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Strategic choices: Career decisions of elected women

McLean, Joan Elizabeth, Ph.D.

The Ohio State University, 1994

UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106

STRATEGIC CHOICES: CAREER DECISIONS OF ELECTED WOMEN

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Joan Elizabeth McLean, B.A., M.A.

*****

The Ohio State University 1994

Dissertation Committee: Approved by

John H. Kessel

Aage R. Clausen CW j ______7 Adviser Joan Huber Department of Political Science Copyright by Joan E. McLean 1 9 9 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I express heartfelt appreciation to Dr. John H. Kessel for his insight and unwavering support throughout this project. Thanks go to other members of my committee, Drs. Aage Clausen and Joan Huber, for their valuable comments and extreme patience. I am indebted to the officeholders who participated in this study. Funds from the Graduate School Alumni Research Award and the OSU Women's Studies Small Research Grant provided critical financial support. Gratitude is expressed to my colleagues and students at Ohio Wesleyan University, especially the Elliott Hall Monday Lunch Group, for their encouragement. The assistance of CAWP, Retta Semones, Jim Ludwig, Ridi Faruque, Janice Schroeder and Laura Staley-Hausman is gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks go to my cadre of friends, especially Val, Scott, Brenda, Steve, Hannah, Chris, Kirk, Judith, Sandy, Donna, Deb, the Johnsons, Aunt Shirley and the D.C. and Florida contingents for providing perspective. To CJ, I offer sincere thanks for allowing the house we share to become dissertation central and for offering to do whatever was needed to help complete this project. To Mildred M. Jeffrey, my mentor and friend - and the memory of my parents

iii VITA

March 18, 1950 ...... Born - Baldwin, New York 1972 ...... B.A., University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 1988 ...... M.A. , The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1990-Present ...... Instructor, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio PUBLICATIONS

Politics of Presidential Elections in L. Sandy Maisel, ed., Encyclopedia of American Political Parties and Elections. New York: Garland Publishing Company. 1991 (with John Kessel)

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Political Science TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... ii DEDICATION...... iii VITA ...... iv LIST OF T A B L E S ...... vii CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1 II. FACTORS AFFECTING WOMEN'S POLITICAL CAREER DECISIONS ...... 22 Societal Barriers ...... 22 Structural Political Barriers ...... 3 3 Ambition...... 51 III. FIRST RUN FOR PUBLIC O F F I C E ...... 61 Factors Affecting Decision to Seek First Office ...... 64 Strategic Decisions Regarding First R u n ...... 73 Party S u p p o r t ...... 90 Money Raised for First R u n ...... 99 Outcome of First Election ...... 104 S u m m a r y ...... 104 IV. CAREER PATHS TO CURRENT OFFICE ...... 106 Important Factors in Decisions to Run for Current Of fice...... 112 Career Moves Made By Current Officeholders ...... 124 Career Pace of Experienced Officeholders...... 132 Party S u p p o r t ...... 142 Money Raised for Current O f f i c e ...... 151 Effect of Age on Political Influence . . 158 S u m m a r y ...... 166

v CHAPTER PAGE V. FUTURE CAREER PLANS ...... 170 Career Plans Regarding Next Election . . . 170 Importance of Personal and Campaign Circumstances ...... 178 Long-Range Electoral Career Plans .... 187 Conditions Necessary to run for Higher Office...... 206 Campaign Fundraising ...... 213 S u m m a r y ...... 218 VI. MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS OF FUTURE CAREER PLANS ...... 220 Number of Additional Years In Office . . 221 Statewide Ambition ...... 2 28 Congressional Ambition ...... 243 S u m m a r y ...... 250 VII. CONCLUSION: STRATEGIC CHOICES ...... 255 Impact of Gendered Socialization and Role Responsibilities ...... 255 Impact of Structural Political Barriers. . 2 63 Impact of Ambition...... 2 67 Implication of Findings ...... 271 LIST OF REFERENCES...... 291

vi LIST OF TABLES

State Legislators by Region ...... 12 State Legislators by Type of Legislature. . . . 13 Female Statewide Elected Officials by Region. . 15 Factors important in decision to first seek public office ...... 67 Favorable family circumstances important factor in decisions to seek first office: by gender, marital status, children ...... 69 Favorable family circumstances important factors in female candidates' decision to first seek office: by age of youngest child . . 71 Favorable family circumstances important factors in male candidates' decision to first seek office: by age of youngest child ...... 72 The median age of candidates seeking office for the first time: by family status ...... 77 Relationship between gender and age of candidate's youngest child at time of first race ...... 78 Median age of married candidates with children: by gender and age of youngest child ...... 79 Level of office sought by State Legislators in their first race for public office: by time period ...... 85 Level of office sought by State Legislators in their first race for public office: by presence of children ...... 86

vii 13. Level of office candidates sought in first race for public office by age of youngest child ...... 88 14. Level of office sought by State Legislators with children 5 years-old or younger during their first race for public o f f i c e ...... 89 15. Party support received by candidates in their first race for office ...... 93 16. Level of party support received by women candidates running for state legislative seats: by legislative status ...... 97 17. Money raised by female and male candidates who ran for the first time before 1980.... 101 18. Money raised by female and male candidates who ran for the first time in 1980 or after .. 102 19. Money raised by female and male candidates who ran for higher office in 1980 or after . . 103 20. Factors important in decision to first seek election to state house: by electoral e x p e r i e n c e ...... 114 21. Factors important in decision to first seek election to state senate: by electoral e x p e r i e n c e ...... 117 22. Factors important in decision to first seek election to higher office: by electoral e x p e r i e n c e ...... 119 23. Change over-time in the importance experienced officeholders attached to seven factors: comparison between initial run for public office and first race for current o f f i c e ...... 123 24. Offices held previously by experienced officeholders currently serving as state legislators: by chamber ...... 128 25. Number of offices previously held by experienced female and male officeholders currently serving at the state legislative level: by chamber ...... 129

viii 26. Officeholding experience of current state s e n a t o r s ...... 130 27. Whether or not experienced officeholders had previously run for and lost an election: by chamber: 131 28. Relationship between age of experienced officeholders' children during first run and career pace ...... 135 29. Years between first run for public office and first run for current office: by experienced candidates' age at first run for public office ...... 137 30. Years between first campaign for public office and first campaign for current office .... 139 31. Number of years between experienced officeholders first run for public office and their first run for current state legislative office: by chamber ...... 141 32. Experienced officeholders not supported by their party at start of their careers: party support received in first race for current o f f i c e ...... 145 33. Level of party support received by experienced candidates in their first run for current office: by gender . . . 146 34. Amount of money raised by experienced officeholders in their first race for current office: by gender ...... 152 35. Amount of money state legislators raised in first race for current office: by chamber . . 155 36. Amount of money officeholders raised in first race for current office: by legislative s t a t u s ...... 156 37. Age range at which officeholders were first elected to the state h o u s e ...... 162 38. Age range at which officeholders were first elected to the state senate ...... 164 39. Plans for next election: by election cycle . . 171

ix 40. Factors important in decision to seek reelection: by gender ...... 174 41. Importance of personal circumstances in officeholders' decisions about next move: by g e n d e r ...... 180 43. Level of party support expected by state legislators in their next election: by g e n d e r ...... 183 44. Level of party support state legislators expected to receive in next election: by career m o v e ...... 185 45. Amount of money officeholders expected to raise for their next election: by election p l a n s ...... 186 46. Number of additional years state legislators were willing to serve in public office: by g e n d e r ...... 189 47. Number of additional years state legislators younger than 45 were willing to serve in elective office: by gender ...... 190 48. Number of additional years female state legislators were willing to serve in public office: by age...... 192 49. Number of additional years male state legislators were willing to serve in public office: by age...... 193 50. State senate ambition of state house members older than 55: by g e n d e r ...... 195 51. State senate ambition of male state house members: by a g e ...... 196 52. Whether female state house members thought it was likely they would be elected to the state senate: by a g e ...... 197 53. Statewide offices for which state legislators thought about running:by gender...... 200 54. Age's effect on women's Congressional a m b i t i o n ...... 203

x 55. Age's effect on men's Congressional ambition. . 2 04 56. State legislators current attitudes about campaign fundraising as compared to their attitudes when first elected: by gender .... 215 57. Correlation matrix for number of additional years willing to stay in office and five independent variables ...... 223 58. Results of regression of number of additional years state legislators are willing to serve in public office on five independent variables ...... 224 59. Results of the regression of number of additional years state legislators are willing to serve in public office on four independent variables: by gender ...... 226 60. Correlation matrix for statewide ambition and eight independent variables ...... 234 61. Regression of statewide ambition on eight independent variables ...... 23 5 62. Regression of statewide ambition on seven independent variables: by gender .... 239 63. Correlation matrix for Congressional ambition and seven independent variables ...... 245 64. Results of regression of Congressional ambition on seven independent variables .... 246 65. Results of regression of Congressional ambition on six independent: by gende r ...... 248

xi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

Introduction This dissertation examines the strategic choices that women officeholders make in their political careers. Understanding the decisions that elected women make about the opportunities and obstacles they encounter throughout their political careers provides valuable insight as to the likelihood that significantly more women will chose to run for office in the future. Periodically, women officeholders must decide whether to seek reelection, run for higher office, or retire from electoral politics. We expect the impact of certain factors on the career moves officeholders make varies as they gain officeholding experience, as political opportunities wax and wane, and as personal circumstances change. We also expect that at certain points in political careers, gender may affect the impact that certain factors have on career choices. This dissertation examines to what extent the various factors, including gender, affect women's political career decisions.

1 2 Scholars classify the various factors that affect political career choices into three groups. One group of factors is related to the socialization process. Through this process women are encouraged to develop certain psychological characteristics, perform gender-appropriate roles and attain particular socioeconomic credentials. Scholars argue that women's political socialization and gender roles often raise questions about women's suitability, as well as their availability, for holding public office. Are they competitive enough to be successful at all levels of electoral politics? Are they willing to take risks? How does their economic and social status affect their political career options? To what degree do family responsibilities limit their political opportunities? A second group of factors that affects the choices women make relate to the political opportunity structure in which women officeholders operate. These factors raise questions regarding women's viability as candidates for public office. Will their party support their election efforts? Can they raise sufficient campaign funds to mount credible races? Do they have opportunities to run in open- seat races or must they challenge incumbents? The third set of factors that affect women's choices are ambition related. These factors are used to question the commitment that women have to holding public office. Do they consider public officeholding to be a long-term career 3 option? Are they willing to serve in office for an extended period of time? Are they interested in running for higher office and, if so, are they laying the groundwork to make such a run? Factors related to socialization, political structure and ambition also impact men's career choices. Our expectation is that their impact on men's choices is different than their impact on women's choices. Men are believed to be suitable and available to compete for public office. They are encouraged to follow educational and occupational career paths that prepare them to become members of the socioeconomic status groups from which most political elites are chosen. As a result of their status, men are assumed to have both the ambition to run for public office and the necessary party and financial resources to do so. To confirm these assumptions we inspect the influence that these various factors had on the choices female and male officeholders made at two previous points in their careers: their initial run for public office and their first race for their current office. We also explore to what degree these factors are influencing the plans officeholders are making about two future races: their next election and any possible future election for higher office. In the remainder of Chapter I, we outline the dissertation, describe the data base, and review women's 4 current status in elected office. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the various arguments that scholars make about why it is important that more women be elected. Outline of the Dissertation This dissertation consists of seven chapters. Chapter I introduces the topic and describes the data base. Chapter II reviews the previous research concerning the impact that factors related to societal barriers, the political opportunity structure and ambition have on political careers. Chapter III examines how these factors influenced the choices officeholders made about their initial run for public office. Chapter IV explores how these factors affected the choices officeholders made about their first run for the office they held in 1990. Chapter V identifies the impact of these factors on the strategic choices officeholders are making about their next race for office and any future races for higher office. Chapter VI employs multivariate analysis to examine officeholders' ambition for statewide and federal office. Chapter VII reviews the major findings in the four analytical chapters and discusses what they reveal about women and men's career choices and the likelihood that significantly more women will be elected to office in the near future. Data Collection and Response Rate The information used in this dissertation was obtained through a mail questionnaire whose content was based on information gathered from in-person interviews with women officeholders at local, state and federal levels. These interviews were conducted over a four-year time period from 1985-1989. Insights from these discussions plus information from questionnaires used in previous studies (Carroll and Strimling 1983; Carroll 1985a; Farah 1987) of women elites were used to design the first draft of the questionnaire. In January 1990 the first draft was reviewed by several local elected officials in Columbus, Ohio. As a result of suggestions made in follow-up interviews with these elected officials, the questionnaire was redesigned to include predominately multiple-choice rather than open-ended questions. In February 1990 a second draft of the questionnaire was mailed to all sixteen women members of the Ohio state legislature and to one of their male colleagues. In a cover letter officeholders were asked to complete the questionnaire and comment on its content and design. Responses from six of these state legislators led to a final revision of the questionnaire. The Sample Based on figures provided by the Center for the American Woman and Politics (CAWP), we estimated that about 17,600 women were serving in office in 1990. The vast majority of women officeholders - about 16,300 - held local positions on municipal councils, as mayors, or on county governing boards. The rest held state legislative, statewide or federal offices. Due to both time and financial constraints, we limited the number of officeholders sampled to about 1,300. Since we were especially interested in identifying the factors that affect the decisions women officeholders make about running for higher office, the survey was limited to those elected officials who were in positions from which to launch a serious run for statewide or federal office. For the purpose of this study, occupying a "position from which to launch a serious run for statewide or federal office" applied to those women who were in the types of offices traditionally used as springboards to higher office. State legislators and mayors of large cities fell into this category. State legislative offices are generally considered stepping stones either to statewide or federal officeholding. Even though the "political weight" of state legislative offices varies from state to state, state legislators, as a group, are considered important players in the political hierarchy. Both political parties consistently groom and recruit state legislators to run for higher offices. Consequently, we surveyed all 1261 women state legislators who were in office as of March 1990. A second group of women officeholders who we considered surveying were the 100 women mayors of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. Of this group, 12 women served as mayors of cities which are among the country's 100 largest. For the most part, mayors also are potential statewide and federal candidates. Limited resources forced us to eliminate a survey of the mayors so that we would have the resources to survey the 75 women who were serving in statewide or federal offices. The importance of including women statewide officials and members of Congress was two-fold. The political career decisions these elected women make in the future are key to maintaining the number of women serving in higher office. In addition, these women officeholders were in strategic positions to think about running for the top statewide and federal offices: Governor, U.S. Senator, Vice-President, and President. Given these decisions, a total of 1,259 women officeholders were selected to receive questionnaires. This group consisted of the 29 women members of Congress, the 46 women statewide elected officials and 1,184 of the 1,261 women state legislators who were in office as of March 1990.1 In order to make gender comparisons, we sent questionnaires to a selected group of male officeholders.

1A11 the excluded state legislators were from New Hampshire. We decided that mailing to a random sample of 49 out of the 130 women serving in the 424 New Hampshire state legislature would save costs without compromising the representativeness of the sample. Funds received from a second grant provided resources to mail about 1,000 questionnaires to male officeholders. Since this number matched the number of female state legislators who we selected to study, we decided to limit the gender comparisons to only those that could be made about state legislators. A total of 6,200 male state legislators served in office as of May 1990. To select the 1,007 male state legislators, we used a stratified sampling method to ensure that male state legislators from all fifty states were included. Compilation of Names and Addresses of Elected Officials The names and addresses of women in the 50 states who were serving in state legislative, statewide or federal office as of March 1990 were purchased on floppy disks from CAWP. The names and addresses of the male state legislators were purchased on floppy disks from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Contents of Mailings Each officeholder received a packet containing a personalized cover letter, a questionnaire in the form of a printed 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 booklet, and a printed postage-paid return envelope. Cover letters to both female and male elected officials were sent on letterhead from The Ohio State University. The content of the letters to the two groups differed somewhat. Letters to women officeholders stressed the importance of understanding more about women's political career patterns. Each letter had a handwritten note. Some notes mentioned their legislative activities or their membership in the Women's Caucus of NCSL or the National Order of Legislators (NOWL). Other notes contained a reference to an elected official or political activist who knew the officeholder and thought she would be interested in participating in the study. We also noted in the letters that CAWP had provided assistance in designing the project. CAWP was mentioned because it is well-known and respected by most women legislators. Many women officeholders participated in CAWP sponsored workshops, conferences and research. Letters to the male state legislators stressed the importance of understanding the career patterns of elected officials in general. The letters contained handwritten notes about the legislator's committee posts, issue interests or leadership positions. Some contained notes that referred to an elected official or political activist who knew the officeholder and recommended that they participate in the study. Compared to the contacts we had for women officeholders, we did not have as many personal contacts encouraging the male legislators to respond. We also dropped the reference to CAWP from the letters to male state legislators because it had little resonance with them. 10 Instead, we mentioned that several NCSL members had assisted in the design of the research project. A statement in the cover letters to each group promised officeholders confidentiality and that their responses would be reported only in summary statistical form. Identification numbers were included on all the questionnaires so that follow-up contacts and tracking were possible. The Timing of the Mailings In order to take into account primary elections that were being held in the states at different times, we mailed questionnaires to women officeholders on a rolling basis starting in March 1990. The first round of mailings was completed by the end of June 1990. Beginning in July, a second complete packet was sent to the women members of Congress and statewide officials who had not responded to the first mailing. Follow-up packets were also sent to female state legislators in states from which we had few responses. The follow-up packets were identical to the original ones except for a slight change in the wording of the cover letters. Packets to all 1,007 male state legislators in the sample were mailed in June 1990. The cause of the time delay between the first mailing to female officeholders and the first mailing to the male state legislatures was financial. A first grant received in January 1990 covered the costs of producing and mailing packets sent to female officeholders. A second grant to cover similar costs for the mailing of packets to male state legislators was not received until May 1990. This delayed mailing to this group until June. No follow-up mailings were made to male state legislators. We made this decision for two reasons. First, there were no funds left to cover the expenses to do so. Second, the follow-up mailings that were sent to women officeholders yielded very few additional completed questionnaires. Response Rates Completed questionnaires were returned by 658 of the women officeholders: 620 (49%) of the women state legislators; 31 (67%) of the 46 female statewide elected officials; and 7 (23%) of the female members of Congress. In addition, a total of 288 (29%) of the male state legislators returned completed questionnaires. Representativeness of Respondents: State Legislators Questionnaires were received from female state legislators in every state and from male state legislators in every state except Alaska and Louisiana. The data in Table 1 show that the regional distribution of female and male state legislators who responded is similar to the regional distribution of all state legislators. 12 Table 1. State Legislators by Region

Regions Female State NE South Midwest West Legislators Percentages

All (N=1261) 36 17 25 23 (100%) Respondents (n=620) 32 16 29 25 (100%)

Male State Legislators

All (N=6200) 28 32 23 17 (100%) Respondents (n=288) 27 27 26 19 (100%)

In addition to looking at the regional representativeness of the state legislators who responded, we also examined the distribution of respondents across different types of state legislatures: part-time, mixed and full-time.2 The data displayed in Table 2 show that the breakdown of respondents by the type of legislature in which they serve is similar to the distribution of all state legislators across these three categories of legislatures.

