Oral History Interview with Cleta Deatherage Mitchell

Oral History Interview with Cleta Deatherage Mitchell Interview Conducted by Tanya Finchum June 21, 2007 Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project Special Collections & University Archives Edmon Low Library ● Oklahoma State University © 2007 Oklahoma State University Library Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project Interview History Interviewer: Tanya Finchum Transcriber: Jill Minahan Editors: Tanya Finchum, Juliana Nykolaiszyn The recording and transcript of this interview were processed at the Oklahoma State University Library in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Project Detail The purpose of the Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project is to gather and preserve memories and historical documents of women who have served or are currently serving in the Oklahoma Legislature. This project was approved by the Oklahoma State University Institutional Review Board on November 10, 2006. Legal Status Scholarly use of the recordings and transcripts of the interview with Cleta Deatherage Mitchell is unrestricted. The interview agreement was signed on June 21, 2007. 2 Oklahoma State University Library Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project Cleta Deatherage Mitchell – Brief Biography Cleta Deatherage Mitchell was born in 1950 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ms. Mitchell earned both a law degree in 1975 and a bachelor’s degree in 1973 from the University of Oklahoma. She is a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University, as well as Shapiro Fellow at George Washington University Law School of Media and Public Affairs. Ms. Mitchell served in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives representing District 44, which includes Norman, from 1976-1984. She chaired the House Appropriations and Budget Committee, making her the youngest woman to serve in a House leadership position, and worked for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. After her term she began a law practice in Oklahoma City focusing on litigation and administration law until she became director and general counsel of the Term Limits Legal Institution in Washington, D.C. in 1991. In 1998 she co-founded the law firm Sullivan & Mitchell P.L.L.C, which merged in 2001 with Foley & Larder, where she is currently a partner and member of the Public Affairs Practice Group in Washington, D.C. She practices before the Federal Election Commission as well as other federal and state enforcement agencies. She focuses on political law, federal affairs, and strategic communications. Ms. Mitchell is admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia, the State of Oklahoma, the Supreme Court of the United States and federal district and appellate courts. Ms. Mitchell has received a number of honors for her dedication to hard work. These include receiving the “Rising Star” Award in 1993 by Campaigns and Elections magazine, the South Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce's Native Daughter Award, and being recognized as Outstanding Female Attorney in 1980. Ms. Mitchell is very active in politics. She represents a number of republican candidates, campaigns, and members of Congress. She serves on the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union, National Board of Governors for the Republican National Lawyers Association, and the Board of Directors of the Washington Scholarship Fund. She is a member of the General Counsel of the Vanguard Org., the Sports Industry Team, Chi Omega Sorority, the NRA and Phi Beta Kappa, and has served on the executive committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures. She has also served on the legal counsel to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She is a frequent speaker on election law and politics and wrote the article The Rise of America’s Two National Pastimes: Baseball and the Law, which was published in 1999 by the University of Michigan Law Review. Ms. Mitchell is married to Dale Mitchell and has one daughter, Margaret. 3 Oklahoma State University Library Women of the Oklahoma Legislature Oral History Project Cleta Deatherage Mitchell Oral History Interview Interviewed by Tanya Finchum June 21, 2007 Washington, DC Finchum My name is Tanya Finchum. I’m with the Oklahoma State University Library and we’re conducting an oral history project called “Women of the Oklahoma Legislature,” and today is June 21, 2007. I am at the 3000 block of K Street in Washington, D.C. talking with Cleta Deatherage Mitchell who was in the House of Representatives from 1976 to ’84, correct? Mitchell That’s correct. Finchum Thank you so much for talking with us today. Mitchell Happy to do that. Finchum I generally start people with asking them a little about their childhood, where they were born, their family background, that type of thing so… Mitchell Well, I was raised in Oklahoma City not too far from the Capitol, as a matter of fact, in Northeast Oklahoma City. I lived in Oklahoma City, grew up and went to Classen High School, Old Classen. I went to Millwood, which was not a high school then and then I went to Northeast for one year, which was very near the Capitol, and then my junior and senior year in high school I went to Classen High School. Then I went to the University of Oklahoma. I’m Sooner born, Sooner bred and when I die, I’ll be Sooner dead, but I do have an honorary degree from OSU [Oklahoma State University]. I received an award when Beverly Crabtree was Dean of the Oklahoma State University College of Home Economics. I did a lot of work with Dean Crabtree and a number of people at OSU. One year they gave me an award and made me an honorary alumna of the Oklahoma State University College of Home Economics. I was always very proud of that. I went to OU [University of Oklahoma] Law School and then I ran for 4 the legislature right after I graduated from law school. I had worked my way through law school as a legal assistant at the Oklahoma Human Rights Commission. The director wanted me very badly to become the lifer, stay at the Commission and succeed him when he retired, but I said, “You know, I wasn’t really cut out to work for a state agency,” so I ran for the legislature. Finchum So how early did you get interested in politics? Mitchell I was always interested in politics. One of my earliest recollections was when I was a little girl, asking my mother please not to go vote till I got home from school. She would take me with her to vote and I would stand outside while she would go into the voting booth. As I got into grade school and a little older, then I would study all the voter guides and tell my mother who I thought she ought to vote for. I just always was very interested in politics. I actually thought I would be a journalist. I went to college initially on a journalism scholarship but I was always active in student council from the earliest days of student council and junior high and high school and student government at OU. I ran for student body president at OU and lost because they’d never had a female. I’d like to think I paved the way for Denise Bode who did get elected a couple of years later as student body president [at OU] but my favorite was one of the things they said about me. I got into a run-off, and—the only two elections I’ve ever lost were run-offs. I lost the run-off for student body president at OU. I lost the run-off for lieutenant governor of the state [of Oklahoma] in 1986, but I lost both of those in run-offs. Run-offs are not good for me but (Laughs) some of the guys were saying that I might—“If you had a female student body president, what if she went to the regents meeting and started to cry?” That was during the days before anyone’s consciousness was raised about women. I was just always very interested in politics and journalism. The reason I switched from journalism was because I thought that I was too opinionated to be just an observer. I didn’t realize that by being a journalist these days means just putting your opinions in your articles, but those were the days when journalists were supposed to be unbiased and objective and I had strong opinions. Finchum Anyone else in your family interested in politics? Mitchell Not really, not in that way. It was always something we talked about growing up, current events. My mom always subscribed to the newspaper and news magazines. When John Kennedy was elected President, he was the first President who had press conferences in the 5 afternoons and, I would race home from school and watch President Kennedy. He was inaugurated when I was in the fifth grade and I would race home from school to watch the President doing his press conferences. I was just always enthralled with all of that. Finchum Did you have a role model then that was in politics? Mitchell Well, you know, it’s interesting because when I was about eleven or twelve, I read an article in McCall’s magazine about Margaret Chase Smith and she was really an enormous role model for me. She was in the United States Senate. She succeeded her husband and was elected—I want to say in the early fifties. That would have been in the early sixties when I read this interview with her. I could still remember part of what she said. She had this motto, these things that you needed to do if you were a woman in politics.

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