Filling the Democratic Pipeline

By Susan Tifft

Other vice-presidential prospects to watch, this time or next

The pool of potential female vice-presidential--and presidential--candidates is expanding rapidly. Ten years ago, there were only 16 women serving in Congress, all in the House. This year there are 24 on Capitol Hill: 22 in the House and two in the Senate. In Governors' mansions, statehouses and city halls, the rise in the number of female officeholders has been even more impressive. In 1974 there were no female Governors,*519 state representatives and only 91 state senators. This year, one Governor, 816 state representatives (of 5,452) and 177 state senators (of 1,986) are women. There are 86 cities with populations over 30,000 that have female mayors, in contrast with twelve a decade ago.

Although 55% of these officeholders are Democrats, the party has no women in the Senate and only 13 in the House. The result: the list of women who might conceivably appear on a Democratic ticket this year is quite limited. Herewith, the women other than Geraldine Ferraro and Dianne Feinstein most often mentioned as Democratic Veep possibilities: >Patricia Schroeder, 43. A Harvard-trained lawyer and a Congresswoman since 1973, the Coloradan is a leading member of the House Armed Services Committee. While getting high marks for her military expertise, Schroeder is often seen as a knee-jerk dove. She co-chairs the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, which counts 117 men among its 132 members. An outspoken feminist, Schroeder is married to a Washington lawyer and has two teen-age children. Her political profile is left of center: the liberal Americans for Democratic Action (A.D.A.) gives her a 90% rating.

Schroeder is a skilled orator and a tough politician. "Women should not campaign for the vice presidency," she maintains. "They should campaign for President. That's the way people get to be Vice President." She claims little or no interest in taking the No. 2 spot herself. That may be just as well: if fellow-Coloradoan Gary Hart is nominated, Schroeder, who co-chairs his national campaign, would be ruled out for geographic reasons. If Mondale is nominated, Schroeder thinks she would be considered only if Hart turned down the job. Says she: "My guess is that Gary Hart would add a lot more [to the ticket]. I'm only a surrogate." >Corinne C. ("Lindy") Boggs, 68. She came to office the old-fashioned way, by succeeding her late husband, Louisiana Congressman Hale Boggs. But she has stayed for six terms by carefully looking after her 45% black New Orleans district, and applying four decades of Washington know-how to a selected set of issues.

As a member of the prestigious House Appropriations Committee, Boggs in 1983 fought successfully to include "pink ghetto" occupations in a $4 billion jobs bill. But Boggs, a mother of three, is no militant feminist. A staunch Roman Catholic, she has an antiabortion record that she admits hurts her with some women's groups. Regarded as a political moderate (A.D.A. rating: 50%), she voted against Reagan's budget cuts and supports a nuclear freeze. Boggs thinks her roots in the swing-vote South would be a powerful plus for the ticket. But she is not waiting by the phone. "The ticket has to be as strong and well balanced as possible, regardless of the gender of the nominees," she says.

>Martha Layne Collins, 47. Kentucky's first female Governor is a former beauty queen who belies the old saw that pretty women cannot think. Last November she trounced her Republican opponent, State Senator Jim Bunning, once a successful major league baseball pitcher, by nearly ten percentage points. In office only 51/2 months, Collins has already pushed through several parts of an ambitious package of education reforms.

Collins worked behind the scenes in politics before winning election as clerk of the Kentucky Supreme Court in 1975. Four years later she took 63% of the vote in her race for Lieutenant Governor. A devout Baptist, she is against abortion except in cases of rape or incest or when the mother's life is in danger, favors the death penalty and opposes gun control. Her support of the ERA has not been vocal enough for some women's groups. As permanent chair of this summer's Democratic National Convention, she is likely to have a higher television profile than Platform Chairman Ferraro. But her husband Bill, a dentist and entrepreneur (they have a son, 23, and a daughter, 20), hopes Collins will stay in the Governor's mansion in Frankfort, at least for now. "I enjoy campaigning for Martha Layne," he says. "But I don't think it's in her best interest to run for the vice presidency." >Martha Griffiths, 72. White-haired and witty, Griffiths looks more like a fairy godmother than a canny politician. During 20 years in Congress (she retired in 1975), Griffiths played a pivotal role on two major pieces of feminist legislation, supporting the addition of the word sex to the types of discrimination covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and forcing the stalled ERA out of committee in 1970.