2This division is based on a 1988 NCSL study that grouped the state legislatures into these three categories depending on the degree to which they exhibited characteristics associated with a full-time legislature. Factors such as length of session, compensation, staff, constituency services, membership turnover, and district offices were used to determine legislative type (Council of State Governments 1990:110). 13 Table 2. State Legislators by Type of Legislature

Type of Legislature Female State Part-time Mixed Full-time Legislators Percentages

All (N=1261) 37 47 16 (100%) Respondents (n=620) 34 50 17 (100%) Male State Legislators

All (N=6200) 36 47 19 (100%) Respondents (n=288) 32 50 18 (100%)

Next, we examined how representative the sample of state legislators was according to the legislative chamber in which they served. The data show that 22% of the female state legislators and 26% of the male state legislators who responded served in the upper chamber of their legislature. The remaining 78% of female state legislators and 74% of male state legislators who returned questionnaires served in the lower chamber. These figures were comparable to the total population of state legislators in office as of March 1990: 21% of female and 28% of male state legislators served in the upper chamber; and 79% of female and 72% of male state legislators served in the lower chamber. Finally, we examined the representativeness of the partisan breakdown of the state legislators who returned guestionnaires. Of those who responded, 57% of the female state legislators were Democrats and 43% were Republicans. These figures compare to a partisan breakdown of 59% Democrats and 41% Republicans for all female state legislators. Women respondents were slightly more Republican than were female state legislators as a whole. A stronger pattern emerged for male state legislators. Of the male state legislators who returned questionnaires 48% were Democrats and 52% were Republicans. The partisan breakdown during this time period for all male state legislators was 61% Democrats and 39% Republicans. Based on three of the four measures examined, the state legislators who responded were quite representative of their target population. In regard to the fourth measure, partisanship, the overrepresentation of Republican state legislators is controlled for when necessary to take into account any biases that might result from the Republican tilt. Representativeness of Respondents; Statewide and Federal Except for the office of governor, the offices held by the 31 female statewide elected officials who responded were representative of the types of statewide offices held by the 46 women who were serving at that level in 1990. None of the three sitting women Governors returned questionnaires. Three of the four women Lieutenant Governors did. Eleven (69%) of the 16 women who were either State Auditors or State Treasurers also responded. In addition, nine (82%) of 15 the 11 female Secretaries of State and eight (73%) of the 11 women holding other statewide elective offices returned completed questionnaires. The data in Table 3 show that compared to the regional breakdown for all women statewide elected officials, a greater percentage of the respondents were from midwestern states and a lower percentage were from southern states. The data also show that the percentage of female respondents serving in statewide offices in western and in northeastern states were comparable to the percentage of all female statewide elected officials in those states.

Table 3. Female Statewide Elected Officials by Region

Regions Female Statewide NE South Midwest West Elected Officials Percentages All (N=46) 13 15 26 46 (100%) Respondents (n=31) 10 6 35 48 (100%)

The partisan breakdown of female elected statewide officials who returned questionnaires is identical to the partisan breakdown for all female statewide elected officials. Seventy-four percent of both groups were Democratic, 23% were Republicans, and 3% were nonpartisan. 16 As for the women serving in federal office, neither of the two female U.S. Senators completed questionnaires. Seven (25%) of the 28 female members of the U.S. House of Representatives responded. Of the Congressional respondents, three were from states in the northeast, two from states in the midwest, and one each were from states in the south and west, respectively. Five of the Congresswomen who responded were Democrats and two were Republicans. The respondents who were statewide and federal officeholders were quite representative of the target population. But because of the small number of female higher officeholders who returned the questionnaires, we plan to use this group for illustrative rather than analytical purposes. We will use data about these officeholders to discuss career patterns that might be expected to emerge for state legislators interested in running for higher office. Current Status of Elective Women Current statistics about the number of women elected to office highlight the political successes that women posted over the past twenty years. At the same time, these statistics underscore the fact that women as a group remain significantly underrepresented in elective office. 17 The number of women in elected office in the United States increased steadily since the 1970s.3 Gains in the number of women serving in elected posts were made at every level of officeholding. The largest increases occurred at local and state legislative levels. At the local level, the number of women elected to county governing boards or to municipal offices more than tripled since 1975. As of 1988, women held 9% of the seats on county boards and, as of 1993, they comprised approximately 20% of elected officials in municipal offices of cities with populations over 10,000. In regard to the state legislative level, CAWP noted that the number of women state legislators increased five­ fold since 1969. Whereas women represented 4.0% of the total number of legislators in 1969, they represented 20.4% of that total in 1993. Gains were also recorded in the number of women elected to statewide and federal offices. In 1993, women held 72 (22%) of all elected statewide executive offices. Three women served as governors. The results of the 1992 federal elections boosted the number of women serving at the federal level to all-time record highs. Women held 55 of the total 535 seats in the 103rd Congress. A record seven women served in the U.S.

3A11 historical and current figures used regarding the number of women serving in elected office were compiled by the Center for the American Woman and Politics (CAWP) , Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University and presented in a series of fact sheets that CAWP published in 1992-1993. 18 Senate: four were newly elected in 1992 and one was elected in a special election in 1993. Forty-eight women4, an increase of 19 from the previous Congress, served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Even though more women served in Congress in 1993 than at any other time in the nation's history, women - the majority of the population - still constituted only 10% of the federal legislature. Importance of Women in Elective Office Why is women's full participation as elected officials desired? Scholars presented a number of arguments that called for increasing the numeric representation of women in public office. These arguments were classified into three general categories: egalitarian notions of democracy, women's interests, and women's style. The first category emphasized women's equality with men, while the other two categories emphasized women's differences with men. In the early stages of the campaign to win women the right to vote in the U.S., suffragists argued that women deserved the right to vote because it was their "natural right." Women were created equal to men and had the same inalienable right to consent to the laws by which they would be governed (Kraditor 1981). Taking this "natural rights" concept into the electoral arena, scholars (Kirkpatrick 1974; Lee 1976; Mandel 1981; Carroll 1985a) presented arguments from classical democratic perspectives that called

4Includes D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. 19 for more women to be elected to office because "equality of opportunity" was a fundamental value in a participatory democracy. These arguments suggested that women deserved the right to compete for public office as a way to enhance their own lives as well as the lives of others. Echoing the arguments made by Mary Wollstonecraft (1891) and John Stuart Mill (1869), several researchers (Rossi 1970; Carroll 1985a; Amundsen 1971; Darcy, Welch and Clark 1987) claimed that society also needed women to participate equally with men in public life in order to take full advantage of the talents of all its citizens. The second set of arguments in favor of increasing the number of women elected to office focused on the notion that electing more women to office was a way of ensuring that women's interests were adequately addressed.5 The women's interest argument was based on the premise that elected women hold different policy interests and priorities than elected men (Werner 1966; Kirkpatrick 1974; Frankovic 1977; Leader 1977; Johnson and Carroll 1978; Stanwick and Kleeman 1983; Dodson 1989; Saint-Germain 1989; Thomas and Welch 1991; Thomas 1991). These policy differences arose from the fact that women and men faced different opportunities and

5Carroll et al. (1991) classify the issues of concern to women into two categories: women's rights and traditional issues. Women's rights issues focus on women's specific concerns as "wage earners, working mothers, or marital partners". Traditional interests are those connected to women's roles as caregivers in family and society (7). 20 constraints in their lives. Consequently, they formed dissimilar perspectives on economic, social and political matters. Hence, electing more women to political office at local, state and national levels was likely to change the public policy agenda to one that was more responsive to the issues of concern to women (but also see Gehlen 1977; Mezey, 1978a and 1978b; Welch 1985; Flammang 1985). The third and final category of arguments used to support increasing the number of women elected to public office was based on the notion that women have a different style of "doing" politics. This line of argument also was advanced by suffragists. Besides arguing that women should have the right to vote because it was their "natural right," many suffragists argued that society needed women's political participation because women would conduct themselves differently than men (Kraditor 1981; Pateman 1970). Women would be less aggressive and self-centered than men and less likely to be corrupted by big business or party-machine bosses (Kirkpatrick 1974; Kraditor 1981). These arguments suggested that women's socialization and life experiences led them not only to have a different policy agenda than men, but also to have a different political style (Flammang 1985; Carroll, Dodson and Mandel 1991; but also see Jennings 1990; Schlozman 1990). By increasing the numeric representation of women elected to office, the way in which politics was practiced would change 21 or at least incorporate women's "voice" (Gilligan 1982; Rossi 1983; Verba 1990). In the 1992 elections, many women candidates seized on the notions that they had different policy agendas and operated differently than men. These candidates chose to campaign as "political outsiders". Although the 1992 elections significantly increased the number of women elected to office - especially at the federal level - it did not alter the fact that women still were a minority of the officeholders at every level of office. With so many arguments about why more women should hold elective office, the next logical question to address is why don't they? CHAPTER II FACTORS AFFECTING WOMEN'S POLITICAL CAREER DECISIONS

As we saw in the last chapter, scholars identified a variety of factors that affected women's participation in electoral politics. For the most part, these factors fall into three major categories: societal barriers; structural political barriers; and ambition. In this chapter, we review the significant research findings about the impact of these factors on women's strategic career choices. SOCIETAL BARRIERS Arguments based on gendered political socialization, role responsibilities and structural opportunities posit that gendered behavior - whether a result of traits, roles or opportunities - influences the degree to which women and men participate in public life. Sociologists are careful to point out the distinction between the terms "sex" and "gender". Sex refers to the biologically determined physical distinctions between females and males. Gender refers to the socially learned behaviors, attitudes and expectations that a given culture considers to be sex- appropriate. All cultures take into account the biological differences between women and men in determining appropriate

22 23 "feminine" and "masculine" roles. The extent to which these biological differences are emphasized in defining gender roles varies across cultures and time. However gender relationships develop, it is through socialization that females and males in a given culture learn appropriate "feminine" and "masculine" behavior.6 Gender identity is established at a fairly young age. Pressures to act in ways that are considered gender- appropriate come from the major agents of socialization: family, peers, religion, schools, government, and the media. Anderson (1993) noted that the socialization process worked in several different ways. She explained First, it gives us a definition of ourselves. Second, it defines the external world and our place within it. Third, it provides our definition of others and our relationship with them. Fourth, the socialization process encourages and discourages the acquisition of certain skills by gender (1993:36).

Anderson pointed out that even as strong as the socialization process was, individuals still developed their own unique beliefs about their gender identity. These personal views mitigated the degree to which individuals adopted the gender-appropriate behaviors prescribed to them by the culture in which they lived. Anderson added that

6There continues to be debate about how individuals actually learn to be masculine or feminine. Three major theories attempt to explain the process of acquiring a gender identity: identification theory; social learning theory; and cognitive- developmental theory (Renzetti and Curran 1992; Anderson 1993) . 24 although most individuals did not exhibit "ideal" gender behavior, there were "...common experiences shared by girls as they become women and boys as they become men" (1993:36). The experiences individuals encountered over the course of a lifetime caused them to adjust their perceptions about gender-appropriate roles. These life experiences and the adjustments to them, shaped women's and men's participation in political life. Gendered Political Socialization Studies that relied on gendered political socialization to explain differences in women's and men's political behavior posited that females and males developed distinct sex-based traits that influenced their behavior in society. Females were encouraged to develop traits that allowed them to form strong, nurturing relationships in the private world of family and the community. In contrast, males were encouraged to develop traits that allowed them to be self- sufficient and compete effectively in the public world of paid labor and politics. These core personality traits motivated women and men to behave in gender specific ways in order to fulfill socially acceptable roles in their private and public lives. The first major studies (Riesman 1956; Lane 1959; Campbell et al. 1960; Greenstein 1965) to discuss sex differences in political behavior speculated that childhood socialization affected adult political participation. 25 Because girls and boys were encouraged to develop different characteristics, they developed different concepts about political life and their role in it. Traditionally, "ideal" feminine characteristics were associated with passivity, nurturing, dependence and empathy (Bern 1974). In contrast, the "ideal" masculine characteristics were associated with aggressiveness, dominance, ambition, and independence (Bern 1974). The "ideal" masculine characteristics were also the ones most closely associated with the "ideal" politician. Since women were not encouraged as children to develop the characteristics identified as necessary for participating in the political world, their interest in politics lagged behind that of men's (Lane 1959; Campbell et al., 1960; Greenstein 1965; Hess and Torney 1967; Jaros 1973) . Women defined the external world of politics as one in which men participated and women did not - or at least not fully. Lane (1959) found that the media reinforced this definition by creating "...images of women in domestic, or, perhaps artistic and literary or dramatic or even career roles - but not political roles" (212). He explained that when the media showed women involved in politics it was as the "reformer" or "idealist" working on the behalf of others. Prior to winning the right to vote in 1920, women were characterized as not having the mental capacity to vote (Kraditor 1981; Jaggar 1983). After winning that political right, women were characterized as only engaged by politics when matters that directly affected the well-being of the family and the morality of the local community were at stake (Riesman 1956; Lane 1959; Greenstein 1961). Lane described the female vote as "impersonal and detached from personal gain" while the male vote was "imbued with matters of self- interest" (1959:212). Campbell et al. (1960:483-493) added that women were socialized to be passive players in the political world. But the authors noted that this socialization process had changed over time. Passage of the Nineteenth Amendment and the activity surrounding the contemporary Women's Movement challenged traditional conceptions about the proper role women and men should play in politics. Studies (Hansen et al. 1976; Soule and McGrath 1977) based on survey data collected in the 1970s found that women and men acted similarly in regard to voter turnout and participation in other routine political activities. Soule and McGrath (1977) noted that in their study of political participation patterns from 1956 to 1972, women perceived themselves as being slightly less efficacious than men. Despite this finding, women over this sixteen year time period differed very little from men in regard to their participation in typical forms of political activities (see also Beckwith 1986). Yet in their study of 1972 Democratic 27 Convention delegates, Soule and McGrath found women's political participation at the elite level was dramatically lower than men's. The authors suggested that contemporary gender socialization no longer prevented women from participating in the more "ritualistic" and "symbolic" political behavior. It still affected participation at the elite level. Gender socialization, reinforced by the absence of visible female role models in positions of power, made it difficult for girls to grow up thinking that they would play any other political role than that of "good" citizen (Soule and McGrath 1977). Role Responsibilities Several studies (Welch 1977, 1978; Kirkpatrick 1974; Diamond 1977; Githens and Prestage 1977; Sapiro 1984) challenged the assumption that women's lack of efficacy or their psychological orientation towards the political world could adequately explain sex differences in political participation - especially at the elite level. Instead it was argued that the role constraints society placed on women shaped - and to a great degree limited - their political opportunities. Kirkpatrick (1974) explained Traditionally, there has been broad agreement among women and men about the incompatibility of women's 'primary' role and other roles in society (especially those involving autonomy and the exercise of power)...This presumed incompatibility between wife/mother roles and professions (such as law) associated with politics has discouraged women from acquiring the training needed to become decisionmakers (18) . This line of argument posits that women's participation in politics, was especially limited because of the expectations they and others had about their role responsibilities in the family. The expectation that women assumed primary responsibility not only for childbearing but also for childcaring meant that women had less time - and therefore fewer opportunities - than men to pursue occupational and political endeavors. Constraints placed on women due to the time demands associated with caring for children, especially young children, meant that women either did not run for public office or that if they did they made some accommodation in regard to their family responsibilities (Werner 1968; Diamond 1977; Kirkpatrick 1977; Carroll and Strimling 1983; Mandel 1983). Such accommodations meant that women waited to run for public office until family responsibilities lessened, until their spouses were supportive, and their children were older or grown (Werner 1968; Kirkpatrick 1974; Lee 1976; Diamond 1977; Githens 1977; Stoper 1977; Johnson and Carroll 1978; Sapiro and Farah 1980; Sapiro 1982, 1984). Women would chose to run for part-time or local office rather than for offices that required they spend long periods of time away from their families (Kirkpatrick 1974; Lee 1976; Stoper 1977) . Despite the precautions women took to minimize the effect of their political careers had on their families, those who attempted to balance wife/mother roles with candidate/officeholder roles often reported feelings of marginality and role strain (Lee 1976; Costanini and Craik 1977; Diamond 1977; Kirkpatrick 1977; Githens and Prestage 1977; Stoper 1977; Sapiro 1982; Carroll and Strimling 1983; Mandel 1983). Women officeholders found themselves involved with two distinct groups: women and politicians. Githens and Prestage (1977) explained Each group represents a way of life; at the same time, each provides an identity and strong social ties. Women who seek to enter the male-dominated political elite reject, whether they want to or not, at least some of the values and norms of most women...On the other hand, the politician group, where she wishes to establish contact, displays reticence in accepting her. The woman in politics thus finds herself isolated from both groups. Women elected officials were no longer like other women because they were politicians. They also were not like the vast majority of other politicians who were men. Women officeholders found themselves torn between their ascribed role as "helpmates" and their newly achieved role as "decisionmakers". On the one hand, they struggled to remain successful wives, mothers and community members. On the other hand, they fought for recognition as competent candidates, officeholders and political colleagues. Trying to juggle these roles simultaneously often left women doubting their competency as women and as politicians. Experiencing these feelings, many women developed ambivalent 30 attitudes about officeholding in general, and especially as a long-term career option.

