This past legislative session, lawmakers debated a bill to guarantee mothers the right to breastfeed in public, a provision every other state except Utah and one other already had in place.
But the bill barely squeaked through its committee hearing on a 6-5 vote, with five male legislators voting against it, including Rep. Curt Webb, R-Logan, complaining that, if the bill passed, “you don’t have to cover up at all. … I’m not comfortable with that, I’m just not. It’s really in your face.”
And women — and, frankly, a lot of men — all across the state rolled their eyes.
But it’s this type of tone-deafness that happens all too often in the Utah Legislature, due in no small part to the scarcity of female elected officials.
Last session, Sen. Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, wasn’t able to get legislative approval for a free — yes, free — study of the wage gap in the state, which is the second widest in the country. And state employees still don’t get family leave to care for a newborn child or family member, something even President Donald Trump supports.
Maybe those things are about to change.
Last year, we saw women’s marches and the #MeToo movement, and we witnessed a growing a sense of anger and activism among women.
If you doubted it could be sustained, you wouldn’t have been alone. I was one who wasn’t sure it would translate into a measurable increase in political involvement.
Boy, was I wrong — and that’s not easy for a man to admit.
With the close of candidate filings Thursday, the number of women who have registered to run for office in the Utah Legislature increased by nearly 50 percent.
In 2016, 50 women ran for House seats and nine ran for the state Senate. This year, 67 women filed to run for the House, and the number running for the Senate has doubled to 18. Doubled.
“That’s great,” said Sen. Deidre Henderson, R-Spanish Fork. “We’ve been spending a lot of time, in a bipartisan way, to get women prepared and thinking about running for office and, obviously, I think we’re seeing some of that pay off.”
Groups like Real Women Run have been encouraging more women to throw their hats into the ring and actively preparing them for the campaign. (It’s worth noting: The group’s next candidate training is scheduled for April 7.)
(Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune) Sen. Deidre Henderson, R-Spanish Fork, confers about a Rules Committee report on the Senate floor, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018.
“It absolutely tells us something. We’ve seen a nationwide movement of women getting more involved and getting engaged at all levels,” said Morgan Lyon Cotti, associate director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics and a member of the board of Real Women Run. “We see women want to be part of the process, and this increase in women running is reflective of that.”
Now, every time I write about how we need more women in politics, I get men pushing back. What we need, they argue, is to elect the best leaders, regardless of gender.
There is truth in that. But it is hard to look at the makeup of the current Legislature, with just 21 women holding office — 1 in 5 legislators — and argue that there aren’t more women who are qualified to lead.
There is also inherent value in having a Legislature that is more reflective of the population that elects it.
“We very often have very different life experiences and you see that play out in what gets funded and what doesn’t,” Henderson said. “Especially in those backrooms, where a lot of the funding decisions are made, it’s important to have the perspective of half the population, and that’s what’s really missing.”
Studies have also shown that women bring a different skill set to lawmaking. They are more collaborative, more compassionate and more bipartisan — things that I think most of us would agree we would like to see more of in our government.
Of course, filing to run is the easy part — winning is another matter. That’s especially true because, Cotti says, more women in Utah tend to run as Democrats, and Democrats tend to not fare as well at the polls.
That is true again this year. In the Senate races, for example, just five of the 18 women are Republicans.
But there is one thing for sure: Women can’t win if they don’t run. Each one who runs and each one who serves then becomes a role model for the next generation of leaders.
And come November, maybe I’ll get to write a column about how many newly elected female legislators will get a chance to prove their talents to the people of Utah.
