Even today, few women in state government
The Census says 51 percent of Ohio’s residents are women. You’d never know that, looking at the General Assembly’s roster and the historical list of Ohio’s statewide elected officials. Both major political parties talk up gender equity, but the Statehouse has yet to see it.
For instance, only one woman has served as governor of Ohio, and then just briefly: Gov. Nancy P. Hollister, a Marietta Republican who’d been George Voinovich’s lieutenant governor. She succeeded Voinovich when he resigned to take a U.S. Senate seat. Hollister was governor from Dec. 31, 1998, until Jan. 11, 1999, when Republican Bob Taft was inaugurated. Hollister is now vice president of the State Board of Education.
Today, the only woman on the roster of Ohio’s statewide elected executive officers is suburban Akron Republican Mary Taylor, who is Gov. John R. Kasich’s lieutenant governor. Taylor is seeking the GOP’s 2018 nomination for governor.
Also running are fellow Republicans Mike DeWine, Jon Husted and Jim Renacci; Democratic state Sen. Joe Schiavoni; and three Democratic women: Former state Rep. Connie Pillich, of Cincinnati; former U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton, of suburban Akron; and Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley.
Not till 1970, 50 years after women gained the right to vote, that Ohioans elected a woman to a statewide executive office: Democrat Gertrude Donahey, as state treasurer.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, about 24.9 percent of the members of the nation’s state legislators are women. Of the Ohio General Assembly’s 132 members, about 22 percent are women. And among the General Assembly’s 200-plus-year list of top legislative leaders, just one woman has reached the House speakership, suburban Columbus Republican Jo Ann Davidson. She was speaker from 1995 through 2000. And it’s been almost 70 years since the Senate elected a woman its majority leader (today’s Senate president): Cleveland Democrat Margaret Mahoney, in 194950.
True, the seven-judge Ohio Supreme Court is led by Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, whose fellow justices include Republicans Judith L. French and Sharon L. Kennedy. Moreover, Ohio was the first state in the Union to elect a woman to its court of last resort – Greater Cleveland’s Florence E. Allen, elected to the high court in 1922, re-elected in 1928, then appointed by Franklin Roosevelt to the U.S. Court of Appeals (6th Circuit), the first woman to serve on a federal Appeals court. Still, it was roughly 50 years before another woman joined Ohio’s Supreme Court – Greater Cleveland Republican Blanche Krupansky, appointed in 1981 by GOP Gov. James A. Rhodes. When she sought election to the court, Greater Cleveland Democrat James P. Celebrezze won instead.
During the 1980s and 1990s, state Senate Republicans seemed to focus on recruiting and electing women for the state Senate. And Davidson has long been an untiring mentor for women thinking about running for office. Ohio’s legislative caucuses and the parties need to jump in, too.
As is the case with everyone in politics, there are women who are conservative, middle of the road, or liberal, pro-abortion-rights or anti-abortion-rights, fans or foes of Donald Trump, etc. That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the wider the spectrum of political opinion expressed around Capitol Square, the better the policy options Ohioans would likely get to consider. As women of every background know well, there is a species of humankind known as clueless men. And every session, the legislature seems to reach its quota. That’s why hearing varied perspectives natters so much – in the General Assembly, in Ohio’s courts, and on the staffs of Ohio’s elected statewide executive officers.
As is the case with everyone in politics, there are women who are conservative, middle of the road, or liberal, ... fans or foes of Donald Trump, etc. That doesn’t matter.