Ex-Sen. Paula Hawkins Dies - Central Florida News 13 http://www.cfnews13.com/Politics/FloridaDecides/2009/12/4/former_se...
SEARCH Get into the holiday spirit with News 13. December 4, See this year’s hottest toys, browse 2009 our exclusive recipes and show off 4:30:42 PM your decorated Holiday Home. News Weather Traffic Ex-Sen. Paula Hawkins Dies Space Friday, December 04, 2009 5:11:31 PM Education Tools: E-mail | Print | Feedback | Money Report Politics ORLANDO -- Paula Hawkins, Health the feisty, self-described Viewer Poll “housewife from Maitland” who Sports in 1980 became the first woman elected to a full Senate Today's Entertainment term without a family political Weather Travel connection, died Friday. She Lotto Digital Doppler was 82. Slideshow - 5 images Cheaper Gas Video X3 Seen On News 13 Former U.S. Sen. Paula Send Us Your Hawkins, the first woman Paula Hawkins 7 Day Forecast Breaking News elected to a full Senate term Dies ON TV without a family political Webster connection, has died. Remembers Happy Holidays Hawkins Flu Warning Hawkins had been in poor Slideshow: Casey Anthony Case health recently, having Hawkins And Go Magic! suffered a stroke and a fall, Reagan Project Weather said U.S. Rep. John Mica, a Central FL On Demand close friend. She died at Additional Information YOU On Demand Florida Hospital in Orlando Paula Hawkins News 13 On Demand surrounded by her family, he Collection: Winter The Agenda said. Park Public Library Know Your Numbers Paula Hawkins at Chef’s Kitchen Congress.gov Florida on a Tankful MORE INFORMATION Mrs. FIXIT » Politicians React to Related Stories Hawkins’ Passing Generation Reaction To Paula » Paula Hawkins Collection at Building Community Hawkins’ Passing the Winter Park Public Library Lawn and Garden » Official Bio on Your Technology Congress.gov Bright House Networks Travel Weather Now ABOUT NEWS 13 Collegues Remember Our People Contact Us Former Rep. Lou Frey released this statement about Appearance Request Hawkins life and legacy. Jobs Internships "She was a pioneer. The only woman senator elected from Florida . She was a fighter who fought hard for the Real Time Traffic COMMUNITY causes she believed in. She truly made her mark." Check Current Traffic Community Calendar Conditions Central Floridian News 13 Talks With Hawkins' Family Real Time Routing Central Florida History Traffic Alerts SERVICES News 13 had a chance to sit cown with Hawkins' son, Kevin Hawkins, and grandson, Adam McKinnon. They invited us into their home to share their grief, pictures of the late senator and their fond memories of a no-nonsense woman who they say was a mother first and foremost.
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Breaking News Alerts "My mom has always been a fighter, and that's how she News 13 Mobile was known. The family unit is the foundation of our lives, Make Us Your and she felt that was the main purpose of us on this Earth Homepage -- was to have great families," Kevin Hawkins said. News 13 On Twitter RSS Feeds "She had a love for her grandkids that was just Listen Live insurmountable. She asked about each and every one of them by name and she cared about her great grandkids -- Tell the GM I have a little 18 month old girl [and} I'm expecting another Road Runner E-mail little girl in January and I hope that they never forget her MARKETPLACE because the example was as close to perfect as we'll ever Advertise On News 13 get," said Adam Hawkins. Your Neighborhood Hawkins is survived by her husband, Gene, three children, eleven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Hawkins Made History See All When she won office in 1980, Hawkins became the first woman senator elected from the South, and the first Breaking News Alerts woman from any state elected to a full Senate term who News 13 Mobile was not the wife or daughter of a politician. Set Home Page RSS Feeds During her single six-year term in the U.S. Senate, the Facebook Republican positioned herself as a media-savvy champion of children and working mothers and an enemy of drug Listen Live dealers. She lost her bid for a second term in 1986 to News 13 on Twitter then-Gov. Bob Graham in a race that pitted two of TwitterResources Florida’s most popular politicians. Send Us Feedback Send Us Breaking News As the first woman to bring her husband to Washington with her, the Senate wives’ club was renamed the Senate spouses’ club.
Hawkins entered public office at a time when doors that previously had been closed to women were being opened. Ideologically, she never considered herself a feminist, but she championed equal opportunities for women.
She was the first woman senator elected from the South and the first woman from any state elected to a full Senate term who was not the wife or daughter of a politician. Nebraska businesswoman Hazel Abel, who also had no political family ties, was elected from that state in 1954 to serve the final two months in the term of a senator who had died in office.