Added to these concerns was the fact that because women waited to run for office until family responsibilities have eased, they were older when they started their electoral careers than their male counterparts (Werner 1968; Kirkpatrick 1974; Stoper 1977; Mezey 1978; K. Carroll 1983; S. Carroll 1985a). Running for a first office at a later age than men, conceivably reduced the number of opportunities that women had to seek reelection, work their way up into leadership positions, or run for higher office. Although recent changes in the way women and men live their lives and increased public acceptance of women expanding their role in the public arena has helped to decrease the intensity of role strain, it has by no means eliminated such strain. By accepting the increased involvement of women in political affairs, the public - and women and men themselves - have not "excused" women from demonstrating their ability to handle the traditional duties associated with being female. Unlike the majority of male elected officials, female elected officials were still expected to prove to voters that they were fulfilling their family obligations. Elected women in the 1980s and 1990s were dealing less with the issue of marginality and more with becoming "superwomen" - women who were expected to be outstanding in all roles. 31 Sapiro (1982) noted that men also experienced conflict between their family commitments and pubic commitments. But unlike most women, most men were willing to pursue political ambitions regardless of the added family stress doing so might engender. Carroll (1989) found that three-fourths of both married female and married male state legislators felt that spousal approval was very important in their decisions to seek office. But she found that childrearing considerations did not exert a similar influence on the decisions that women and men made about running for office. Carroll noted that women with children were much more likely than their male counterparts to report that child-care responsibilities affected choices they made about their political careers. She concluded that men were traditionally freer to compartmentalize the decisions they made in public life from the decisions they made in private life. That was not true for women. Because of their primary roles in the family, women viewed decisions made in their political lives as interrelated to those they made in their private lives and vice versa. Structural Opportunities Another way that socialization patterns affected political participation is by structuring the educational and career opportunities that women and men had available to them. Researchers argued that society's expectations about gendered behavior encouraged men to pursue a wide range of 32 educational and career paths but discouraged women from doing the same. As a result, women were underrepresented in the socioeconomic status groups from which most elites, including political elites, were drawn. Although since the turn of the century women were more likely to graduate from high school than men, until the 1980s they were less likely than men to earn college degrees. Women who attended college often earned degrees in teaching, nursing, social work or other "helping" professions. Few women earned degrees in areas that would lead to high-paying jobs in such fields as business, engineering, medicine or the law (Epstein, 1970; Bergman 1986). Instead, women who worked outside the home usually did so in traditional female occupations which were low- paying or in jobs which were part-time (Dubeck 1976; Welch 1978; Huber and Spitze 1983). Women often interrupted or abandoned their educational pursuits and jobs because they interfered with their primary childbearing and childcaring roles. The political effect of these educational and work patterns were that women did not gain access to the traditional routes (professional occupations) or resources (money, social status, contacts) associated with running for public office (Werner 1968; Bullock and Heys 1972; Jewell and Patterson 1973; Dubeck 1976; Merritt 1977; Stoper 1977; Welch 1977; Rossi 1983). As a result, most women who were 33 politically active played nondecision-making roles in local party and campaign organizations. Few rose to positions of power as party officials or as candidates (Lee 1977) . Scholars noted that the importance of many of societal barriers on women's opportunities to run for office has declined over the last twenty years. Some of the traditional female characteristics (empathy, honesty, family-oriented) once used to question whether women were "tough" enough to be in public life were now some of the very qualities voters looked for in politicians (Mandel 1981; Cooper and Secrest 1984; Burrell 1992). More and more the "ideal" politician was viewed as needing a mix of traditional masculine, feminine, and gender neutral traits (Huddy and Terkildsen 1991). Changes in educational and employment patterns led to expanded views about women's roles outside the family. As a result, women had more opportunities to choose what role to play in the political world but they still faced barriers to their full participation.

STRUCTURAL POLITICAL BARRIERS Scholars argued that women who sought public office confronted various structural barriers embedded in the American political system which made running for office more difficult for them than for men. Structural factors such as party support, fundraising, voter discrimination and the power of incumbency were identified as contributing to the 34 slow progress women made in winning election to public office. Carroll (1985a) noted that these same barriers worked against "newcomer" men trying to break into the political power structure. But because far fewer women than men held elective office, the barriers in the political opportunity structure worked against women as a group to a far greater extent than they worked against men as a group (Carroll 1985a:158). Just as with the societal barriers, the impact of many structural factors on women's political participation changed since they were first investigated. Political Parties Early studies, which often included anecdotal information from women candidates, suggested that leaders in both major political parties did not actively recruit women to run for office (Kirkpatrick 1974; Diamond 1977; Merritt 1977; Rule 1981; Mandel 1981; Carroll and Strimling 1983). Several scholars (Werner 1968; Costantini and Craik 1977; Diamond 1977; Rule 1981,1990) singled out the Democratic party as being especially hostile towards women candidates. Others argued that Democratic and Republican party leaders did recruit women candidates but mostly as "sacrificial lambs" in unwinnable races. When it came to races for open seats or against vulnerable incumbents, party leaders were more likely to recruit male candidates (Jennings and Thomson 1968; Lamson 1968; Lynn 1975; Tolchin and Tolchin 1976; Diamond 1977; Buchanan 1978; Mandel 1981; Carroll and 35 Strimling 1983). Women also were recruited to run primarily for local offices or for "women's seats" - offices already held by a women (Mandel 1981; Carroll and Strimling 1983). Few women were recruited to run for statewide or federal offices (Carroll 1985a). Carroll (1985a) offered several explanations as to why party leaders - especially males - were reluctant to recruit women candidates. First, although women could argue that their years of experience as loyal party and campaign workers deserved to be rewarded with a chance to run for office, so could men. Party leaders trying to decide which party workers to reward might choose males more frequently because of two factors: expectations and resources. Studies (Kirkpatrick 1974; Costantini and Craik 1977) found that more male than female party activists believed that their work within the party would help them with their long-range goal of running for office. These men made it clear to party leaders that they were interested in becoming candidates. They did not wait, as many women did, to be asked if they were interested in running for office. Party leaders also were aware that overlooking potential male candidates in favor of female ones was overlooking the fact that men had more access to the financial and technical resources necessary for a successful campaign. A second reason party leaders did not actively recruit women candidates was because they believed voters were 36 reluctant to support female candidates (Kirkpatrick 1974; Johnson and Carroll 1978). Polls throughout the 1970s provided some justification for that assessment (Harris et al. 1972; General Social Survey 1972-1978). These polls found that a significant percentage of voters agreed that men were better at running the country, and better suited emotionally for politics, than were most women (Sapiro 1984; Darcy et al. 1987; Bennett and Bennett 1992). Carroll suggested an additional factor that worked against the recruitment of women candidates was sexism. Most party leaders were male and reluctant to share power with women (Kirkpatrick 1974). She noted that several scholars found that party leaders were much more at ease recruiting candidates that were most like them (Hunt and Pendley 1972; Prewitt 1970). Since most party leaders were men, most of the candidates they recruited were men with political and professional characteristics similar to their own. Starting in the 1970s, Democratic and Republican women party activists increased their demand that power within their respective parties be shared more equally between men and women (Freeman 1975; Rossi 1983; Carroll 1985a; Hartmann 1989; Burrell 1992). They launched a series of efforts to increase the numbers of women serving as party officers, as delegates to the national nominating conventions, and as candidates for public office. Demands for more power were 37 often met with resistance. Yet, women continued to organize. Both from inside and outside the formal party structure they applied pressure on party leaders to include more women at every level of party activity. Still, interviews with women candidates and those who worked on their campaigns revealed that many women felt forced to look outside of their party for support in their initial run for office (Mandel 1981; Carroll 1985a). Coinciding with the strengthening of the women1s movement in the 1960s, a number of outside organizations were formed to which women candidates could turn for support. Nonpartisan groups such as the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC), the National Organization for Women (NOW), and the Women's Education Fund (WEF) were formed to help women become more politically active and to recruit women to run for office (Freeman 1975; Mandel 1981; Nechemias 1985; Hartmann 1989). Traditional women's groups such as the League of Women Voters (LWV), the Business and Professional Women (BPW), and the American Association of University Women (AAUW) also encouraged more women to seek public office. (Carroll and Strimling, 1983; Hartmann 1989). Women in professional groups such as the National Education Association (NEA) along with women in organized labor lobbied their respective leaders to support women candidates. Members of these groups who were also party 38 activists, put pressure on their respective parties - especially the Democrats - to do the same. A variety of political factors combined in the 1980s to create a more positive electoral climate for women candidates. Issues such as child care, the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion, and concerns over ethics in government increased the attention paid to political women. Polling data during this time period revealed that voters in general were more receptive and supportive of women holding public office. Given greater voter acceptance and greater access to technical and financial resources, more women began to run for and win elective office. Party leaders began to see their women candidates in a new light. Instead of viewing them as unwelcome burdens, they perceived them as strategic resources. By the mid- 1980s, both parties had created organizations dedicated solely to recruiting and supporting women to run for office at all levels and all types of races (Ehrenhalt 1982; Darcy et al. 1985). By the end of the 1980s, as the influence of political parties continued to decline and as voters' anger towards politicians soared, the attitudes of party leaders towards women candidates came full circle (Burrell 1992). Many party operatives were convinced that the image of women candidates as "outsiders" gave women the "inside" track on being elected by voters looking for change. Viable women 39 candidates were actively recruited by their respective parties to run for office at the highest levels (Fowler and McClure 1989). Based on these studies, we expect to find that female and male officeholders received similar levels of support in their previous campaigns. If the data show gender differences in levels of party support, we expect to find that they occurred in the party support officeholders received in their first run for office, especially if those races took place prior to 1980. If the data confirm these observations, then we expect that female and male officeholders expect they will receive similar levels of party support in the future. Fundraising The inability of women candidates to raise money in the same way and in similar amounts as men was another factor cited as working against women's efforts to win election to public office. Researchers identified several difficulties women faced when it came to fundraising. Several studies found that women were uncomfortable asking for money for their own races (Kirkpatrick 1974; Currey 1977; Diamond 1977; Mandel 1981; Abzug 1984). Mandel (1981) suggested that this uneasiness was related to the different ways in which women and men were taught to evaluate their self-worth. Men were socialized "...to put a price on their services and to judge their worth in 40 financial terms..." (Mandel 1981:185). Women, on the other hand, were encouraged to measure their worth in terms of the unpaid contributions they made to their family and community (Mandel 1981; Carroll 1985a). As a result, women did not find it difficult to raise money for other candidates or causes. But when it came to raising money for their own campaigns, they found it extremely difficult to ask others to invest. Some women candidates reported that they did not like to ask for money because of the implied strings that came attached to campaign donations (Tolchin and Tolchin 1976; Mandel 1981). They did not want to feel "bought" when they won their elections. Mandel noted that this attitude placed women candidates in a difficult position since most were either unable or unwilling to contribute personal or family money to finance their campaigns (1981:200-201). To be competitive, especially in races for higher office, most women candidates were going to have to raise money from others. Women candidates who made the effort to raise money reported that they spent more time and worked harder at fundraising than men. They noted that they were not as successful as men at raising campaign money from traditional sources: political parties, PACs, business and professional contacts; and large dollar donors (Buchanan 1978; Tolchin and Tolchin 1976; Mandel 1981; Kleeman 1983). Women 41 candidates cited two major factors that made it difficult for them to garner support from these sources. First, the daily activities that women were involved in and the occupations that most held did not put them in contact with those who could make sizeable campaign contributions. Women candidates were "outsiders" who had to compete with the "good-old-boys" network, the source of most campaign contributions. Second, women candidates believed that because of their sex, traditional donors did not take them seriously. These donors did not contribute to their campaigns because they thought women were not viable candidates. Jacobson (1980) noted that campaign contributors generally gave money because they wanted access to officeholders. Backing a "winner" was the way to get that access. To get contributions from traditional sources, women candidates needed to convince these donors that they could win. To do so often meant defeating establishment-backed male candidates in the primaries. As their party's nominees in the general elections, women candidates expected to receive contributions from traditional sources. But women candidates were quick to point out that even at that point they were not treated the same as their male counterparts. Instead, they received contributions that were less than the amounts given to male party nominees (Mandel 1981; Rosenberg 1982; Kleeman 1983). 42 Consequently, most women candidates relied on building their own fundraising networks in order to finance their campaigns. This usually meant raising money from their "natural" constituency which was women. Yet, most women were unaccustomed to making campaign contributions of any size - let alone large ones (Tolchin and Tolchin 1976; Mandel 1981; Carroll 1983; Donovan 1992). Starting in the 1970s, women candidates were aided in their fundraising efforts by numerous PACs created specifically to raise money for them. Nonpartisan PACs like the Women's Campaign Fund (WCF), and those associated with NOW and NWPC, provided women candidates with financial support along with campaign training, consultants, and campaign workers (Freeman 1975; Mandel 1981; Nechemias 1985; Hartmann 1989). But these PACs also relied primarily on small dollar donations from women to fund their activities. As a result, many women candidates believed that they remained at a disadvantage when it came to raising money. They devoted more time to fundraising, received smaller contributions, and raised less money overall than their male opponents (Tolchin and Tolchin 1976; Currey 1977; Baxter and Lansing 1980; Mandel 1981; Declerq et al. 1983; Kleeman 1983) . More systematic studies of the relationship between candidates' sex and their ability to raise campaign contributions found that women candidates narrowed or 43 eliminated any fundraising gaps that may have existed between them and male candidates. These studies (Newman et al. 1984; Benze and Declercq 1985; Uhlaner and Schlozman 1986; Darcy et al. 1987; Burrell 1985,1993) indicated that when election circumstances and party affiliation were taken into account, female and male candidates raised similar amounts of money. In a study of races for the U.S. House of Representatives, Burrell found Throughout the election cycles of the 1970s...(f)emale candidates tended to raise from $2,000 to $18,000 less than male candidates. This relationship changed to the advantage of women in the 1980s hitting a peak in 1988 when women raised on average nearly $100,000 more than male candidates controlling for party and candidate status (1993:10). She added that this positive change in the relationship between women candidates and fundraising occurred over the same time period in which the relationship between women candidates and political parties improved and the gender gap in voting behavior emerged (see also Ehrenhalt 1982; Rossi 1983; Klein 1984). By the mid-1980s, both major political parties established special fundraising units to solicit contributions for women candidates (Darcy et al. 1987; Hartmann 1989) In addition to the national independent nonpartisan PACs that were started to assist women candidates, a host of local and state political action committees were organized for that purpose (Kleeman 1983). 44 Despite the improved fundraising climate that existed for women candidates, many still thought women worked harder at fundraising than men. Compared to male candidates, female candidates still received a greater percentage of their funds from small donations (Donovan 1992; but also see Uhlaner et al., 1986). They had trouble raising money early in the election cycle (but also see Burrell 1993). This early money was important because it helped women candidates establish themselves as frontrunners or at least as viable contenders for their party's nomination. To help counter these specific problems, EMILY'S List was established in 1985. EMILY'S List, a donor network, was highly successful at raising early money for pro-choice Democratic women running for federal and statewide offices (Spake 1988; Koenenn 1991; Donovan 1992). In 1992, the WISH List was established to do the same for pro-choice Republican women (Donovan 1992:3272). Besides soliciting early money for women candidates, EMILY'S List made a concentrated effort to identify large donors who were willing to contribute to women candidates. Members of its Majority Council committed to contributing a minimum of $1,000 a year in support of women candidates (EMILY'S List 1991). Increased support from political parties, the establishment of PACs dedicated to raising money for women candidates, and a greater of number women who were both able 45 and willing to contribute to women's campaigns gave women officeholders a variety of sources to tap for campaign funds. Given these developments, we expect the data to confirm few if any gender differences in the attitudes officeholders had about fundraising. Previous research showed that both female and male candidates considered fundraising to be a top priority in their campaigns (Benze and Declercq 1985). We expect our research will also show that they experienced the same degree of difficulty in asking for money. In addition, we expect to find no significant gender difference in the amount of money officeholders raised for past campaigns or think they will raise in their next race. We also anticipate that the data will reveal that when female and male candidates think about running for higher office, they plan to raise similar amounts of money for such a campaign. The only gender difference we expect to find is in regard to how much money officeholders think they could raise in a short period of time. This expectation is based on the assumptions that women rely on small donors and have trouble raising early money. Combined, these two factors suggest that women must spend more time at fundraising than men in order to raise similar amounts of money. If that is the case, then the amount of money that women officeholders anticipate being able to raise quickly will be lower than 46 the amount men project they could raise in a short period of time. Incumbency Research argued that the incumbency factor was another structural barrier limiting women's opportunities to hold elective office. Carroll (1985a) noted that the advantages that incumbents enjoyed in the electoral arena worked against both female and male non-incumbents who sought office. But because the overwhelming majority of incumbents in office at all levels were males, incumbency was a particular concern for those interested in increasing the number of women in office. Incumbency affected electoral opportunities in a variety of ways. First, the turnover rate for incumbents in any given election year was quite low. Few voluntarily left office to retire or run for another office. This was especially true for members of Congress (Witmer 1964; Polsby 1968; Erikson 1971; Ferejohn 1977; Fiorina 1977; Mayhew 1974; Frantzich 1978; Hibbing 1982; Keefe and Ogul 1993). Turnover at the state legislative or local office was somewhat higher (Ray 1974; Rosenthal 1974; Shin and Jackson 1979; Darcy et al. 1987; Niemi and Winsky 1987; Council of State Governments 1988:90; Squire 1988). But still, most campaigns featured a challenger trying to defeat an incumbent. Second, trying to defeat an incumbent was a daunting task. Incumbents generally had more campaign resources than their challengers. Most had more money, a larger staff, access to free media, their party's endorsement, and higher name recognition than those who ran against them (Hinckley 1980; Mann and Wolfinger 1980; Jacobson 1981; Ragsdale 1981). Consequently, the odds of defeating an incumbent were quite low (Mayhew 1974; Calvert 1979; Hinckley 1981; Loomis 1988). As noted earlier, these odds were even lower for women candidates who until recently were underfinanced and not backed by their party except in races against extremely safe incumbents. Several recent developments may reduce the impact that incumbency has on holding down the numbers of women elected to office. If term limitations that were voted in by several states are ruled constitutional, turnover in those states will be greater. The more open seats there are, the more opportunities there are for nontraditional candidates - like women - to run competitive races. A counter argument is that term limitations may actually work against women candidates. If politicians adopt a strategy of waiting to run until terms have expired, then the candidate field for these seats will be crowded. Both newcomers, as well as incumbent officeholders who are forced to leave their offices because their own terms are up, will seize the opportunity to run in open seats. Given this scenario, the 48 "open" seat for all but entry level positions becomes more of a battle ground for experienced politicians, the overwhelming majority of whom are white males, to fight to remain in public office instead of an opportunity forum for newcomers, like women, to gain public office. Another incumbency factor that worked in women's favor was the anti-incumbent sentiment that was especially strong in the U.S. during the 1990s. In the 1992 elections, this mood created a climate in which women were rewarded rather than penalized for their "outsider" image (Donovan 1992). If that climate continues, it would encourage more women to run and more voters to support them. Along with campaign finance reform, these factors may make races against incumbents more competitive. Unless that happens, running in open-seat races will still be the best opportunity women candidates have to get elected. Because incumbency was such an advantage, most officeholders who were interested in moving up, waited to run for open-seats. As a result, the opportunity to run for office - especially for federal office - was constricted. Competition for open-seat races was stiff. When open seats developed, officeholders had to move quickly in order to position themselves as viable candidates. Again, lack of party support and limited campaign funds worked against women candidates who tried to establish themselves as serious candidates in open-seat races (but also see Burrell 1993). Bernstein (1986) suggested that age and family status were two other factors that negatively impacted women's candidacies in open-seat races, especially those for the U.S. House (but also see Cook 1992:3267). He argued that because women entered politics at an older age than their male colleagues, they had less time to wait for an open seat to become available (Bernstein 1986:158). When such an opportunity did present itself, married women and those with young children may have decided not to run at that time because running would be too disruptive to family life. As a result, years may go by before another open-seat race develops. Conceivably, since age dampened ambition (Matthews 1960; Barber 1965; Schlesinger 1966; Hain 1974; Johnson and Carroll 1978; Payne et al. 1984), the more time that passed between opportunities to run for higher office, the less desire women officeholders may have had to make such a run. There are recent signs that more women are taking advantage of open-seat opportunities. Burrell (1993) noted that the presence of women candidates in open seat primaries grew during the 1980s, especially their presence in Democratic primaries. But she added that they were not very successful at translating that presence into winning seats in Congress. She explained ...Republican female open seat general election contestants were virtually nonexistent and the Democratic women who ran had very poor rates of 50 success. Only two out of 12 female Democratic open seat nominees between 1980 and 1984 won, and five of 15 won between 1986 and 1990 (Burrell 1993:8). Results of the 1992 House elections suggested that women candidates were much more competitive in open- seat races at both the primary and general election stages. Burrell cautioned that it was too early to tell whether or not this development was the start of a lasting trend. Another way to explore the impact that incumbency factors had on the number of women in serving in elective office was to determine its affect on women incumbents. By seeking and winning reelection to office, current women officeholders insured that newly elected women increase the numbers of women holding office instead of just keeping the numbers stable. Female incumbents enjoyed the same benefits as male incumbents. They generally had more electoral resources than their challengers and were reelected at the same high rates as male incumbents. The incumbency factor was a powerful positive factor for elected women who chose to take advantage of it. But not all did. Darcy et al. (1987) found a gender difference in the likelihood that officeholders would seek reelection (also see Whicker et al. 1993). The authors noted that female state legislators as compared to their male counterparts, were slightly less likely to return to office. They speculated that this finding could be the result of several 51 factors: an artifact for the year examined; women's late entry into public office; fewer incentives than men to stay in office; or opportunities to run for higher office (Darcy et al, 1987:138). The impact that incumbency and turnover in public office have on efforts to increase women's electoral participation remains significant. Unless turnover rates increase because of anti-incumbent sentiments or term limitations, the overwhelming majority of women officeholders interested in running for higher office will have to be prepared either to run against incumbents or to remain in public office long enough to wait for the opportunity to run for an open seat. To significantly increase the number of women in office, women politicians must not only have the ambition to run for office, but once elected, they must also have the ambition either to run for reelection or for another office. Thus, the ambition of individual women officeholders not only affects their own careers but also the long-range goals of women officeholders in general (Carroll 1985a). It is to this topic of ambition that we now turn.

