored the Equal Pay Act of 1963; and Senator Margaret Chase Smith, who served nine years in the House and twenty-four years in the Senate and was the first woman to have her name entered in nomination for President by a major party.
In the 1970s, the Republican Party elected the first woman to be national co-chairman of either party: Anne Armstrong, who in 1972 also became the first woman to deliver the keynote address of a major party. Republican Presidents Nixon and Ford appointed more women to top government posts than any previous president of either party. And Republican Nancy Kassebaum became the first woman of either party elected to the U.S. Senate without first having been preceded by her husband or having been appointed to fill an unexpired term.
In 1981, the first woman justice was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court: Sandra Day O'Connor, who was chosen by Republican President Ronald Reagan. President Reagan broke the previous record for appointing women to top policy-making positions. Three women, Elizabeth Dole, Margaret Heckler, and Jeane Kirkpatrick, served concurrently in his cabinet, another first. By the conclusion of President Reagan's term, he had selected women for over 1,400 high-level policy-making positions. President Bush built on his predecessor's record, selecting a new-record 2,500 women for high-level positions.
Today, at the state level, two of the nation's three female governors are Republicans - Jane Dee Hull of Arizona and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey.
Thus, it is hardly surprising that it took the first Republican Congress in 40 years to name more women than ever to top leadership posts and committee chairmanships. The Republican Party's record of relying on women for leadership and helping American women succeed remains unsurpassed in the '90s.
Christopher Cox, of California, is the Chairman of the House Policy Committee and the fourth-ranking House Leader behind Speaker Gingrich. He was recently named to Chair the House Select Committee investigation of U.S. technology transfers to the People's Republic of China.
cfrw.org
Election 2000
Republican Women
All of the incumbent Republican women who sought reelection to the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate won their races, and all of the incumbent Republican women in statewide elective office have been reelected.
In addition, three Republican women candidates -- Melissa Hart (PA-4), Jo Ann Davis (VA-1) and Shelley Moore Capito (WV-2) -- won seats in the U.S. House.
Judy Martz, who had served as lieutenant governor of Montana, won the gubernatorial race in that state, while Cherie Berry was elected North Carolina's commissioner of labor.
To read more about the non-incumbent Republican women candidates of 2000, click here.
To read more about incumbent Republican women, click here.
To learn more about Republican women in elective office, click here.
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