“I think it showed other women that you could do this,” Community Calendar Hawkins said in a 1997 interview for an oral history Community Calendar, as seen on program at the University of Florida. Central Florida News 13. See what's happening in and around your home. Hawkins backed legislation that helped homemakers enter Submitted events are considered for the job market after divorce or widowhood. She supported both on-air and on cfnews13.com equalizing pension benefits for women by taking into account their years spent at home raising children. She View the Community Calendar fought to get day care for the children of Senate Submit an event employees and pushed for tax breaks on child care expenses. News 13 Partners Breaking Down Barriers
She even forced fellow senators to don bathing trunks when swimming in the Senate gym so she could work out at the previously all-male bastion during daytime hours.
But there were slights. At one of her first news
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conferences in Washington as a senator, a TV reporter asked who was going to do her laundry if she was busy working in the U.S. Senate.
“I kept saying (to myself), this is 1980 and I can’t believe that anybody is asking me this, especially a grown man from a national network,” Hawkins said in the 1997 interview. “I do not think there was a women in the room ... That was my introduction.”
Yet at the same time, Hawkins opposed the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion-on-demand. She refused to join the Congressional Woman’s Caucus because she thought childcare, pension equity and other matters were “family issues” and not just of concern to women.
“I did not like the Equal Rights Amendment,” she said. “I predicted that it would bring about the downfall of the father’s responsibility to support the family.”
Hawkins Builds Political Career In 1950s
Hawkins began her political career in the late 1950s when she and a group of other young housewives fought City Hall in order get sewers in their neighborhood in Maitland, an Orlando suburb. The women ran three reform candidates who defeated the mayor and two commissioners in the next city election.
Hawkins was elected to the Florida Public Service Commission in 1972, becoming only the third Republican since Reconstruction to win statewide office in what was then a strongly Democratic state. She became the commission’s chairwoman and served as a Republican National committeewoman.
During the 1970s, she failed to win races for state legislature and lieutenant governor. After leaving the commission in 1978, she became a vice president at Air Florida.
Hawkins was elected to the Senate in 1980, first winning a six-candidate primary and a runoff and then defeating Democratic Insurance Commissioner Bill Gunter. She was part of a wave of conservatives who came to Washington as part of the Ronald Reagan landslide.
She was instrumental in passing the Missing Children’s Act of 1982, which established a national clearinghouse for information about missing children.
In 1984, she startled her Senate colleagues, friends and family members by disclosing during a congressional hearing that she was sexually molested as a child. Her admission was greeted with widespread public sympathy.
She pushed legislation that cut aid to countries that did not reduce their drug production. She helped initiate the South Florida Drug Task Force and assisted in creating the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control.
Detractors called her a shoot-from-the-hip lightweight who took a superficial approach to complex issues.
Her first major initiative in the Senate was a political gaffe. During a luncheon of Florida agribusiness leaders featuring steak, asparagus and strawberries, she
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announced plans to jail food-stamp cheaters.
She was a supporter of Reaganomics but was one of the few Republicans not to sponsor the Gramm-Rudman bill for a balanced budget.
She voted both for it and against it on separate votes, explaining her “no” vote as a way to protect federal civilian pension increases.
During her re-election campaign in 1986, Hawkins said a Graham victory could help “tax-and-spend liberals” retake the Senate. Graham portrayed himself as a pragmatic Democrat and said Hawkins’ efforts to fight child abuse and drugs amounted to being a cheerleader for causes no one opposed.
After her defeat, she told Floridians: “I want you all to know that I look back, not with regret, but to six years ago when we promised the people of Florida that if I went to Washington, you’d know I was there and I would make a difference.”
After The Senate
After her Senate career, Hawkins served as a chief delegate to the United Nations Drug Conference in 1987 held in Vienna, Austria. She was also a delegate to the United Kingdom/United Nations Cocaine Summit held in London in 1989.
For a time, she chaired the National Commission of Responsibilities for Financing Post-Secondary Education.
Hawkins was plagued by neck and shoulder problems starting in 1982, the year she was hit by a prop and knocked unconscious at the WESH television studio in Orlando. She spent the following years in pain, in and out of traction, and in need of painkillers and regular visits to physical therapists. Hawkins and the TV station reached a settlement in 1987.
Hawkins was born Paula Fickes in Salt Lake City in 1927. She attended Utah State University before marrying her husband. They had three children.
In addition to her term in the Senate, Hawkins served on the following committees and boards:
Florida Public Service Commission: 1972–79 Air Florida, Vice president: 1979–80 Rural Telephone Bank Board, Director: 1972–78 President’s Commission on White House Fellowships: 1975 Federal Emergency Administration Consumer Affairs, Special Impact Advisory Committee: 1974–76
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