Commentary: Electing a woman to Congress requires three key elements

Nov. 29, 2021  |  By Elaine Haney

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy’s retirement from the U.S. Senate in 2022 and Congressman Peter Welch’s decision to run for his seat bring the opportunity for Vermonters to elect a woman to represent us in Congress for the first time. Three key elements must be present during the campaign season in order for that to occur.

We must have a slate of strong, Democratic women to choose from. Speculation is rampant about which women will run. State Sen. Becca Balint, D-Windham, Lt. Gov. Molly Gray, and state Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, have all expressed interest. If these women run, consider this box checked.

Vermont women must participate more in the campaign process. In addition to voting, they must donate and volunteer on campaigns more. 

We need to support women candidates not just with our votes but also with our wallets. The Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University reported last week that in state legislative races women out-vote men, but men out-give women. 

Campaign fundraising has always been difficult for women candidates. Men’s networks tend to be larger, tighter, and more difficult for women candidates to access, requiring them to work harder to build their own and putting them at financial and competitive disadvantage. We must invest in women’s leadership by donating more to the campaigns of women candidates if we want to improve our representation and ensure women have input into the decision making on policies that affect us.

We must also volunteer in larger numbers to support the campaigns of women candidates. In Vermont there is a shortage of campaign volunteers. In order for a candidate to run a successful statewide campaign of the magnitude required to run for Congress, there must be a strong pool of volunteers and staff to run that campaign successfully.

Vermont media must cover the race with accuracy and fairness. In January 2021 an open letter to the Vermont Press Corps signed by 50 prominent Vermonters called for the state’s media to “commit to the challenging work of reckoning with the unconscious biases that affect our public narratives every day.” The letter points out some ways media can impact the public’s perception of women candidates, including focusing on women’s appearance or tone of voice, characterizing disagreements between women with demeaning terms, and publishing more quotes from men than from women.

Since the letter was published media outlets across the state committed to doing better. 2022 will put those commitments to the test. For the first time our state will enjoy a competitive race among multiple qualified candidates including several women. We will be watching to see how those women candidates are covered by the media, and whether they will be presented fairly and accurately to Vermont voters.

Electing a woman in 2022 to represent Vermont in Congress is an essential step towards improving the representation of Vermont women in government. How we get to that historic moment is also an opportunity to bring more women into the political process.

Elaine Haney is executive director of Emerge Vermont, an organization dedicated to recruiting, training and providing a network for Democratic women candidates at all levels of Vermont government.