AMBITION There is much debate about the role that ambition plays in the career decisions of elected officials (Schlesinger 1966; Soule 1969; Prewitt and Nowlin 1969; Black 1972; Kirkpatrick 1976; Diamond 1977; Carroll and Strimling 1983; Bledsoe and Herring 1990). If Schlesinger (1966) was correct, then ambition was the driving force behind a politician's behavior. If you determined how ambitious elected officials were, then you could determine the political decisions and moves that they were likely to make. Black (1972) suggested that ambition had more of an incremental effect on officeholders. Instead of knowing from the onset what course their political careers would take, elected officials were constantly weighing their options. As they built experience and expertise in one office, they began to evaluate the risks of transferring that political capital to another office (also see Bledsoe and Herring, 1990). These different conceptualizations of ambition suggested that politicians identified their political goals at different points in their political careers. Some politicians were clear from the start about what they hoped to achieve in their political careers. As a result, the political moves that they made were those which brought them closer to achieving their long-range career goals. Other politicians were more myopic in how they viewed their political careers. These politicians focused primarily on obtaining short-range political objectives. They were not interested in laying the groundwork that would enable them to take advantage of opportunities that might develop in the future. 53 No matter which approach a politician took, at certain points in her political career she had to decide what move to make next. Party activists decided whether to expand their political influence by running for public office. Those already in elected office decided whether to seek reelection or to run for higher office. Schlesinger described various career moves that politicians made as reflecting three distinct types of ambition: discrete, static, and progressive (1966:10-11). Politicians with discrete ambition decided to serve in a particular office for a specific term. Those with static ambition decided to serve in the same office for multiple terms. Politicians with progressive ambition decided to serve in one office only until they could run for a higher office. Based on these three levels of ambition, numerous studies (Jennings and Thomas 1968; Costantini and Craik 1972; Kirkpatrick 1976; Farah 1976; Diamond 1977; Fowlkes et al. 1979; Sapiro and Farah 1980; Jennings and Farah 1981; Carroll 1985a; Bledsoe and Herring 1990) found that female political elites were not as ambitious as their male counterparts. Female party activists expressed less ambition than male party activists to seek elective office. Women who did express ambition to hold public office, were more likely than the men with such ambition to state that they were only interested in running for local or state legislative posts. Few female activists expressed any 54 ambition to run for statewide or federal offices. Of those women already elected to office, most planned to remain in public office for fewer years than their male colleagues. A variety of explanations were offered to account for low levels of ambition among women political elites. These explanations fell into two general categories. The first category included explanations that related women's low ambitions to the gender-role socialization process. These explanations were based on the premise that the socialization process encouraged women and men to develop different value hierarchies (Gilligan 1982; Lyson 1984; Sutherland and Veroff 1985). Women were taught to value affiliation and social connectedness; while men were taught to value competition and individual achievement. As was discussed previously, society rewarded women and men who behaved in gender-appropriate ways. Women were rewarded for maintaining relationships and making sacrifices to strengthen them. Men were rewarded for setting goals and making sacrifices to achieve them. This reward system impacted the ambitions that women and men developed in life and the degree to which they pursued those ambitions. Men were more willing than women to engage in competitive activities in order to achieve their ambitions. Women were more likely to view the competition that is associated with ambition as a possible threat to maintaining their social connections. Women often 55 evaluated competitive activities as requiring them to devote too much energy into meeting achievement needs at the expense of maintaining affiliative needs (Horner 1972; Eccles 1987). Eccles explained ...men are more likely to exhibit a single-minded devotion to one particular goal, especially their occupational goal. In contrast, women seem more likely to be involved in, and to value, competence in several activities simultaneously, to plan a multiphased life path, and to worry about the interconnectedness of family and occupational domains (Eccles 1987:151). She added that because women and men were taught to place different values on achievement and affiliation, their career patterns were likely to be different. Eccles suggested that women were less likely than men to aspire to "high status, time consuming careers" and more likely than men "to expect to have to modify their work roles and commitments for the sake of their families" (Eccles 1987:1531). As previously discussed, women were not encouraged to develop the psychological characteristics or the socioeconomic credentials that were generally associated with political elites. As a result, women were less likely than men to view themselves as likely prospects for holding positions of political influence. If women did not evaluate themselves as qualified to hold these positions, then they were not likely to develop the ambition to do so. The socialization process also influenced women's political ambition by putting limits on the types of 56 political activities women were encouraged to engage in. They were expected to become involved in activities that did not interfere with family responsibilities (Sapiro and Farah 1980). Participating in activities that take took too much of women's time and energy away from their families was discouraged. As a result, political women who evaluated themselves as qualified to hold positions of political influence did not compete for those positions if doing so strained personal relationships (Sapiro and Farah 1980). Political women might forego running for higher office or making politics a long-term career, if they believed that their relationships with family members, friends, or colleagues would be damaged by such a commitment. Conversely, if women perceived that increased political involvement posed no significant threat to these interpersonal relationships, then more than likely they felt freer to express and pursue their political ambitions (Sapiro and Farah 1980; Carroll and Strimling 1983; Carroll 1989) . Women's lower ambition levels were also linked to factors in the political opportunity structure. Costantini (1990) separated these arguments into two major groups: gatekeeping and environmental (748). Gatekeeping explanations were based on the premise that women will not aspire to hold positions of political influence if they perceived that male elites had enough power to block their 57 entry into these positions (Lamson 1968; Tolchin and Tolchin 1976; Rule 1981; Carroll 1985b). Environmental explanations were those that posited that the ambition of political women varied according to the characteristics of the political culture or institutions in which they operated (Werner 1968; Diamond 1977; Welch and Karnig 1979; Hill 1981; Rule 1981; Clark et al. 1984; Darcy et al. 1985). Political women in cultures or institutions that encouraged their participation expressed higher levels of ambition than their counterparts who operated in hostile environments. Both the gatekeeping and environmental arguments suggested that when women perceived that their chances were low for expanding their political career, they would not aspire to do so (Jennings and Thomas 1968). Conversely, when women elites perceived that political opportunities did exist, they demonstrated the ambition necessary to take advantage of those opportunities. If interpersonal relationships and political opportunities were both strong cues that women used in making choices about their political future, then it was quite easy to see their difficulty with long-range career planning (Bledsoe and Herring 1990). Social relationships and political opportunities were constantly changing. Thinking about running for a particular level of office ten years in the future was not feasible for most women. Given their emphasis on maintaining strong interpersonal ties, they avoided taking political risks that might weaken those ties. As a result, women were not as likely as men to make decisions about their public lives without thinking about the impact of those decisions on their private lives (Sapiro 1982; Carroll 1989:62-63; Bledsoe and Herring 1990). The calculus that women used to make political career decisions helps clarify why explanations about the gender differences in the ambition levels of political elites in general may not apply specifically to elected women. Carroll (1985b) examined the public officeholding ambition of state legislators and local elected officials who were serving in office in 1981. She found no significant gender differences. Carroll explained Across most levels of office, women and men were about equally as likely to want another term in the office in which they were serving in 1981, to aspire to some other elective or appointive position, and to desire ultimately to serve in a national or state gubernatorial office...(1985b:1235). She pointed out that the overwhelming majority of the studies that found female political elites to be less ambitious about holding public office than their male counterparts reached that conclusion by examining the political aspirations of women party activists or national party delegates (1985b:1232). Carroll posited that the ambitions of these respondents, even of the few among them who were also officeholders, were not representative of the ambitions of elected women in general. 59 Carroll's findings suggested that political women, unlike political men, waited until they were elected to their first office before they thought about running for any other offices. Since more women than men waited until their children were older to run for public office, their early years in office may be the first time period in which women felt both competent about their political skills and free enough from family obligations to concentrate on long-range political goals. If this were the case, then women's level of political ambition actually may be as high as men's. But because women expressed this ambition at later points in their lives than men, their ambition was interpreted as being lower than their male counterparts. If these latter assumptions are accurate, we expect our data will confirm that female officeholders first thought about running for higher office at a later point in their electoral careers than male officeholders. But we also expect to find that once elected women began thinking about higher office, the offices they considered running for were similar to the ones that elected men thought about pursuing. If the earlier findings were a more accurate picture of the political ambition of women, then we expect to find that the ambition gap between women and men narrowed over time but did not disappear. Conceivably, the ambition gap narrowed because the socioeconomic and political status of women improved over the past twenty years. As a result, women had more opportunities and resources to pursue public office. On the other hand, the ambition gap may have remained unchanged despite the fact that more political opportunities were available to women. Women still may not have been as free as men to pursue political opportunities. Women continued to have more day-to-day responsibility than men when it came to the care of others: husbands, children and parents. Consequently, we expect to find that women with family responsibilities still find it difficult to think about public officeholding as a long-term career option. In this chapter we reviewed previous research regarding the impact of societal barriers, political structural barriers, and ambition on political careers. In Chapter III, we analyze the impact of these factors on officeholders' initial decisions to run for public office. CHAPTER III FIRST RUN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE

In this chapter, we focus on the strategic decisions officeholders made and the experiences they had in their first run for public office. The analysis starts at this point because the decisions and experiences politicians engage in at the beginning of their careers impact their subsequent career opportunities. As discussed in Chapter II, pre-1980 research on women's political careers led us to expect that female and male officeholders had different experiences when they first sought public office. It was suggested that the factors that affected women's decisions to seek office were different from the ones that affected men's decisions. Women were said to be more motivated to seek office out of a sense of civic duty or because of a concern for issues rather than because of political ambition. Since women were socialized in ways that minimized their formal credentials for holding office, they waited until political and other adult experiences convinced them they were qualified to run for a particular office. They often waited until they were encouraged by others to seek a particular office. Because

61 62 of the central role they played in family life, even women who thought they were qualified to hold office or who were encouraged by others to do so, delayed running until family circumstances favored their taking on the responsibilities associated with public officeholding. Once women decided to run for office they often encountered structural political barriers. They were less likely than male candidates to be recruited or supported by their political party. Female candidates received fewer dollars from traditional campaign contributors. As a result, they raised less money than their male counterparts. Post-1980 studies on women's political careers led us to expect fewer gender differences in the experiences officeholders encountered during their electoral careers. The same factors that affected men's decisions about running for office affected women's. One notable exception was the role that family circumstances had on officeholders' decisions to seek public office. Women were still thought to be more sensitive than men to the impact that a political career had on their family. Consequently, women were more likely than men to consider that favorable family circumstances were important factors in their career decisions. In regard to structural political barriers, several recent studies found that contemporary female and male candidates received similar levels of party support. In 63 addition, female and male candidates running for office at the same level and under similar political circumstances raised comparable amounts of money for their campaigns. Given these findings, we expect our data to show few gender differences regarding the importance of various factors on the decisions officeholders made about starting their political careers. Where differences are found, we expect that they will be a result of women's concern over balancing family demands with officeholding responsibilities or related to the time period in which candidates first sought office. We also expect that gender did not significantly affect the level of party support received or the amount of money raised by candidates in their first campaign. If gender differences in these areas are revealed, they will likely pertain to candidates who ran for higher office or who ran prior to 1980. The remainder of this chapter discusses the specific factors that influenced officeholders' decisions to seek public office for the first time. We identify the level of office sought, the party support candidates received, and the amount of money they raised. We discuss the impact of these factors on the outcome of first elections. Throughout, we explore to what extent gender affected the decisions and experiences officeholders encountered at the start of their careers. 64

FACTORS AFFECTING DECISION TO SEEK FIRST OFFICE Decisions to run for public office were based on a variety of factors. In discussing who runs for Congress, Fowler and McClure (1989) observed Every opportunity to run for Congress comes wrapped in a context - those few undeniable realities of time and place that provide a modicum of order to an otherwise topsy-turvy political world. Within this context would-be candidates first assess the risks of a congressional campaign (25). The same process applies to the decisions officeholders face in regard to running for office at the statewide, state legislative and local levels. In order to decide whether to run, would-be candidates assess the political risks and personal costs involved with seeking office against the potential benefits they hope to realize by serving in office. The decision calculus for each candidate is different. As a result, the factors influencing a decision to run for a particular office vary in importance from one would-be candidate to the other. As discussed in Chapter 2, the factors that influenced electoral decisions were classified into three categories: societal barriers, structural political barriers, and ambition. To determine to what extent factors related to these categories influenced their decisions to run, officeholders were asked What were the most important factors influencing your decision to run for this particular office? 65 From a list of seven factors, officeholders identified which ones were the most important. Four of the seven factors on the list were related to gendered political socialization issues and roles responsibilities: felt qualified to hold this particular office; office dealt with issues I care about; encouraged by others to seek this particular office; and family circumstances were favorable. One factor pertained to structural political barriers: political circumstances were favorable. Two factors involved ambition: good exposure for my nonpolitical career plans; and office important stepping stone to higher office. Turning to the data for women officeholders, we find that about 60% of women officeholders considered three factors were the most important factors in their decision to seek their first office. These factors were: felt qualified to hold this office; encouraged by others to seek this office; office dealt with issues I care about. Approximately a third of women candidates listed favorable political circumstances and favorable family circumstances as important. Only a handful noted that either of the ambition factors were important. The level of office for which women officeholders first ran significantly affected the importance they placed on two factors: political circumstances were favorable (pc.001, taub=.25) and family circumstances were favorable (p<.01, taub=.10). In both instances, women who ran for 66 state representative or higher office7 were more likely than those who ran for local office to report these two factors as important. To what extent do female and male officeholders identify the same factors as important to their decisions to first seek office? As displayed in Table 4, the data show no strong relationship between gender and the importance officeholders attached to each of the seven factors. This finding supports arguments that women's and men's entry into electoral office was not influenced to any great degree by different factors.

7Higher office includes races for state senate, statewide or federal offices. 67 Table 4. Factors important in decision to first seek public office

Officeholders Female Male Factor is Important % % Felt Qualified to hold this office* 63 56 Encouraged by others to seek this office 62 57 Office dealt with issues I care about* 56 49 Political circumstances were favorable* 34 28 Family Circumstances were favorable** 30 13 Important stepping stone for higher office 04 07 Good exposure for nonpolitical career 03 06 Number of cases 619 286 *p<.05, Taub=-.07 **p<.05, Taub=-.19

Impact of Favorable Family Circumstances The data in Table 4 do show that although decided majorities of both female and male respondents rejected favorable family circumstances as one of the most important factors that influenced their decision, women were less likely to do so than men. By over a two-to-one margin, more female than male respondents considered that favorable family circumstances were important in their decision to seek office for the first time. The original relationship 68 holds regardless of the level of office sought. These findings provide some support to arguments that family concerns exerted more influence on women's political career choices than they did on men's. Further analysis of the relationship between gender and the role favorable family circumstances played in decisions to first seek office reveal some interesting patterns. The data in Table 5 show that significantly more women than men who were single and without children when they first ran, considered favorable family circumstances important. This pattern was not repeated for candidates who were married and without children when they first run. Gender had no effect on the importance candidates in this latter group attached to favorable family circumstances. 69 Table 5. Favorable family circumstances important factor in decisions to seek first office: by gender, marital status, children

Single candidates, no children* Female Male Important % %

No 78 94 Yes 22 6 Number of cases 54 35 Married candidates, no children Female Male Important %%

No 90 86 Yes 10 14 Number of cases 51 18

*p < .02, taufa=-.22

These findings suggest that not having a spouse or children were viewed by more women than men as favorable family circumstances when it came to starting their electoral careers. Being married and not having children are not factors considered important enough by either female or male officeholders to be classified as favorable family 70 circumstances that exerted much influence on decisions to first seek office. One factor that we expected would impact whether female candidates with children considered favorable family circumstances as important was the age of their children. We reasoned that female candidates without the time-consuming responsibilities associated with caring for young children would be more likely to assess their family circumstances as favorable towards starting their electoral career than those with such responsibilities. As a result, we expected that female candidates who waited to run for the first time until their youngest child was in school or an adult would more likely than those who ran when their youngest child was a preschooler to consider favorable family circumstances as important to their decision to seek office. The data presented in Table 6 confirm this expectation. The age of a female candidate's youngest child significantly affected (p<.001, tauc=.17) whether she considered favorable family circumstances important factors in her decision to first seek office. The older a female candidate's youngest child was, the more likely that candidate was to consider her family circumstances as favorable and important. 71 Table 6. Favorable family circumstances important factors in female candidate's decision to first seek office: by age of youngest child

Female Candidates Age of youngest child Children Children Children under six 6-18 over 18 Favorable family circumstances important % % %

No 82 66 54 Yes 18 34 46 Number of cases 76 280 115

p < .001, tauc =.17

We did not expect this finding to apply to male candidates as most men were not involved as extensively as women were with daily childcare responsibilities. Consequently, we expected that for male candidates, the age of their youngest child would not affect whether they considered favorable family circumstances important. The data displayed in Table 7 do not confirm this expectation. As with women candidates, the older their children were, the more likely male candidates were to rate favorable family circumstances as one of the most important factors affecting their decision to seek office (pc.001, tauc=.18). 72 Table 7. Favorable family circumstances important factors in male candidates' decision to first seek office: by age of youngest child

Male Candidates Age of youngest child Children Children Children under six 6-18 over 18 Favorable family circumstances important % % %

No 92 89 61 Yes 8 10 39 Number of cases 48 105 31

p < .001, tauc=.18

A comparison of female and male candidates with youngest children in the same age group finds that gender only affected whether officeholders with youngest children age six-to-eighteen ranked favorable family circumstances as important. Women candidates with children in that age group were more likely (pc.001, taub=-.24) than male candidates to have considered favorable family circumstances as important. We suspect the reason for this difference is that more women than men made the conscious decision to wait to seek office until their youngest child was in school. Besides affecting whether favorable family circumstances were important, did officeholders' gender and 73 family status also affect the choices they made about when in their lives they should start their careers in elective office? Did gender affect the level at which they chose to initially run for office? In the next section, we answer these questions.

