Non-Partisan 2012 Project Seeks to Get More Women to Run For Congress and Legislatures
by M. Doolan
Three decades ago Geraldine Ferraro paved the way for women in politics. On the cusp of 2012, how far have we come?
1984 was a groundbreaking year for women in U.S. politics. It was the year Geraldine Ferraro ran for Vice President. To a generation of women, Ferraro’s candidacy seemed like a much needed leap forward – women were stepping up into leadership positions. Three decades later, those same women are looking at leaders and elected officials and wondering: What happened?
The hope of more women in politics fizzled even further in November 2010, when the number of women in Congress fell from 90 to 88, the first decline in decades. Women fared even worse in state legislatures – 81 lost their seats. More concerning than this recent dip is the fact that the number of women in politics has flat-lined for decades.
1992, the last “Year of the Woman”, was no accident. A coordinated focus on electing women in that post-redistricting year, combined with watershed events including the Clarence Thomas hearings, saw 24 additional women elected into Congress. There was no similar spike in 2002.
Now there’s a new campaign to make significant gains – The 2012 Project, a national, non-partisan campaign of Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics. The mission: to inspire a record number of women to run for Congress and state legislatures in 2012.
While women’s organizations from both parties have made significant efforts to recruit women to run for office, The 2012 Project believes it shouldn’t fall to them alone to find candidates. The campaign takes recruitment to a new level by looking for women out of the traditional pipeline and women who may never have considered politics.
As redistricting creates new and open seats, The 2012 Project is targeting a specific group of women — accomplished baby-boomers from industries currently underrepresented in policy-making including finance, energy, environment, science, technology, small business and health care. Baby-boomer women, those aged 45 and up, are ideally positioned to run. These women, typically at the top of their careers, have fewer family responsibilities and are likely to have deep roots in their communities.
The 2012 Project functions on three levels. It first aims to educate women by speaking at major conventions and regional meetings in each designated field. The second goal is to inspire through stories told by current and former elected women about why they ran and why it makes a difference to have women involved in high-level decision making.
Finally the 2012 Project will connect women interested in running with leadership institutes, campaign training programs and fundraising networks in their states.
Women make up 51 percent of the U.S. population and only 16 percent of the U.S. Congress. The 2012 Project understands the urgency and the opportunity. After all, 2022 is too long to wait.
M. Doolan blogs for The 2012 Project. She is an associate with Hughes & Company, a political consulting firm in California. Before moving into politics, Doolan was a radio and television reporter. She holds a Master’s in politics and communication from the London School of Economics.