Griffiths was elected Lieutenant Governor of Michigan in 1982. South Carolina Senator Ernest ("Fritz") Rollings, campaigning last fall for the Democratic nomination, often mentioned her as a potential running mate. The sprightly septuagenarian beams at the prospect of being on the ticket, and swats off suggestions that her age might be a handicap. "You could say the same thing about Ronald Reagan in 1980," she says. There are more serious minuses: as a Midwesterner, she would offer no geographic diversity to Minnesotan Walter Mondale; she has also criticized Gary Hart on the Chrysler bailout. But if she were tapped, says her husband of 50 years, Hicks, "I would congratulate the whole country on its selection." > Kathy Whitmire, 37. Five months into her second term as mayor of Houston, the primly coiffed and bespectacled Whitmire is no longer called "Tootsie," an unflattering reference to her resemblance to Actor Dustin Hoffman in the film by that name. A certified public accountant and dedicated feminist, Whitmire served two terms as city controller before winning the top job. She has run the flagging boomtown with businesslike efficiency, resisting new taxes while improving garbage collection and paving miles of streets. In 1982 she shocked the Houston Establishment by appointing Lee Brown, a black and an outsider, to head the problem-plagued police department.

If provoked, the diminutive (5 ft.) Whitmire can be as scrappy as a Lone Star rattler. When one of her opponents refused to debate her in the 1981 campaign, she challenged him to "come out and fight like a man." Whitmire says she is content running the nation's fourth largest city and has no vice-presidential ambitions. Says Texas Democratic Chairman Robert Slagle: "She's a darn good mayor, a very impressive woman and smart as a whip. But I think people are going to be a little bit reluctant to buy the idea that you can jump from mayor to the vice presidency or presidency."

Beyond this tier of vice-presidential possibilities, the roster of women prospects thins rapidly. Even women with national experience have nagging liabilities. Four-term Maryland Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski, 48, for example, is too abrasive and pro-union (she has a 100% AFL-CIO rating) to help a national ticket. Others, like Connecticut's freshman Congresswoman Barbara Kennelly, 48, simply lack seasoning. "Potential vice-presidential candidates have got to have experience," says Betty Smith, Democratic state chairman for Northern California. "There are very few women who are in that position right now."

By 1988 there are likely to be many more. Fed by the recent upsurge in women officeholders, the political pipeline should be brimming with potentially competitive Democratic women, few of whom are household names now. Missouri State Senator Harriett Woods, 56, who in 1982 narrowly lost her bid for the U.S. Senate to Republican Incumbent John Danforth, is moving into the national spotlight again with a race for Lieutenant Governor. In Oklahoma, four-term State Representative Cleta Deatherage Mitch ell, 33, caught the eye of national Democratic officials with her savvy performance as a member of the party's Hunt commission on delegate selection. In 18 months as Texas state treasurer, Ann Richards, 50, has won over bankers and businessmen by increasing the interest the state earns on its deposits; a liberal supporter of Mondale, she is thought to be a Cabinet possibility if he wins the presidency. In California, ambitious State Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, 45, is one of the most politically powerful women--and blacks--in the state. Her logical next step: a race for Congress. In New York City, Council President Carol Bellamy, 42, is considering a 1985 challenge to Mayor Ed Koch.

As these women move up, their places will be taken by a new and larger generation of female politicians. Encouraged by their predecessors' success, and emboldened by talk of a woman Vice President, they may set their sights on a higher prize: the presidency itself. --By Susan Tifft.

Reported by Barbara B. Dolan/Detroit and Neil MacNeil/ Washington, with other bureaus

*"The late Ella Grasso was elected Governor of Connecticut that year but did not take office until 1975.

With reporting by Barbara B. Dolan, Neil MacNeil