A Breakthrough in Politics

"This was the year of the breakthrough for women," declared Frances T. ("Sissy") Farenthold, chairman of the National Women's Political Caucus. In addition to the Democratic triumph of Governor-elect Ella Grasso of Connecticut, Democrat Janet Gray Hayes, 47, of San Jose, Calif., became the first woman mayor of a U.S. city of more than 500,000, and Democrat Susie Sharp, 67, of North Carolina, the first woman chief justice of a state supreme court. For the first time, New York chose a woman, Democrat Mary Anne Krupsak, 42, as Lieutenant Governor, and Californians elected Democrat March Fong, 52, secretary of state.

Throughout the nation, 18 women were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, two more than in the previous House and a record for any single election. There were also 18 women in the House in 1962, but three were widows selected in special elections to fill the terms of their husbands.

Even the scale of the losses reflected the female advance into major-league politics. Women losers included two gubernatorial candidates, three running for Lieutenant Governor, and all three who were running for the Senate as major-party candidates.

The growing success of women in U.S. politics is particularly apparent at the state legislature level. According to one compilation, the number of women state legislators increased from 305 in 1969 and 470 in the past year to 587 as of last week. The women in the Georgia legislature rose from two to nine; in Colorado, from ten to 17; in Maryland, from eleven to 19; and in Hawaii, from four to ten. The results are obvious to anyone familiar with a U.S. statehouse. Four years ago, for example, the spittoons were removed from the Maine Senate chamber; a women's lounge was added. This month, with the victory of more than half the 35 women candidates for seats in the legislature, there is a plan under way to enlarge that lounge.

As important as the growth in the number of women candidates is the quality of their credentials. Of the six new women members of the U.S. House, for example, only one, Marilyn Lloyd, 44, of Tennessee, is a widow who was chosen to replace her husband on the ticket. The other five: Democrat Helen Stevenson Meyner, 46, wife of former New Jersey Governor Robert Meyner, who has been politically active since her husband left office in 1962; Republican Millicent Fenwick, 64, who gave up her post as director of the New Jersey State Division of Consumer Affairs to run for Congress; Democrat Gladys Spellman, 56, of Maryland, the first woman president of the National Association of Counties; Democrat Martha Keys, 44, of Kansas, McGovern campaign coordinator for Kansas in 1972 and sister-in-law of Colorado Senator-elect Gary Hart; and Republican Virginia Smith, 63, of Nebraska, a member of the board of the American Farm Bureau.

Rising Professionalism. Except for a rising sense of professionalism, there is little that binds the new women politicians together. Baltimore City Councilwoman Barbara Mikulski, 38, is a feisty old-school campaigner who ran a tough but losing fight against Maryland's Republican Senator Charles Mathias. Janet Hayes edged out a retired police detective to become mayor of San Jose, a sprawling bedroom city south of San Francisco. She terrified the real estate developers, she says, by declaring, "Let's make San Jose better before we make it bigger." Mary Anne Krupsak, New York's new Lieutenant Governor, has been a politician almost since infancy. She went to law school after deciding that "the only women who are taken seriously in government are lawyers," and went on to seats in the state assembly and later the state senate. Her campaign slogan this year: "She's not just one of the boys."

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