STRATEGIC DECISIONS REGARDING FIRST RUN As discussed in Chapter II, scholars argued that women considered the establishment of a strong family and other interpersonal relationships to be primary goals in their lives. As a result, women were reluctant to engage in activities or accept responsibilities that interfered with their efforts to maintain these relationships. For some women, any type of sustained work outside the home was considered a destabilizing influence on family relationships. For others, only certain types of time- consuming work outside the home were viewed as interfering with relationships. Some women believed that working outside the home posed little threat to family relationships. In fact, they believed just the opposite was true. For these women, work outside the home was not only essential to the well-being of the people they cared about but also to their own sense of fulfillment. They noted that work outside the home provided the family unit with the needed income and creative outlets that allowed members to survive and prosper. Engaging in political work was treated in much the same manner as other work outside the home. For some women, being politically active required too much time and energy away from the family. For others, involvement in certain political activities caused little disruption to family life; those political activities seen as too demanding were simply avoided. These women considered being politically active to be essential to protecting the interests of not only the relationships they cared about, but also the relationships of others they identified with and supported. If women's concerns about interpersonal relationships - especially those involving spouses and children - had a significant effect on the strategic choices they made about starting their political careers, then we expect several patterns to emerge. As discussed previously, we expect that some women delayed running for office until their children were no longer living at home. A consequence of such a decision was that these women started their electoral careers at an older age than those who did not wait. Starting an electoral career at a later age had both positive and negative effects. On the positive side, waiting to run until family responsibilities had lessened might have resulted in women being freer to start their careers at the level at which there were the best opportunities. On the negative side, starting at mid-life or older meant that women might spend fewer years in office. 75 As a result, they might not stay in public office long enough to pursue multiple career options. Of course, not all women waited to finish one career before starting another. Many women who were concerned that their officeholding responsibilities would interfere with family responsibilities may have simply waited until their children were in school full-time rather than grown to run for office. Women who run for the first time while their children were school age would have the advantage of being younger when they started their careers than women who waited to run until their children were adults. Yet, in order to juggle the demands of family life with those of being a politician, we expect that many women with children still at home chose to start their careers at the local level rather at higher levels. Serving in most local offices would be less time consuming than serving in offices at higher levels. Often these latter offices required that more time and energy be spent away from home tending to both the campaign and office-holding aspects of the job. Another primary relationship for most women is with their spouse. As discussed in Chapter II, studies (Carroll and Strimling, 1983) found that spousal support was an important factor in women's political career decisions. Married women often waited to run for office until they were confident that their spouse would support or at least not oppose such an effort. We expect that the responsibility of 76 being a spouse either delayed women's entry into public office or affected the level at which they first sought office. As noted earlier, studies (Sapiro 1982; Carroll 1989) found that male officeholders also expressed concerns about the effect that serving in public office had on their family life. Because men compartmentalized their public and private lives and women did not, concern for their families affected women's and men's political choices differently. Consequently, we do not expect that being a spouse or parent affected the age at which men sought office for the first time, nor do we expect that family responsibilities affected the level of office men sought in their first bid for office. In the next two sections, we discuss to what extent the data confirm these expectations. First, we examine whether gender and family status affected the age at which politicians ran for their first elected office. Then, we examine if gender and. family status affected the level of office that female and male candidates first sought. Candidate's Age at First Run The data displayed in Table 8 indicate that for both female and male candidates, the presence of a spouse and/or children affected the age at which candidates first sought office. The data also reveal that in all four family groups, the median age of women candidates was higher than 77 the median age of their male counterparts. This latter finding suggests that gender - regardless of family status - affected the age at which politicians first ran for office.

Table 8. The median age of candidates seeking office for the first time: by family status

Candidates Female Male Family Status Median Ages

Single, no children 32 (n=68) 28 (n=37) Married, no children 36 (n=50) 30 (n=28) Married, children 43 (n=409) 37 (n=197) Single, children 46 (n=56) 41 (n=9)

Further analysis of these findings provides us with a clearer picture of the impact that family status and gender had on the age at which candidates started their electoral careers. The data support the notion that although the roles of spouse and parent affected the political career decisions of both women and men, they had a greater impact on women's career decisions. Previous studies suggested the major reason that married women with children were older at the start of their careers than their male counterparts was because women delayed running until their children were in 78 school or grown. Data from this study confirm this observation. As displayed in Table 9, the data show gender significantly affected (p<.001, tauc=-.25) the age candidates' youngest children were when candidates first sought office. Married men were more likely to begin their careers when their youngest children were school age or younger, while married women were more likely to make such a move when their youngest children were school age or older. Men were more than twice as likely as women to start their electoral careers when their youngest children were still preschoolers.

Table 9. Relationship between gender and age of candidate's youngest child at time of first race

Married officeholders running for first public office Age of youngest child Female Male when candidate first ____ ran for public office % % Five years-old or younger 18 47 Six-to-eighteen years old 60 38 Nineteen years- or older 23 16 Number of cases 411 192

p <.001, tauc=-.25 79 The data displayed in Table 10 show that candidates who ran for the first time when their youngest children were preschool age had the lowest median age. Married men were more than twice as likely as married women to start their electoral careers when their youngest children were preschoolers.

Table 10. Median age of married candidates with children: by gender and age of youngest child

Married candidates seeking their first public office Female Male Age of Youngest child Median Age 5 years-old or younger 34 33 Number of Cases 72 90 Six-to- eighteen years old 42 40 Number of Cases 245 72 Nineteen years-old or older 52 57 Number of Cases 94 30

These findings underscore two important points in regard to the age at which women first ran for office. First, regardless of family circumstances, women started their careers at an older age than men. Second, family 80 circumstances influenced at what point in their lives women started their careers. What might explain why women - even those without the responsibilities of being a spouse and/or a parent - were older than men when they first sought office? Socialization theory argues that women - unlike men - were not conditioned to think of office-holding as a career option. If women - as compared to men - thought of officeholding as a non- traditional career choice, then it is logical to expect that they were slower to consider making such a career move. They might not have thought about running for office until others suggested it or until their own life experiences led them to conclude that they were qualified to hold office. We cannot rule out that structural political barriers also were responsible for why women in general were older than men when they first sought office. Until quite recently, women not only had to convince themselves that they were qualified to hold office but also they had to convince others. Party leaders, fundraisers, and voters had to be persuaded to support women's decisions to run for public office. To do so, women might have spent more time than men working on political and community projects in order to demonstrate that they would be viable candidates and effective officeholders. In addition, they might have spent more time than men working in the community in order to allay any concerns supporters had about their private 81 lives. For both female and male candidates, not having a spouse or children would likely invite questions about the priority officeholding played in their lives. Answering these questions would be generally easier for men who - unlike women - were rewarded for postponing getting married or starting a family until they established themselves professionally.8 Most of the explanations about why women in general enter politics at an older age than their male counterparts imply that women were being "prevented" somehow from entering politics at the same age as their male counterparts. Borrowing from the work of Eccles (1987) regarding the differences in occupational career paths of women and men, one can argue that for some women the decision to postpone entry into electoral politics was their "choice" . Eccles cautioned Too often scientists adopt a male standard of ideal achievement when judging the value of female accomplishments; they seek to understand why women do not "achieve" like men without considering the possibility that not engaging in some activity may reflect the choice of an alternative activity rather than avoidance... The male-dominated professional system clearly assumes that one should sacrifice other interests to the goal of being the 'very best1 at what you do, despite recent concern over the high cost of such a perspective to individuals' physical and mental health. Women appear to be less likely than men to endorse this value....Instead of characterizing females as deficient males, the perspective

80f course female and male politicians who remain single or who are in non-traditional relationships have to answer these questions throughout their political careers. 82 outlined here legitimizes female's choices as valuable on their own terms rather than as a reflection or distortion of male choices and male values (136,166. 151-152). If women chose to start their electoral careers at a different point in their lives than men, did they also choose to start it at a different level of office? In the next section, we examine to what degree various factors affected the level of office politicians decided to run for in their first bid for office. Level of Office First Sought Another way that gendered political socialization and role responsibilities may have impacted the choices women officeholders made about their careers, was to influence the level of office at which they chose to run for the first time. If women considered public officeholding as a nontraditional career choice, they might more tentative than men about starting a career in electoral politics. If this was the case, we expect that female politicians were more likely than their male counterparts to start their electoral careers at the local level rather than at other levels. Second, if women were concerned about the impact that running for and holding public office had on their family responsibilities, then we expect women candidates with childcare responsibilities were more likely than women candidates without such responsibilities to seek local office rather than higher offices. In addition, since women, as compared to men, shouldered a disproportionate 83 share of childcare responsibilities, we expect that women with children were more likely than men with children to start their careers at the local level. The rationale for these assumptions is based on the fact that in most states, local office is the level at which "newcomers'1 established themselves as legitimate political candidates. This was especially true for women candidates. The effort and resources hold local office were apt to be less than those needed to hold office at state legislative and higher levels. Local offices like the school board and city councils - both of which were often nonpartisan - traditionally were considered acceptable offices for women to hold. These offices focused on concerns that directly affect the immediate communities in which women and their families lived. As a result of this focus, the public was more accepting of women holding these positions than they were of women holding other positions seen as more political in nature. Factors that applied to serving in local government such as little or no travel away from home, short and relatively inexpensive campaigns, and the ability to serve in office on less than a full-time basis were also said to create less of a strain between family and office- holding responsibilities. To examine whether female legislators were more likely than male state legislators to start their electoral careers by running for office at the local level, we grouped the various offices that respondents sought into four categories: local; state house; state senate; and higher. The local office category included races for school board, city or town council, county office, mayor or other local posts. The state representative group included races for the lower house of their state legislature. The state senate category included races for the upper chamber of the state legislature and all races for the unicameral Nebraska legislature. The higher office category included races for statewide or federal office. We then divided the respondents into two groups according to the year in which they first sought election. The first group included those who made their first run before 1980. The second group was comprised of respondents who made their first run for public office in 1980 or after. The reason for dividing respondents into two groups was so that we could make comparisons between female and male officeholders with similar electoral opportunities. Officeholders running before 1980 had enough time between their initial run for public office and their election to their current office to work their way up from local to state legislative office. Those running in their first race for public office in 1980 or after did not have as much time to make those moves. By comparing female and male respondents within each time period, we have a more accurate 85 representation of any gender differences that existed at the start of state legislators' careers. Analysis of the data do not confirm that gender significantly impacted the level of office candidates first sought. Women were not more likely than men to start their electoral careers by running for office at the local level. The data presented in Table 11 show that this finding holds regardless of whether officeholders started their electoral careers prior to 1980 or after.

Table 11. Level of office sought by State Legislators in their first race for public office: by time period

State Legislators who ran for their first public office before 1980 Female Male Level of Office first sought % % Local 57 48 Legislative, Lower House 39 44 Legislative, Upper House 3 7 Higher, Statewide or Federal 1 1 Number of cases 267 148 State Legislators- who ran for their first public office in 1980 or after Female Male Level of Office first sought %% Local 16 17 Legislative, Lower House 72 71 Legislative, Upper House 13 12 Higher, Statewide or Federal 0 0 Number of cases 343 133 86 These findings challenge the assumption that gendered political socialization affected the level of office that candidates first sought. To confirm whether the responsibility of having children affected the level of office first sought, we divided the respondents into two groups: those who had children during their first run for office and those without children at that point in their careers. The data reveal that the presence of children did not significantly affect the level of office sought by respondents.

Table 12. Level of office sought by state legislators in their first race for public office: by presence of children

State Legislators Without children With children when they ran when they ran for first office for first office Level of office first sought9 % %

Local 27 36 Legislative, lower chamber 64 55 Legislative, upper chamber 10 9 Number of cases 137 757

9Since so few state legislators (n=4) ran for higher office in their first race for public office, I dropped this category from the analysis of the impact of children on the level of office first sought. 87 The original relationship remains when we control for gender. Neither women nor men with children were more likely than their counterparts without children to start their electoral careers by running for office at the local level. Since day-to-day childcare responsibilities vary according to children's ages, we expect that the age children were during a candidate's first run for office affected the level of office they sought. To confirm this expectation, we divided the group of respondents with children into three subgroups according to the age of their youngest child. The first group consisted of respondents who during their first bid for office had children who were five years-old or younger. The second group included those whose youngest children were aged six-to-eighteen years old. The third group included respondents who had children nineteen years old or older. The data displayed in Table 13 confirm that the age of a candidate's youngest child affected the level of office sought. The younger their child, the more likely candidates were to run at the local level. 88 Table 13. Level of office candidates sought in first race for public office by age of youngest child

Age of candidate's youngest child Five years Six to Nineteen or younger Eighteen or older Level of office first sought % %%

Local 47 38 14 Legislative, Lower House 48 54 71 Legislative, Upper House 5 8 15 Number of cases 150 287 198

pc.Ol, tauc=.25

Surprisingly, the relationship holds when we control for gender. The age of a candidate's youngest child significantly affected the level of office sought by both female and male candidates.10 The data displayed in Table 14 show that gender significantly affected (p<.01, taub=.20) the level of office sought by respondents who ran for their first office when their youngest child was five-years old or younger. Female candidates with children in that age group were more likely to seek local office than their male counterparts.

10For female candidates, p < .01, tau-b=.29; for male candidates, p < .02, tau-b=16. 89 Table 14. Level of office sought by state legislators with children 5 years-old or younger during their first race for public office

State legislators with children 5 years-old or younger during first race for public office Female Male Level of office ______first sought % %

Local 57 37 Legislative, both houses 43 63 Number of cases 76 93 p<.01, taub=.20

The data do not reveal that gender affected the level of office sought by female and male respondents who first ran for office when their youngest child was school age or older. These findings confirm earlier research. Childcare responsibilities for young children were more likely to affect the choices that women made about their political careers than they were to affect the choices men made. Given our findings so far what do we know about the choices candidates made regarding their first run for office? For the most part, the data indicate that female and male candidates considered the same factors as important in their electoral decisions. Women were somewhat more likely than men to report favorable family circumstances as important. Female and male candidates were likely to run for similar levels of office. An exception to this was that women with young children were more likely than their male counterparts to start their careers by running for local office. A related finding - and perhaps a more important one - was that women with young children were significantly less likely than their male counterparts to decide to run for office at all. This latter finding contributes substantially to our understanding about why married women with children were older at the start of their careers than men in similar family circumstances. Another important finding related to the age at which candidates first sought office was that women - regardless of family status - were older than their male counterparts when they ran. In summary, except for the decision to start their careers at different ages, female and male candidates made quite similar choices about their initial run for public office. With the above findings in mind, we now turn our attention to looking at what the data tell us about the structural barriers candidates encountered in their first run. We begin by examining the success candidates had in gaining party support for their first campaign.

PARTY SUPPORT As discussed in Chapter II, much of the anecdotal information from women candidates suggested that active party recruitment and support of women candidates did not begin in earnest until the mid-1980s. Systematic studies suggested otherwise. In 1981, the Center for the American 91 Woman in Politics (CAWP) at Rutger's University conducted a nationwide survey of men and women who were holding office in 1980 and 1981. These officeholders were asked to "think back to the first time you ran for the office you now hold" and to state to what degree party leaders had given them their support. CAWP researchers found Except for state representatives, female officeholders are equally or more likely than their male counterparts to have been recruited by party leaders (that is, sought out and encouraged to run) and/or supported in their candidacies. Female state representatives slightly less often than male representatives report that they were recruited and/or supported by party leaders (Carroll and Strimling 1983:64-65). The CAWP question on party support did not control for whether officeholders' first run for their current office was their first run for any elected office. We think this is an important distinction. Parties often withhold support to untested candidates. Once candidates prove themselves by winning their first race or by running credible losing campaigns, they are more likely to receive party support in subsequent elections (Mandel 1981). Interviews with elected women revealed a common belief that the scenario described reflected the experiences they encountered in trying to garner party support. They suggested it was especially applicable to women candidates who ran for office for the first time before 1980. During this time period, many women candidates not only were untested in the electoral arena but also were considered undesirable by many party leaders (Mandel 1981). By examining the level of party support candidates received in their first race, and controlling for the time period in which they ran, a clearer picture may emerge regarding the level of party support women candidates received in the early stages of their electoral careers. If anecdotal information was on target, then we expect women were less likely than their male counterparts to be recruited or supported by their party. We especially expect this to be the case for women who ran for the first time in races held prior to 1980. If the CAWP results were more accurate, then gender did not affect the level of party support candidates received in their first race. The survey question used to examine the level of support officeholders received in their first election read: Officeholders often say that party support varies over the course of their political careers. Based on your experience, circle the response that best describes your party's involvement in each of the three races indicated below...first run for elective office, first run for current office and next campaign for office. Seven possible responses were listed: nonpartisan race, recruited me to run, supported my candidacy, remained neutral, divided-some support and some opposition, opposed my candidacy, not applicable to me. Dropped from the analysis of party support were those who answered they had run in nonpartisan races or who responded that party support was not applicable to them. Responses from the remaining cases were analyzed and the results are presented in the following sections. 93 Party Support in First Races For Elective Office Analysis of the data for women officeholders find that nearly 60% were either recruited or supported by their party in their first race for public office. In contrast, about a quarter of women candidates faced either divided party support or outright party opposition when they first sought office. About a fifth report that their party remained neutral in their first bid for office. How do these findings compare to the level of party support received by male candidates? The data displayed in Table 15 show that gender did not significantly affect the level of party support candidates received when they first sought office.

