KATHIE OBRADOVICH

Upset by Statehouse sexual harassment? Elect more women

Kathie Obradovich
The Des Moines Register

This week’s events at the Statehouse should drive home to at least half of Iowa voters why it’s important to elect more women to office.

Judging by the number of women who have already filed nomination papers for the June 5 primary ballot, voters will have lots of opportunities.

Meanwhile, new research by an Iowa political scientist offers insight into why Iowa lagged behind other states in electing its first woman to top political offices.

At least one woman is running in each of the state’s four congressional districts. Three women are running for governor, including the Republican incumbent, Kim Reynolds, who inherited the job last May. 

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds greets Speaker of the House Linda Upmeyer before being sworn in Wednesday, May 24, 2017, at the Iowa Statehouse in Des Moines.

In all, 98 women filed to run for state or federal offices, according to 50-50 in 2020, a non-partisan organization promoting female candidates.  "That’s including incumbents. But that’s a record,” said Mary Ellen Miller, executive director of 50-50 in 2020.

Four years ago, only about 65 women were on the Statehouse ballot, Miller said.

“I think it has something to do with the person sitting in the White House,” Miller said. “But we do have a lot more Republican women on the ballot than we’ve had before.”

She said Republican women have seemed inspired by Reynolds' service as the first female governor.

Why might Iowans want to consider electing more women in 2018? A glaring reason might be the nationally publicized resignation of Iowa Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix. The married Republican farmer was caught on video kissing a lobbyist in a bar. That was after he bungled a sexual harassment complaint by a member of his staff and ended up costing the state $1.75 million in the resulting lawsuit.

More:Bill Dix's resignation doesn't solve Senate GOP's indifference to sexual misconduct

Coincidentally, the 90th female candidate on Miller’s list is Annette Sweeney, a former Republican state representative. She announced she will run for Dix’s now-vacant seat. Her Democratic opponent, Tracy Freese, is also a woman.

In times like these, it matters that the majority party in the Iowa Senate has only one female member.  The new Senate majority leader and president, who will have to clean up after Dix, are both men.

Obradovich:Iowa Senate Republicans have new leaders, but will Iowans notice a difference?

For most of the 25 years that I’ve been covering politics from Des Moines, Iowa was one of only a few states that had never elected a woman to either Congress or the governor’s office.  That changed in 2014, when Republican Joni Ernst became Iowa’s first female U.S. senator.

Freshman U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, the first woman to represent Iowa in Congress and a fan of the Harley, is hosting her inaugural Roast & Ride political fundraiser Saturday in rural Boone. Here, Ernst rides in Red Oak in 2014.

The governor’s office, while currently occupied by a woman, still has a glass ceiling. Reynolds is seeking election to the office for the first time in 2018.  She was sworn in as governor after Terry Branstad resigned to take a position as U.S. ambassador to China.

So why did it take so long for Iowa to elect its first woman to a top political office? Eduardo Magalhaes is a political science professor at Simpson College in Indianola.  He first asked himself that question back in 2008, when he was starting to prepare a course on U.S. women in politics. At that time, Iowa was one of only three states that had never elected a woman to either Congress or the governor’s office.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is sworn in as Iowa's first female governor by Chief Justice Mark Cady as her husband, Kevin, holds the Bible on Wednesday, May 24, 2017, at the Iowa Statehouse in Des Moines.

“You look around, and Iowa had a pretty progressive record in a lot of different ways. So it seemed a little out of character ... for Iowa to have not elected a woman,” he said.

He delved into the history of first women to reach high office in other states and compared them to the earlier female candidates in those states who had tried but lost.  

“As I started to do that, one thing became very, very immediately apparent, is that it wasn’t an incumbency dynamic per se.  It was more a function of unique circumstances,” Magalhaes said.

In other words, happenstance was a significant factor in determining which woman would become the first elected to high office in her state. Out of 49 races that Magalhaes studied around the country, 22 cases could be classified as unusual circumstances:

  • Fifteen of the first women to win were spouses of congressmen, senators or governors who either died or had to leave office due to term limits.  Twelve of those 15 won a special election to take over the seat.
Eduardo Magalhaes is political science professor at Simpson College.
  • Three other women who were first in their state won special elections without a family connection to the former officeholder.
  •  A different sort of family connection came into play in Alaska.  In 2002, Lisa Murkowski was appointed to the U.S. Senate by her father, who was governor, to fill his unexpired term. She then ran as an incumbent and was elected less than two years later.  If Reynolds wins in November, her election would fit the mold as an unusual circumstance, Magalhaes said.
  • The final case of unusual circumstances that Magalhaes researched was in Wisconsin in 1998.  Tammy Baldwin became the first female member of Congress from her state after winning an open seat against a Republican challenger – who was also a woman.

Magalhaes’ research also highlighted the importance of having an open seat to allowing women to break into high offices.

The bottom line is that Iowa’s inferiority complex when it comes to lagging behind other states in electing women is mostly unjustified.  When Iowa elected Ernst in 2014, there were still 19 other states that had never elected a woman to the U.S. Senate. 

Magalhaes will present his research at 7 p.m. March 20 at Simpson. He titled his speech “Unlucky in Death and Vacancies:  Women and Political Milestones in Iowa.”

Unlucky?  Maybe. But Iowa women are making their own luck this year by running for office in far greater numbers.  I like the odds.

Kathie Obradovich