Women candidates hit a wall in California
LOS ANGELES — If 2018 is The Year of the Woman, nobody told California.
In the biggest blue state on the map, the only woman running for governor, former state schools chief Delaine Eastin, is polling in single digits. London Breed, the interim mayor of San Francisco and the first black woman to hold the post, was bounced from her position last month by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She was replaced by a white man.
And in a round of caucus meetings last weekend, Democratic Party activists in three competitive Southern California House races overlooked three EMILY’s List-endorsed candidates and threw their support, by wide margins, to three men.
Sara Jacobs, one of the snubbed candidates, took to Twitter to vent following the vote: “This election won’t be decided in back rooms by the old boys clubs, it’s going to be decided by the 1000's of energized voters who are literally marching in the streets demanding a Rep who will stand up to the Trump admin and defend our values.”
Jacobs, who’s seeking to succeed Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, won just six of 107 votes cast in the pre-endorsement caucus leading up to the California Democratic Party’s annual convention in February. Mike Levin, an attorney, earned 10 times the number of votes.
“Yeah, I mean, we knew that there were going to be challenges,” Jacobs, 29, told POLITICO. “I’m obviously a young woman, and it’s not the kind of candidacy that the old guard and the boys club really knows what to do with.”
In an election year rocked by sexual harassment scandals and the emergence of the “Me Too” movement,” women in California politics are still running at the margins. The phenomenon is especially striking in this heavily Democratic state, where no woman has ever held the governorship and women account for only 26 of the 120 state legislators.
“It is a lost opportunity that the California Democratic Party is not supporting more women in congressional and state races,” said Debbie Mesloh, an adviser to U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris and, now, Buffy Wicks, a woman credited as a key architect of Barack Obama’s 2008 grass-roots campaign who is now seeking a highly competitive San Francisco Bay area seat in the state Assembly.
EMILY’s List spokesman Bryan Lesswing said, “It is extremely disappointing that the state party has not recognized the incredible women candidates running in California seats that represent the best pick-up opportunities in the country."
California is not entirely without women in top positions of political power — and Democratic activists here have rallied around women in politics before. Fully a quarter century ago — in 1992, the original Year of the Woman in politics — Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer both beat male opponents in races for the U.S. Senate. The state still has two women in the Senate, Feinstein and Harris, and women have made gains in local offices. The powerful Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors installed its first female supermajority in 2016, with women holding four of five offices.
“I think we’ve got a good pipeline, and I think there are bright spots,” said former state Treasurer Kathleen Brown, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1994. “But women have to get out there and run. It’s not easy.”
Brown, the sister of Gov. Jerry Brown, said female candidates are still forced to contend with gender stereotypes that disadvantage them — and with supporters unaccustomed to writing women large checks. Recalling campaign appearances former Texas Gov. Ann Richards made on her behalf, Brown said, “She’d tell women to add up what you have on, and write a check for that. … Women would be very, sort of ‘Girl Scout cookie’ about writing small checks.”
Brown said, “Incrementally, it’s gotten better. … Incrementally.”