Table 15. Party support received by candidates in their first race for office

Female Male Candidates Candidates Level of Party Support

Recruited 26 16 Supported 32 44 Neutral 19 13 Divided 14 20 Opposition 9 7 Number of cases 561 240 94 The original relationship remains when we control for the time period in which officeholders first ran.11 Regardless of whether candidates ran prior to 1980 or after, there was no significant gender difference in the level of party support officeholders received. The data support the CAWP findings that there is no significant relationship between gender and party support. If gender did not affect the level of party support women candidates received, were there other factors that did? As noted previously, the literature and anecdotal information suggested there were several: the level of office sought, the time period in which candidates ran, degree of legislative professionalism (legislative status), and party affiliation. In the next several sections, we discuss the impact these factors had on the level of party support women candidates received in their initial run for office. Level of Office and Party Support Much anecdotal information suggested that party leaders had a tendency to recruit and support women candidates to run for local office rather than to run for statewide or federal offices. Both the CAWP findings and our data do not

11The original relationship remained when other factors were controlled for. These factors include: level of office first sought, legislative status (to what extent a state legislature was considered full-time), and region of the country in which the races were run. 95 support these observations. No significant association is found between party support and the level of office sought. Regardless of the level of office first sought, about 60% of women candidates either were recruited or supported by their party in their first run for office. About a quarter of the women candidates experienced some type of party opposition in their first run. The remaining women candidates received neutral party treatment in their first campaign. Time Period and Party Support Previous research suggested that party support for women candidates has increased over time - especially since the 1980s. To examine this notion, we split women officeholders into two groups according to the time period in which they first ran. One group included women officeholders who ran before 1980. The other group consisted of women officeholders who sought election in 1980 or after. The data reveal no association between party support and the time period in which women officeholders first ran. Nearly sixty percent of women candidates in each time period were either recruited or supported by their respective political parties. Only about a quarter of women from each of the time periods experienced divided support or outright opposition from their party. 96 Legislative Status and Party Support Some scholars argued that the more professional the legislature, the less likely women were to be recruited to run for seats. Higher salaries, longer sessions, more staff support, and the higher costs involved with campaigning increased the competition and the resources needed to run for these posts. As a result party leaders often turned to established party members who were assumed to have the necessary resources to mount credible campaigns. This often meant that party leaders recruited male, rather than female, community leaders to run for these prized seats. If these observations were accurate, then we expect to find that women who ran for seats in legislatures classified as full-time were less likely than those running for seats in mixed or part-time legislatures to receive party support. To test this assumption, we divided the states according to the status of their state legislature as ranked by the National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL). NCSL legislative status rankings took into consideration the length of legislative session, officeholder salaries and other compensation, staff and support services. Based on these factors legislatures were classified into one of three categories: full-time, mixed, and part-time.12

12Throughout this dissertation we refer to this legislative classification variable as legislative status. 97 The data displayed in Table 16 show a statistically significant relationship (p<.05, tauc=.10) between legislative status and party support. The relationship is in the expected direction. As legislative status increased, party support for women candidates decreased.

Table 16. Level of party support received by women candidates running for state legislative seats: by legislative status

Legislative Status Part-time Mixed Full-time Level of Party Support ______received by women candidates % % %

Recruited 23 20 18 Supported 44 36 27 Neutral 12 15 19 Opposition 22 28 36 Number of cases 96 202 62 p < .05, tauc=.10

Further analysis reveals that legislative status similarly affected (p<.05, tauc=.l4) the level of party support that male candidates received in their first campaign. This finding is at odds with arguments that gender was the reason women candidates who ran for seats in mixed or full-time legislatures received lower levels of party support than those who ran for seats in part-time legislatures. Instead, 98 the data suggest that it was the competitiveness and desirability associated with a particular legislative office that affected the type of party support candidates received rather than gender. Party Affiliation and Party Support Early studies (Welch, 1978; Rule, 1981) found that the Democratic party was less likely than the Republican party to recruit women to run for office. In more recent studies, including this one, no association is found between party affiliation and party support. The majority of both Democratic and Republican women candidates were either recruited or supported by their party in their first bid for office. In summary, the data regarding party support do not coincide with arguments that female candidates received less support from their party than male candidates. The data also do not indicate that this is a recent development. In addition, the analysis shows that party support for women candidates was not affected by the level of office sought or by their party affiliation. Legislative status is the one factor that affected the level of party support that female candidates - as well as their male counterparts - received in their first bid for office. As noted, this finding suggests that it was electoral factors such as how much competition there was for 99 a particular seat or how desirable a particular office was that influenced the type of party support received. In the next section we focus on the amount of money candidates raised in their first campaign. Again we examine whether factors such as gender, the time period in which races were run, and the level of office sought affected the amount of money candidates raised.

MONEY RAISED FOR FIRST RUN Until quite recently, both scholars and women candidates argued that one key factor that prevented women from running for office was their difficulty in raising as much money as their male opponents. Women were thought to be unable to raise money for a variety of reasons. First, as outsiders they were often not considered viable candidates by their political party. As a result, they received very little support from their party's major contributors. Second, as outsiders they were less successful than their male counterparts when it came to raising money from political action committees. Third, women were often in occupations that made it difficult for them to establish contacts from whom they could solicit sizeable campaign contributions. Fourth, their most "natural" constituency - women - were not accustomed to making significant contributions to political candidates. For the most part, these factors are no longer viable. Studies of recent elections found that women in similar 100 campaign situations raised as much money as their male opponents. Both major parties had made significant contributions to women candidates who ran at the federal level. Political action committees were found to have donated more money in recent elections to women challengers at the federal level than they did to male challengers at the same level (Newman 1984). In addition to these developments, a greater percentage of women worked in occupations that allowed them to build contacts with future contributors or to become large donors themselves. In the 1992 election, women as a group contributed record amounts of money to female candidates (Donovan 1992). EMILY'S List, which existed solely to fund Democratic pro-choice women candidates, raised more money in the 1992 election cycle than any other national PAC in the country. Our data afford us no opportunity to examine changes in the sources from which women candidates received contributions. The data do allow us to examine whether gender affected the amount of money candidates raised when they first sought office. The data can reveal whether female candidates and male candidates running in the same time period, and for office at the same level, raised similar amounts of money. If the data reflect the national trend, then we expect two patterns to emerge. First, women who ran for the first 101 time before 1980 raised less money than their male counterparts. This especially should be the case for women officeholders who ran for higher office during this time period. Second, we expect to find that female and male officeholders who ran in 1980 or after raised similar amounts of money for their first campaign. Analysis of the data reveal neither pattern. As displayed in Table 17, the data show that female and male candidates who ran prior to 1980 raised similar amounts of money.

Table 17. Money raised by female and male candidates who ran for the first time before 1980

Female Male Candidates Candidates Amount of money raised % % Under $10,000 87 84 $10,001-$25,000 9 11 Over $25,000 4 5 Number of cases 251 140

The original relationship remains regardless of whether candidates ran for local, state representative or higher office13 in their first election.

13Higher office includes races for state senate, statewide or federal offices. In regard to races run in 1980 or after, the data displayed in Table 18 reveal that gender significantly affected (p<.05, tauc=-.09) the amount of money candidates raised in their first race. Women officeholders who ran during this time period were twice as likely as their male counterparts to have raised more than $25,000 for their first campaign.

Table 18. Money raised by female and male candidates who ran for the first time in 1980 or after

Female Male Candidates Candidates Amount of money raised % % Under $10,000 55 63 $10,001-$25,000 25 26 Over $25,000 21 11 Number of cases 322 131 p<.05, tauc=-.09

When the level of office is controlled for, the original relationship disappears for candidates who ran for office at the local level or for a seat in the lower chamber of their state legislature. Gender did not affect the amount of money candidates raised in races at these levels. The data in Table 19 show that for candidates who ran for higher office in their first race, the original relationship strengthened (p<.01, tauc=-.36). Women candidates running 103 for office at this level raised significantly more money than did their male counterparts.

Table 19. Money raised by female and male candidates who ran for higher office in 1980 or after

Female Male Candidates Candidates Amount of Money Raised % % Under $10,000 17 56 $10,001-$25,000 36 25 Over $25,000 48 19 Number of cases 42 16 pc.Ol, tauc=.-36

Because of the small number of cases in several categories, we are hesitant to overanalyze these findings. Yet, nothing in the data indicate that female candidates in either time periods raised less money than their male counterparts. Instead, the data suggest that compared to male candidates, female candidates who ran in the earlier time period raised similar amounts and those who ran in the later time period actually raised more. This latter finding indicates that organized efforts started in the 1980s to increase the amount of money available to women candidates were quite successful. So far the data show that for the most part female and male candidates raised comparable amounts of money and received similar levels of party support in their first 104 campaigns. In the next section, we examine whether the outcome of their election efforts was similar as well.

OUTCOME OF FIRST ELECTION Nearly 80% of officeholders won their first campaign for public office. The data show that gender did not significantly affect the election outcome. The original relationship remains regardless of the level of office candidates sought or the time period in which they ran. The original relationship also holds when we control for the level of party support received or the candidate's party affiliation. These latter findings challenge arguments that women were more likely than men to be recruited by their party to run as "sacrificial lambs" - candidates with little chance of winning. Of course since few of the respondents ran for statewide or federal office in their first race, we can only make this claim in regard to candidates at the state legislative and local levels.

SUMMARY The data presented in this chapter showed female and male politicians started their political careers with similar concerns and with comparable resources. Gender did not significantly affect the level of office candidates first ran for nor did gender affect the election outcomes of these initial campaigns. The most notable difference between the career starts of female and male politicians was that women, regardless of 105 family status, were older than men when they first ran. Contributing to the age difference between married women with children and their male counterparts was the finding that fathers were twice as likely as mothers to run for office when they were the parents of preschoolers. If gender impacts the decisions officeholders make about their political careers, then it must do so after they run for the first time. Perhaps, female and male officeholders make different decisions about how their careers should progress after their first bid for office. For officeholders who won in their first run, gender may affect the length of time that they choose to remain in those offices. Those female and male candidates who lost a first bid for office may react differently to that experience and, as a result, make different choices about subsequent career moves. After running for office for the first time, female and male politicians may express different levels of ambition. In the next chapter we explore these possibilities by examining the career paths officeholders followed after running for public office for the first time. CHAPTER IV CAREER PATHS TO CURRENT OFFICE

Previous research (Patterson and Boynton 1969; Prewitt and Nowlin 1969; Carroll 1979; Fowler and McClure 1989; Schlesinger 1991) suggested that political careers are influenced by a variety of personal and political factors that lead candidates to travel different paths in their political careers. As Lasswell (1954) noted In American politics the escalator to the top is not a regimented, orderly lift, but a tangle of ladders, ropes, and runways that attract people from other activities at various stages of the process and lead others to a dead end or a blind drop (303). In this chapter, we examine the career paths that three groups of elected officials followed on their way to being elected to their current office.14 The first group, first­ time officeholders, is comprised of state legislators who won election to that office in their first campaign. These officeholders have not run for any other offices. The second group, experienced officeholders15, consists of

^Current office refers to the office respondents held in in 1990 at the time the survey was taken. 15Experienced in this context refers to electoral experience. It does not necessarily mean that officeholders held another office; it simply means that they ran for another office before winning election to their current one.

1 0 6 107 state legislators who ran for other offices before winning election to their current posts. The third group, higher officeholders, is made-up of female officeholders currently serving at the statewide or federal level.16 Why are we interested in the career paths followed by these elected officials? First, we want to confirm whether female and male officeholders had similar experiences throughout their careers or whether these similarities disappeared after their first run for office. Second, by identifying the paths that women officeholders in 1990 travelled to win election to state legislative or higher office, we gain insight about the likelihood that substantially more women will be elected at these levels. Also, we are interested in the careers of current women officeholders because they are the pool from which most women candidates for top statewide and federal offices will be drawn. What do we want to know about the career paths of these current officeholders? We want to know whether the factors that influenced first-time officeholders to seek a state legislative seat in their first run for office were the same

16As outlined in Chapter I, we did not survey male officeholders serving in higher office. 108 factors that influenced experienced officeholders to seek a state legislative seat later in their careers. We do not anticipate that electoral experience affected - to any great degree - the importance officeholders attached to these seven factors: felt qualified to hold this office; good exposure for my non-political career plans; office dealt with the issues I care about; office important stepping stone to higher office; political circumstances were favorable; encouraged by others to seek this particular office; and family circumstances were favorable. One exception may be that experienced officeholders were more likely than first-time officeholders to regard favorable political circumstances as important in their decision to seek their current office. To move from one office to another or to run again after having lost an election, may be seen by many as taking a greater risk than running for the first time. If this is the case, we expect experienced officeholders minimized that risk by waiting for favorable political circumstances before making such a move. We also want to know whether the factors experienced officeholders considered important in their first race for public office were the same factors they considered important in their first race for their current office. Since political and personal circumstances changed from election to election, we expect that the importance of some factors increased, while the importance of others declined. 109 Besides examining the factors that affect electoral decisions, we also identify the electoral moves that officeholders made in their careers. We are interested in identifying whether female and male officeholders made similar choices in regard to the types and number of offices they sought on their way to winning election to their current office. In addition, we determine the pace at which officeholders made various electoral moves in their careers. Whether gender affects career pace is of special interest. In regard to the career pace of first-time officeholders, we want to know how long they have served in their first office and at what point in their careers they began thinking about running for other offices. Previous studies suggested that women were less likely than men to spend an extended number of years in office. Consequently, we expect to find that a greater percentage of male than female officeholders have remained in their first office for ten years or more. These same studies reported that women have less ambition than men. If this is the case, we expect fewer women than men to acknowledge that they thought about running for other offices. More recent studies suggested that women and men have similar levels of ambition; women just express their ambition later in their careers than men. If this latter account is a more accurate description of women's ambition, then we expect the data to show that after being elected to 110 a first office, men began thinking about running for other offices sooner than women. In regard to the career pace of experienced officeholders, we want to know how much time passed between their first run for public office and their first campaign for their current office. If after running for office for the first time, women were slower than men to think about running for other offices, we expect that they also were slower than men about actually running. As a result, we anticipate that the time period between the initial run for public office and the first run for their current office is greater for female officeholders than it is for male officeholders. The responsibilities associated with taking care of children may also influence the career pace of experienced women officeholders. Given that these responsibilities affected the career choices women made at the start of their careers, we expect such responsibilities also affected the pace at which women's officeholding careers progressed. Compared to their male counterparts or to women without childcare responsibilities, the electoral careers of women with children still at home, especially those with pre­ school age children, were expected to progress at a slower pace. We also want to know if gender affected the level of party support received and the amount of money raised by Ill experienced candidates in their first run for their current state legislative office. Based on the data presented in Chapter III, we expect to find few gender differences in these two areas. One factor that we expect gender to significantly affect is the age at which officeholders reached their current office. If women not only start their careers at an older age but also progress at a similar or slower pace than men, then women officeholders remain older than their male colleagues at each parallel point in their careers. But what does knowing that female officeholders are older than male officeholders really tell us? We think the answer depends on the length of service in office needed to gain political influence. The effect of age on political opportunities is the topic of the last section of this chapter. We posit that although older than men when first elected, women state legislators and higher officeholders are young enough to spend enough additional time in office to become powerful in their current posts or to run for higher office. If the data confirm this observation then the age difference between female and male candidates was simply that - a difference. In practical terms it had little overall impact on women's career choices. The age factor takes on significance if the data show that by the time women were elected to state legislative and higher posts their age did not permit them enough time to develop 112 political influence or lay the groundwork to run for higher office. We now turn our attention to analysis of the data. We begin by discussing whether electoral experience affected the factors officeholders thought were important in their decision to seek their current office.

IMPORTANT FACTORS IN DECISIONS TO RUN FOR CURRENT OFFICE Officeholders report that the importance various sociological and political factors exerted on electoral decisions varied from one election to another. As personal and political circumstances changed, and as candidates gained experience running for office, some factors increased in importance while others decreased. In this section, we examine to what extent electoral experience affected the impact that various factors had on decisions officeholders made to run for their current office. We examine whether first-time officeholders and experienced officeholders running for the same office considered the same factors to be important. We also determine whether the factors experienced officeholders thought were important in their first race for public office were the same factors they thought were important in their first race for their current office. As noted earlier, we do not anticipate that electoral experience affected - to any great degree - the importance officeholders attached to various factors. One exception 113 may be that electoral experience affected whether favorable political circumstances were considered important factors. To confirm our expectations, we compare the responses that first-time officeholders and experienced officeholders gave to the following survey question: What were the most important factors influencing your decision to run for this particular office? We begin by looking at whether the electoral experience of those currently serving in the lower house of their state legislature affected the factors they ranked as important in their decision to first seek that particular office. Factors Affecting Decisions to Run for State House The data displayed in Table 20 confirm our expectation that electoral experience significantly affected (pc.001, taub=.13) whether officeholders considered favorable political circumstances to be important. The relationship is in the expected direction. Experienced officeholders were more likely than first-time officeholders to report this factor as important. The data do not confirm our expectation that favorable political circumstances were the only factors affected by electoral experience. Instead, the data show that electoral experience also significantly affected the importance of three other factors: felt qualified to hold this office (p<.001, taub=.14); office dealt with issues I care about (p<.001, taub=.ll); and family circumstances were favorable (p<.05, taub=.07). The positive direction of all three of these relationships 114 indicates that experienced officeholders were more likely than first-time officeholders to consider these factors as important.

Table 20. Factors important in decision to first seek election to state house: by electoral experience

First-time Experienced Officeholders Officeholders Factor is Important % %

Felt Qualified to hold this office* 60 74 Encouraged by others to seek this office 58 64 Office dealt with issues I care about** 51 62 Political circumstances were favorable*** 43 56 Family Circumstances were favorable**** 29 35 Important stepping stone for higher office 04 04 Good exposure for nonpolitical career 03 03 Number of cases 336 340 *p<.001, Taub=.14 **p<.001, Taub=.ll ***p<.001, Taub=.13 .05, Taub=.07

When gender is controlled for, the original relationship between electoral experience and importance attributed to favorable family circumstances remains significant for female state legislators but disappears for male state legislators. As women gained electoral 115 experience, the importance they attributed to favorable family circumstances increased. Electoral experience had no effect on the importance male state legislators attached to favorable family circumstances. This pattern is repeated in regard to the relationship between electoral experience and two other factors: felt qualified to hold this office and office dealt with the issues I care about. The opposite pattern is found in regard to the relationship between electoral experience and the importance of favorable political circumstances. For women, the original relationship between these two variables disappears. Regardless of electoral experience, nearly 60% of female officeholders considered favorable political circumstances as important. For men, the original relationship between electoral experience and the importance of favorable political circumstances remains significant and strengthens (taub=.24). About a third of first-time male officeholders considered favorable political circumstances as important. In contrast, over half of experienced male officeholders ranked this factor as important in their initial decision to seek their current office. 17

17It is interesting to note that for first-time officeholders gender significantly affects (pc.001, taub=.-18) the importance played by favorable political circumstances. More female (49%) than male (29%) first-time officeholders report this factor to be important. In regard to experienced officeholders, gender has no affect on the importance this factor plays. Over half of both female and male experienced officeholders consider this factor important. 116 Factors Affecting Decisions to Run for State Senate For officeholders currently serving in the upper chamber of their state legislature, the data in Table 21 show that electoral experience does not significantly affect the importance officeholders attach to five variables: encouraged by others to seek this office, political circumstances were favorable, family circumstances were favorable, important stepping stone for higher office, and good exposure for nonpolitical career. 117 Table 21. Factors important in decision to first seek election to state senate: by electoral experience

First-time Experienced Officeholders Officeholders Factor is Important % % Felt Qualified to hold this office* 54 76 Encouraged by others to seek this office 72 66 Office dealt with issues I care about** 46 64 Political circumstances were favorable 51 58 Family Circumstances were favorable 31 32 Important stepping stone for higher office 03 07 Good exposure for nonpolitical career 03 02 Number of cases 61 148 *p<.001, Taub=.22 **p<.02, Taub=.17

Electoral experience significantly affects the importance officeholders place on two factors: felt qualified to hold this office (pc.001, taub=.22) and office dealt with issues I care about (p<.02, taub=.17). In both cases, experienced officeholders were more likely than first-time officeholders to consider that these factors as important in their decision to seek their current office. When we control for gender, the original relationship between electoral experience and the importance played by each of the seven factors is unchanged for female 118 officeholders. For male officeholders, a change occurs in one of the original relationships. Electoral experience did not significantly affect the importance male officeholders placed on the "issues" factor. Factors Affecting Decisions to Run for Higher Office As mentioned previously, the small number of respondents (n=36), plus the fact they all are women, limits the analysis of higher officeholders. Still, some patterns are worth noting. The data displayed in Table 22 suggest that electoral experience affects the importance given to favorable political circumstances. The relationship is in the expected direction. Experienced women higher officeholders were more likely than first-time women higher officeholders to report this factor as important. 119 Table 22. Factors important in decision to first seek election to higher office: by electoral experience

First-time Experienced Officeholders Officeholders Factor is Important % % Felt Qualified to hold this office 75 77 Encouraged by others to seek this office 58 69 Office dealt with issues I care about 75 58 Political circumstances were favorable 33 58 Family Circumstances were favorable 25 27 Important stepping stone for higher office 17 19 Good exposure for nonpolitical career 17 04 Number of cases 12 24

Two other interesting patterns emerge First, electoral experience appears to affect the importance given to the factor "office dealt with issues I

180f course, since we only have women in the higher officeholder's category we can not know whether this finding is applicable to male officeholders. We suspect that it is not, given the fact that 13% of experienced male state senators report that "office is a stepping stone to higher office" was an important factor in their decision to seek their current office. 121 important by most women state legislators. Additional data are needed in order to confirm this observation. In this section, we determined whether candidates running for the same office but with different electoral experience considered the same factors to be important at the start of their decision to run for their current office. In the next section, we examine how experienced officeholders ranked particular factors at two points in their careers: their initial decision to seek public office and their decision to run for the first time for their current office. Importance of Factors Over-time We expected that some factors would remain important to officeholders from one election to another. In contrast, the importance of other factors would wax and wane as political and personal circumstances changed. For change to have occurred, one of two patterns had to emerge. First, the importance of factors could have increased. Change in this direction is referred to as positive and results from officeholders reporting that a factor that was not important in their initial run for office, was important in their first run for their current office. Second, the importance of factors could have decreased. Change in this direction is referred to as negative and results from officeholders reporting that a factor that was important in their initial 122 run for office, was not important in their first race for their current office. The data presented in Table 23 show the direction of change over-time in the importance experienced officeholders attached to each of the seven factors. Five factors experienced a net increase in importance: political circumstances were favorable (+33), felt qualified to hold this office (+13), family circumstances were favorable (+12), office dealt with the issues I care about (+6), and encouraged by others to seek this office (+4). The importance of two other factors experienced either no gain or a net loss: important stepping stone for higher office (0) and good exposure for nonpolitical career (-2). 123 Table 23. Change over-time in the importance experienced officeholders attached to seven factors: comparison between initial run for public office and first race for current office

Negative Positive Difference Change♦ Change^ -/+ *** Factor % % %

Political circumstances were favorable 3 36 + 33 Felt Qualified to hold this office 4 17 + 13 Family Circumstances were favorable 5 17 + 12 Office dealt with issues I care about 11 17 + 6 Encouraged by others to seek this office 12 16 + 4 Important stepping stone for higher office 4 4 0 Good exposure for nonpolitical career 4 2 - 2 Number of cases 516 516 516 ♦Negative change=factor important in initial campaign for public office but not important in first race for current office ♦♦Positive change=factor not important in initial campaign for public office but important in first race for current office ♦♦♦Difference between negative and positive change

Neither level of office nor gender significantly affected the change in importance officeholders attributed to the individual factors. In sum, what do we know about the importance that these factors played in the decisions officeholders made about 124 running for their current office? For the most part, first­ time officeholders and experienced officeholders considered the same factors to be important. The differences found were not strong ones. Experienced state legislators were somewhat more likely than first-time officeholders to note three factors were important to their decision to seek their current office: felt qualified to hold this particular office, office dealt with the issues I care about; and political circumstances were favorable. In this section, we identified the importance various sociological and political factors played in decisions officeholders made about seeking their current office. In the next section, we identify the career moves officeholders made along the way to winning their current office.

CAREER MOVES MADE BY CURRENT OFFICEHOLDERS As noted at the beginning of this chapter, the paths that officeholders follow during their political careers vary considerably. In this section, we identify the electoral and officeholding experiences elected officials engaged in before running for their current office. We examine whether gender affected the experiences officeholders encountered or the pace at which their careers progressed. We begin by describing the career experiences of first-time officeholders. Then we explore the career moves made by experienced officeholders. 125 Career Moves made bv First-time Officeholders First-time officeholders sought their current office in their first campaign for public office. These officeholders have remained in their first office since winning that election. Forty percent of first-time officeholders served for four years or less. About a third served from five-to- eight years in office. Slightly more than a quarter spent nine or more years in the first office to which they were elected. The data show that gender does not significantly affect the number of years first-time state legislators have remained in office. The median number of years first-time state legislators have been in office is 6.7 years for women, and 7.8 years for men. Although the number of first-time women higher officeholders is low (n=12), the data indicate that they have stayed in office for about the same number of years as served by first-time women state legislators. The median number of years served by first-time women higher officeholders in statewide or federal offices is 6.0 years. What is the ambition of first-time officeholders? Have they ever thought about running for other offices? Earlier in the chapter, we speculated that first-time female officeholders might be less likely than their male colleagues to think about running for another office. We also noted that if they did think about making such a move, first-time female officeholders would be more likely than 126 their male colleagues to do so later in their careers. The data do not confirm either of these expectations. Regardless of gender, a majority of officeholders thought about running for other offices. The original relationship remains when we control for the number of years served by first time officeholders. First-time women state legislators in office for four years or less and those in office five years or more were as likely as their male counterparts to have thought about running for other offices. The data also suggest that first-time women higher officeholders were as likely as first-time women state legislators to think about running for other offices. The data presented in Chapter III indicate that female and male candidates had similar experiences when running for office for the first time. The data just presented suggest that the careers of first-time female and male officeholders remained similar once in office. In the next section, we determine if the career moves made by experienced female and male officeholders were similar as well. Career Moves made by Experienced Officeholders Experienced officeholders travelled different paths to reach their current office. The one experience they share is that they ran for office at least one other time before winning election to their current post. The number and types of offices they held along the way are quite varied. In this section we identify the electoral and officeholding 127 experiences officeholders had before winning election to their current office. Officeholders were asked to check all the offices to which they were elected during the course of their career. Analysis of these responses shows that 64% of experienced officeholders currently serving in the lower chamber, and 88% of those currently serving in the upper chamber, ran for and were elected to at least one other office before winning election to their current position. The data presented in Table 24 show that current state legislators in both chambers had similar officeholding experiences. The one exception is that state house members were more likely than state senators to be elected to a city or town council at some point in their career (p<.001, taub=-. 11) .19

19When gender is controlled for, the original relationship between legislative chamber and whether legislators previously held a seat on a city or town council disappears for female state legislators but strengthens somewhat for male state legislators (pc.001, taub=-.20). There is no change in any of the other relationships. 128 Table 24. Offices held previously by experienced officeholders currently serving as state legislators: by chamber

Experienced Officeholders Lower Upper Chamber Chamber Offices held before being elected to current office* %

School Board 20 18 City/town council** 24 14 County office 10 11 Mayor 5 3 State Representative - 55 State Senator 2 - Statewide office 1 0 Federal office 1 0 Number of cases 341 150 *Note: some officeholders held more than one office **p<. 001, taub=-.ll

The data in Table 25 show that experienced female and male state house members also were elected to a similar number of offices before being elected to their current one. Most were elected to one other office before winning election to their state house seat. As for those experienced officeholders now serving in the state senate, the data indicate that female state senators were more likely than their male counterparts to serve in two or more offices before being elected to their current office (p<. 05, tauc=-.15). 129 Table 25. Number of offices previously held by experienced female and male officeholders currently serving at the state legislative level: by chamber

Experienced officeholders currently serving in lower chamber

Female Male Number of offices previously held % % None 38 33 One 49 43 Two or more 13 23 Number of Cases 226 111

Experienced officeholders currently serving in upper chamber

Female Male Number of offices previously held* % % None 8 18 One 61 62 Two or more 31 20 Number of Cases 95 55 * p<. 05, taub=-.15

Further analysis of the data as displayed in Table 26 show that experienced women officeholders were more likely than their male colleagues to follow a career path to the state senate that featured stops along the way to serve in both local office and the state house (pc.05, taub=-.21). Of the experienced officeholders currently serving in the 130 state senate, 18% of the women as compared to 7% of men held both local and legislative offices sometime before reaching their current position.

Table 26. Officeholding experience of current state senators

Experienced officeholders currently serving in state senate Elected to both local and Female Male legislative office before being elected to state senate % %

No 82 91 Yes 18 7 Number of cases 95 55 p<.05, taub=-.21

Of course to get a complete picture of the electoral moves that experienced officeholders made in their careers, we must not only know which offices they ran for and won but also which offices that they ran for and lost. To obtain this information, officeholders were asked to Check all the offices for which you have run but to which you were never elected or for which you have run for more than once before winning election to that office. Regardless of gender, over half of experienced state legislators reported that they ran for and lost at least one 131 election before winning election to their current legislative office. The data in Table 27 show that state house members were more likely than state senators to lose an election on their way to winning their current position (p<.001, taub=.13).

Table 27. Whether or not experienced officeholders had previously run for and lost an election: by chamber

Experienced officeholders Serving in Serving in lower chamber upper chamber Previously run for and lost an election % %

No 42 55 Yes 59 45 Number of cases 341 150 p<. 001, taub=-.13

When gender is controlled for, the original relationship remains for experienced female state legislators but disappears for experienced male state legislators. Male state senators were just as likely as male state house members to experience an election defeat before being elected to their current state legislative post. 132 In regard to the moves made by experienced female higher officeholders, the data reveal that about three- fourths of women higher officeholders were elected to one or more offices prior to winning their current statewide or federal office. Thirty-five percent of experienced female officeholders had prior officeholding experience at the local level. Another 35% had a combination of local and state legislative officeholding experience before being elected to their current post. Only 8% of experienced female higher officeholders had only legislative officeholding experience before winning election to their current statewide or federal office. As was the case for experienced female state legislators, over half of the experienced female higher officeholders ran for and lost an election sometime in their career. In the next section, we discuss how long it took experienced officeholders to make the electoral moves that eventually led them to their current office. We also examine whether gender had an effect on the pace at which officeholders' careers progressed.

CAREER PACE OF EXPERIENCED OFFICEHOLDERS Anecdotal evidence and previous research (Wahlke 1962:69; Rule 1981; Fowler and McClure 1989:224-226; Schlesinger 1991:39) suggested that the pace at which candidates moved from one electoral experience to another was affected by a wide-range of personal and political 133 factors. In the following sections, we determine to what extent gender, age of children, candidate age, election outcome and level of office sought affected the pace at which experienced officeholders moved from their first election to public office to their first run for their current office. Gender and Career Pace Given that female and male officeholders had similar experiences and resources at the start of their electoral careers, we do not expect to find that gender affected the length of time it took experienced candidates to reach their current office. The data confirm this expectation. About 40% of experienced female and male officeholders reached their current state legislative office within four years of seeking public office for the first time. Another quarter were elected to their current post within five-to-eight years of their entry into electoral politics. For the remaining third, nine or more years passed between their initial run for public office and their election to their current office. It is conceivable that gender affected the career pace followed by officeholders who had young children when they made their first bid for office. The responsibilities associated with caring for young children may slow down the pace at which female officeholders - but not male officeholders - made electoral career moves. The data do 134 not confirm this expectation. The original relationship between gender and career pace remains when we take this factor into consideration. In the next section, we explore the direct effect that children had on career pace. Age of Children and Career Pace The responsibilities associated with caring for children may slow the pace at which candidates proceed in their career. We reason that the more direct parental involvement that officeholders provide for their children, the less time officeholders have to concentrate on their electoral careers. Consequently, experienced officeholders with school age or younger children proceed in their careers at a slower pace than their colleagues with adult children or with no children. The data in Table 28 confirm our expectation. The relationship is in the expected direction. The career pace of officeholders who started their careers while still caring for children under eighteen was slower than the career pace of officeholders who started their careers without children that age (p<.001, tauc=-.20).20

20We did not use a subdivided "children 18 or younger" category because the career pace of officeholders with children 5 years old or younger was nearly identical to the career pace of officeholders with children 12-18 years old. 135 Table 28. Relationship between age of experienced officeholders' children during first run and career pace

Age of experienced officeholders' children during first run for office Years between first Children 18 years No children 18 run for public office old or younger years or younger and first run for ______current office % %

Four years or less 33 51 Five-to-eight years 27 23 Nine years or more 40 25 Number of cases 249 201 pc.001, tauc=-.20

When we control for gender, the original relationship remains. Candidate Age and Career Pace We expect the age at which candidates' first ran for public office affected how quickly they make subsequent electoral moves in their careers. We anticipate that the older that experienced officeholders were when they started their careers, the more likely they were to reach their current office early in their electoral careers. This expectation is based on three assumptions about politicians who start their officeholding careers at an older age: they have access to more resources (money, professional and community contacts, party connections) than their younger 136 counterparts; they are more focused on their political careers than their younger counterparts who are likely to have greater childcare responsibilities and less financial stability; they have more incentive to move quickly than their younger counterparts because they worry about having enough time to reach their ultimate electoral goals. The data in Table 29 confirm our expectation that the age at which officeholders started their electoral careers significantly affected (p<.01, taub=-.ll) how quickly they reached their current office. The relationship is in the expected direction. A majority of candidates who started their careers when they were older than fifty reached their current office within four years of seeking public office for the first time. In contrast, 46% of officeholders in the 41-50 age group and 37% of those in the 40 or younger age group reached their current office within four years of beginning their careers. 137 Table 29. Years between first run for public office and first run for current office: by experienced candidates' age at first run for public office

Experienced candidates1 age at first run for public office Years between first run for public office 40 years old 41 - 50 51 years and first run for or younger years old old or older current office %% %

Four years or less 37 46 53 Five-to-eight years 25 25 28 Nine years or more 38 31 20 Number of cases 264 146 51 p<.001, taub=-.ll

When we control for gender, the original relationship remains for male officeholders (pc.OOl, taub=-.19) but disappears for women officeholders. Regardless of the age at which they started their electoral careers, women officeholders progressed in their careers at the same pace. Next, we examine whether the election outcome of a first campaign affected the pace at which officeholders made subsequent career moves. We determine whether the results of a first election had the same impact on the pace at which female and male officeholders moved towards their current office. 138 Outcome of First Election and Career Pace In regard to election outcome, we anticipate that those who won their first election were more likely to move up the officeholding ladder at a quicker pace than those who lost their first contest. We base this expectation on the assumption that winning a first election provides officeholders with more support and resources in subsequent elections than are available to those who lose their first election. As a result, officeholders who won their first election were in a stronger position to advance at a quicker pace in their electoral careers than those who lose a first campaign for office. The data confirm that there is a relationship between the outcome of a candidate's first campaign and career pace. The relationship is not in the expected direction. The data in Table 3 0 show that officeholders who lost their first election were more likely to reach their current office sooner than officeholders who won their first election (pc.001, tauc=.32).21

21When gender is controlled for, the original relationship remains. 139 Table 30. Years between first campaign for public office and first campaign for current office

Experienced Officeholders Lost first Won first election for election for Number of years between public office public first first campaign for public office and first campaign for current office % %

Four years or less 60 29 Five-to-nine years 20 29 Nine years or more 21 43 Number of cases 184 289 p<.001, tauc=.32

Intuitively, this relationship does not make sense. Why would losing their first campaign enable officeholders to progress towards their current office at a faster pace? Further analysis of the data suggests that the answer to this question is related to the nature of the first loss. About three-fourths of experienced officeholders who reached their current state legislative post within four years of losing their first campaign for office, unsuccessfully ran for the state legislature in that first campaign. Instead of running for other offices after losing that first campaign, it appears as if most of these officeholders waited for the next election cycle in order to run again for the state legislature. 140 Conversely, those who won their first campaign were likely to stay in their first office for a number of years. About 70% of officeholders who won their first election report that they served two terms or more in their first office before leaving.22 As a result of staying in their first office for a period of time, several election cycles passed before many of these officeholders decided to seek their current state legislative seat. These findings help explain why those who won their first election took a longer time to reach their current office than those who lost their first election bid. Current Office and Career Pace After starting a career in electoral politics, we expect that it takes officeholders more time to reach some offices than it does others. Elections for seats in the upper chamber of state legislatures tend to be more competitive than elections for seats in the lower chamber. In most state legislatures, the upper chamber has fewer seats than the lower chamber. In addition, the term of office in the upper chamber is generally longer than the term of office in the lower chamber. Fewer seats and longer terms combine to produce less opportunity and more

22More than three-fourths of officeholders report that they left their first office to run for another office. The others left for a variety of reasons: 10% were defeated for reelection; 6% accepted a political appointment; 4% retired for family reasons; and 3% retired to pursue nonpolitical careers. 141 competition for seats in the upper chamber. As a result, we expect that it takes officeholders more time to reach office in the upper chamber than it does to reach office in the lower chamber of the state legislature. The data presented in Table 31 confirm our expectation. The chamber in which experienced state legislators currently serve significantly affected (pc.001, tauc=.13) the number of years it took them to reach their current office. The relationship is in the expected direction. Those serving in the upper chamber were more likely than those serving in the lower chamber to require additional years to reach their current office. When gender is controlled for, the original relationship is unchanged.

Table 31. Number of years between experienced officeholders first run for public office and their first run for current state legislative office: by chamber

Experienced Officeholders Lower chamber Upper chamber Number of years between elections %%

Four years or less 45 31 Five-to-eight years 24 27 Nine years or more 31 42 Number of cases 329 144

p < .001, tauc=.13 142 In regard to experienced female higher officeholders, we expect their career pace to be similar to the career pace followed by women serving in the upper chamber of their state legislature. Women who want to run for statewide or federal office face many of the same concerns faced by those who want to run for the state senate: fewer opportunities to run and more competition when they do. Although the number of cases is small (n=3 6), the data support our expectation. The career pace of experienced women higher officeholders was quite similar to the career pace of experienced women state senators. Over 4 0% of both groups took nine or more years after they ran for public office for the first time to reach their current office. We have identified the pace at which officeholders made the electoral moves that led them to their current office. Now we turn our attention to discussing the level of party support officeholders received in their first campaign for this office.

PARTY SUPPORT The level of party support officeholders received over the course of their careers may have varied as political circumstances changed from one election to another. Data presented in Chapter III show that a majority of officeholders were either recruited or supported by their party in their first race for public office. The data also show that gender did not significantly affect the level of 143 party support officeholders received at the start of their careers. Regardless of the level of office sought, a substantial majority of female and male candidates were either recruited or supported by their party in their first race for public office. These findings challenge arguments that political parties are more likely to recruit and support male candidates rather than female candidates to run for public office. If experienced female and male officeholders received similar levels of support at the start of their careers, the point at which their viability as candidates was often in question, then we expect they received similar levels of support when they first ran for their current office. Nothing in the literature suggested that officeholders lose party support over the course of their careers. The opposite is more likely to be argued. Officeholders who experience party neutrality or opposition in their first bid for public office and still run credible campaigns are often supported by their party in subsequent elections. Our data support these observations. When we compared the level of party support officeholders received in their first race for public office with the support they received in their first race for their current office, the expected patterns emerge. Officeholders were not likely to lose party support over the course of their careers. Ninety-five percent of experienced female officeholders and 87% of 144 experienced male officeholders who were either recruited or supported in their first race for office, were either recruited or supported in their first race for their current office. The data also confirm that officeholders who were not supported by their party in their first race often earned their party's support in subsequent elections. Forty-two percent of officeholders who received neutral or divided support from their party at the start of theircareers were recruited or supported by their party in the later election. Unexpectedly, we find that gender significantly affected (p<.001, taub=.20) whether officeholders who were not supported by their party at the start of theircareers received party support in their first race for their current office. The data in Table 32 show that experienced female officeholders who did not receive party support in their first race were almost twice as likely as their male counterparts to receive party support in the later election. 145 Table 32. Experienced officeholders not supported by their party at start of their careers: party support received in first race for current office

Experienced officeholders not supported by their party at start of their careers Female Male Level of party support received in first race ______for current office % % Supported* 48 26 Not Supported** 52 77 Number of cases 135 57 pc.001, taub=.20 * supported=officeholders were either recruited or supported ** not supported=officeholders received either neutral treatment or. some type of opposition

This finding suggests that more female officeholders than male officeholders can turn their party's opposition around by running credible first campaigns. Women officeholders' and their supporters' efforts to encourage political parties to recruit more women candidates may have created a favorable climate for women candidates to get a second look from party leaders. Given these findings, we expect that female officeholders and male officeholders continue to receive similar levels of party support as their careers progress. There are indications that female officeholders actually may receive more support than male officeholders in subsequent 146 races. To confirm these expectations we asked officeholders to recall the type of party support they received in their first race for their current office. Analysis of their responses show that gender significantly affected the level of party support experienced candidates received when they first ran for their current office (p<.001, tauc=.14). The relationship is in the expected direction. Although a substantial majority of both experienced female and male officeholders were either recruited or supported by their party to run, the data in Table 33 indicate that experienced female officeholders were more likely than their male colleagues to receive such support.

Table 33. Level of party support received by experienced candidates in their first run for their current office: by gender

Experienced Officeholders Level of party support Female Male received in first race for current office % % Recruited 27 17 Supported 45 43 Neutral 11 15 Divided 17 25 Number of cases 318 159

p < .001, tauc=.14 147 Controlling for a variety of factors produces mixed results. Yet, each relationship shows that experienced female officeholders were either as likely, or in several instances more likely, than their male colleagues to be recruited or supported to run for their current office. When we control for the current office sought, we find that experienced female officeholders who ran for seats in the lower chamber of their state legislature were more likely to receive party support than their male counterparts (pc.001, tauc=.15). Sixty-nine percent of experienced female state house members, as compared to 53% of experienced male state house members, were either recruited or supported by their party. The data indicate a similar pattern in regard to the level of party support received by experienced officeholders who ran for a seat in the upper chamber of their state legislature but the relationship does not reach significance at .05.23 Eighty-percent of experienced female state senators, as compared to 72% of experienced male state senators, were either recruited or supported by their party in their first bid for this office. In regard to the time period in which experienced officeholders first sought their current office, gender significantly affected the level of party support received by officeholders who ran in elections held in 198 0 or after. Female officeholders who ran during this time period were

23p<.10, tauc=.14 148 more likely than their male colleagues to be recruited or supported by their party (pc.001, tauc=.18). Seventy-four percent of experienced female officeholders, as compared to 57% of experienced male officeholders, who ran in the 1980s or later were either recruited or supported by their party. Gender did not significantly affect the level of party support received by experienced officeholders who ran in races held before 1980. Fifty-seven percent of experienced female officeholders, as compared to 66% percent of experienced male officeholders, who ran for their current office during this time period were either recruited or supported by their party to run.24 The results also are mixed when we control for the type of legislature to which officeholders sought election. Experienced female officeholders who ran for seats in part- time legislatures (pc.001, tauc=.22) and those who ran for seats in mixed legislatures (pc.05, tauc=.14) were more likely than their male colleagues to be recruited or supported by their party. Of those who ran for offices in part-time legislatures, 87% of the women, as compared to 70% of the men, were either recruited or supported to run for these offices. Of those who ran for seats in mixed

24Although based on a small number of cases (n=85), this finding supports arguments that women had a harder time winning party support before 1980 than they did after 1980. Yet, the finding does not indicate that female candidates in the earlier time period had a harder time than their male counterparts did in winning party support. 149 legislatures, 69% of the women and 56% of the men received some type of party support. Gender did not significantly affect the level of party support received by experienced officeholders who ran for seats in full-time legislatures. Fifty-six percent of experienced female officeholders and 54% of experienced male officeholders who ran for seats in these legislatures were either recruited or supported by their party in their first race for their current office. These findings support arguments that the more professional the legislature, the less likely women are to be recruited by their party to run for office. Yet, they do not support arguments that parties are more likely to recruit or support men rather than women to run for these types of seats. Instead, the data suggest that races for seats in more professional legislatures may feature stiffer intra-party competition and, as a result, parties tend to assume a more hands-off role when it comes to recruiting or supporting any candidate for these offices. Finally, when we control for party affiliation we find that gender significantly affected (p<.02, tauc=.16) the level of party support received by Democratic officeholders. Sixty-nine percent of Democratic women, as compared to 57% of Democratic men were either recruited or supported by their party in their first race for their current office. In addition, nearly twice as many Democratic men (30%), as 150 Democratic women (17%), faced some type of party opposition when they ran for their current seat. As for Republican officeholders, the data indicate that more women (76%) than men (62%) were either recruited or supported by their party to run for their current office but the difference is not significant at .05.25 In contrast to their Democratic colleagues, female and male Republican officeholders were equally as likely, 17% and 21% respectively, to face some degree of party opposition in this particular race. Despite the fact that none of the relationships are strong, they remain important because they offer further confirmation that female officeholders are just as likely, or in some cases even more likely, than their male colleagues to receive party support when they run for office. Given these findings, what might account for the widespread belief among women officeholders and their supporters that women candidates are treated unfairly by their party? As indicated, there is some evidence that party support for women candidates has increased over the past 20 years. Yet, the data still show that even before 1980 female and male candidates received almost equal treatment. What the data cannot demonstrate about either time period is the degree of effort women and men exerted to win the party's backing. If enough women officeholders'

25p<.10, tauc=.13 151 worked harder or longer - or perceived that they did - in order to win similar levels of party support as men, then it is understandable why assessments about the treatment women candidates received may be negatively skewed despite the finding that parties ultimately recruited or supported a majority of women candidates to run. In addition to party support, money is another vital ingredient in any campaign. In the next section, we discuss whether female and male officeholders raised similar amounts of money in their first campaign for their current office. We also identify the impact that serving in different types of state legislatures and at different levels of office had on the amount of money officeholders raised.

MONEY RAISED FOR CURRENT OFFICE Findings presented in Chapter III challenge arguments that women candidates raise less money at the start of their careers than male candidates. The data show that female officeholders who ran for local office or for state representative in their first campaign for public office raised as much money as their male counterparts. Female officeholders who started their careers by running for the state senate or higher office, raised more money than their male counterparts. These findings apply to officeholders regardless of whether they ran for the first time in races held before the 1980s or in those races held after. 152 These findings suggest that female and male officeholders at the start of their careers establish fundraising bases that are quite similar. As a result, we expect that experienced officeholders raised similar amounts of money when they first ran for their current office. The data presented in Table 34 confirm this expectation. Gender had no effect on the amount of money officeholders raised in their first bid for their current office. Nearly half of experienced officeholders raised $10,000 or less to win the state legislative seat they now hold. The remaining officeholders were nearly evenly split between those who raised $10,001 to $25,000 and those who raised over $25,000 for this particular election.

Table 34. Amount of money raised by experienced officeholders in their first race for current office: by gender

Experienced Officeholders Female Male Amount of money raised ______in first race for current % % office

$10,000 or less 46 48 $10,001 - $25,000 27 31 Over $25,000 28 21 Number of cases 308 157 153 The original relationship between gender and the amount of money raised remains regardless of whether officeholders ran for a seat in the upper or lower chamber of their state legislature. The relationship also is unchanged when we control for the type of legislature to which officeholders sought election. In addition, the original relationship holds regardless of the time period in which officeholders first sought election to their current office. We expect to find that the level of office sought and legislative status were two factors that directly affected the amount of money experienced officeholders raised when they first ran for their current seat. We base these expectations on the assumption that the more prestigious and professional the office, the more competition there usually is to run for that office. Increased competition generally translates into increased spending which means officeholders raised more money to run for these offices. As a result of these assumptions, we expect to find that the higher or more professional the office being sought, the more money officeholders raised. In most state legislatures, the upper chamber generally has fewer seats and their members serve for longer terms. As a result, a seat in the upper chamber is considered to be a more powerful position than a seat in the lower chamber. Consequently, we expect that those who ran for a seat in the upper chamber of their state legislature were more likely to 154 raise higher amounts of money than those who ran for a seat in the lower chamber. In regard to experienced female officeholders, we also expect to find that those who ran for statewide or federal office were more likely to raise higher amounts of money than those who ran for state legislative office. In regard to legislative status, election to full-time legislatures means that officeholders generally spend more time on legislative business, receive higher salaries, and have more support services than their colleagues in mixed or part-time legislatures. As a result, officeholders face more competition and higher costs when running for seats in full-time legislatures than when running for seats in mixed or part-time legislatures. Consequently, we expect that officeholders who ran for seats in full-time legislatures were more likely to raise higher amounts of money than those who ran for seats in mixed or part-time legislatures. The data confirm these expectations. In regard to level of office sought, the data displayed in Table 35 show that officeholders who ran for an upper chamber seat were more likely to raise higher amounts of money than those who ran for a lower chamber seat (p<.001, tauc=.24). Of those who ran for a seat in the upper chamber, 44% raised more than $25,000 for that campaign. In contrast, only 17% of officeholders who ran for a seat in the lower chamber raised that much money for their race. 155 Table 35. Amount of money state legislators raised in first race for current office: by chamber

State Legislators Amount of money Lower chamber Upper chamber raised in first race for current office %%

$10,000 or less 54 30 $10,001 - $25,000 29 26 Over $25,000 17 44 Number of cases 664 200 pc.001, tauc=.24

When gender is controlled for, the original relationship is unchanged. For women officeholders, the data also show that those who ran for statewide or federal office were more likely to raise higher amounts than their counterparts who ran for seats in the state legislature. Eight-three percent of women officeholders currently serving in statewide or federal offices raised over $25,000 to win election to those offices. As mentioned previously, 44% of women currently serving in the upper chamber of their state legislatures and 17% of those serving in the lower chamber raised that amount in their first campaigns for their current offices. The data presented in Table 3 6 show that legislative status also significantly affected (pc.001, taub=.38) the amount of money officeholders raised in their first campaign 156 for their current office. The relationship is in the expected direction. The more professional the legislature, the more money members raised in their first campaign for their current seat. Eighty-two percent of officeholders from full-time legislatures raised over $10,000 for their first election to that body. In contrast, 61% of officeholders in mixed legislatures and 21% of officeholders in part-time legislatures raised that amount in their first election.

Table 36. Amount of money officeholders raised in first race for current office: by legislative status

Current State Legislators Serving in Serving in Serving in part-time mixed full-time legislatures legislatures legislatures Amount of money in first race for current office % % %

$10,000 or less 79 39 18 $10,001 - $25,000 12 34 44 Over $25,000 9 27 38 Number of cases 285 423 153 p<.001, taufa=.38

When gender is controlled for, the original relationship remains unchanged. 157 In sum, these findings show that at the state legislative level female and male officeholders raised similar amounts of money. For both, the type of offices they sought affected the amount of money they raised. Officeholders serving in the upper chamber of their state legislature or those serving in more professional legislatures were likely to raise more money for their first campaigns than colleagues not serving in these bodies. Women officeholders serving in statewide or federal office were more likely to raise more money for their campaigns than their counterparts in state legislative office. So far, we know that female and male officeholders received similar levels of party support and raised comparable amounts of money in their first race for their current office. We also know that gender did not significantly affect the pace at which officeholders progressed in their careers; nor did gender affect the electoral and officeholding experiences they had prior to winning election to their current office. Given the similarities in their careers to this point, we expect female and male officeholders are likely to pursue similar career options in the future. However, there is the possibility that a difference in the ages at which female and male officeholders reached their current office may mean that women, as compared to men, had less time remaining in their careers to pursue multiple career options. To confirm 158 this possibility, we conclude the chapter by determining whether the age at which female and male officeholders reached their current office afforded them enough additional time in public office to move into positions of influence in their current office or to run for higher office.

EFFECT OF AGE ON POLITICAL INFLUENCE In the previous chapter, the data show that regardless of family group, women were slightly older than their male counterparts when they first sought office. This finding corresponds with previous studies about the characteristics of women candidates (Carroll and Strimling 1983:14). The fact that women started their political careers at a later age than men is significant if it means that women are more likely to have less time to spend in elected office than men. The more time officeholders spend in office, the more likely they are to increase their influence in the elected body in which they serve or to build support to run for higher office (Schlesinger 1991:76-77). Of course spending a number of years in office does not guarantee that officeholders will gain influence or decide to run for higher office. Most will not. The majority of officeholders will chose not to pursue such goals and many of those who do attempt to do so will not be successful. As a result, what is important to female officeholders' efforts to expand their political influence is not only being elected at ages that allow them time to move up but also 159 having a large enough pool of women officeholders willing to pursue expanded political power. Since state legislative positions are politically influential in themselves and stepping stones to higher office, the age at which individuals reached this level of officeholding may have influenced the additional career options they had time to pursue (Fowler and McClure 1989:74- 75; Kurtz 1989:45-49; Schlesinger 1991:95-96). The age at which officeholders reach the state legislature may determine whether they remain in office long enough to reach positions of influence in those offices. It may also influence their ability and desire to build a political base from which to seek higher office. The findings that most women start their political careers at an older age than men and progress at a similar pace suggests that women reach the state legislative stage of their careers at an older age than men. Yet, this finding alone does not necessarily mean most women officeholders reached this level of officeholding too late in their lives to remain in office long enough to gain influence. We expect the data to reveal that most female and male officeholders reached the state legislative stage of their careers at an age that allowed them enough additional time in public office to pursue leadership positions or to run for higher office. If this is the case, then the age at which women started their careers becomes 160 less relevant to career choices. On the other hand, if the data show that women reached this stage of their political careers at an age that significantly lowers the number of opportunities they have to advance into positions of influence, then the age gap at which women and men started their electoral careers remains a critical factor. To examine the relationship between age and career advancement, we determined the median age at which both women and men were first elected to their current state legislative office. Added to that median age is the minimum number of years it generally takes to reach a level of influence within a particular chamber or to build a base from which to run for higher office. The number that results from that calculation is the minimum median age at which officeholders are positioned to exert political influence by serving on key committees or as members of the leadership. This is also the age at which officeholders are in a position to consider running for higher office. We refer to this calculated age as the median age of influence. Median Age of Influence The data show that the median age at which candidates were elected to the state house was 45 years old for women and 4 3 years old for men. In most state legislatures, officeholders generally serve a minimum of two terms (or four years) in the lower chamber before they are appointed to influential committees, win leadership positions, or 161 decide to seek higher office. Adding this four years to the median age at which officeholders won election to the state house results in a median age of influence of 49 for women and 47 for men. In regard to those serving in the upper chamber of their state legislatures, the median age at which officeholders were first elected is 47 years old for women and 41 years old for men. Officeholders at this level generally serve a minimum of one term before they are appointed to influential committees, win leadership positions, or decide to seek higher office. Adding four years to the median age at which officeholders won election to the state senate results in a median age of influence of 51 for women and 45 for men. It is difficult to interpret the impact of women's and men's median age difference on their future career decisions. Consequently, we combined the ages at which officeholders were first elected to the state legislature into three age groups: 45 and younger, 46-to-55 years-old, and 56 years old and older. Examining the distribution of cases across these age-range groups provides us with a clearer picture of whether the age at which female and male officeholders are elected to the state legislature allows them enough time, at least theoretically, to pursue multiple career options. The data in Table 37 show gender did not significantly affect the age range at which officeholders were first elected to the state house. Regardless of gender, a majority of officeholders were first elected to the state house when they were 45 years old or younger. Officeholders who are first elected in this age-range will be 49 years old or younger when they reach their age of influence in the state house. They can conceivably spend another 2 0 years in public office which is more than enough time to pursue multiple career options including running for higher office.

Table 37. Age range at which officeholders were first elected to the state house

Current State House Members Age range at which officeholders Female Male were first elected to current state house seat % %

45 or younger 51 55 46-to-55 years old 31 23 56 or older 18 22 Number of cases 458 204

Thirty-one percent of women, and 2 3% of men, won election to the state house when they were between the ages of 4 6 and 55 years old. These officeholders reach the age of influence somewhere between the ages of 50 and 55 years old and have a realistic chance of spending another ten to 163 fifteen years in elected office. Again, that is more than enough time for officeholders to expand their influence in their current position and to run for a higher office if they so choose. Eighteen percent of women and 22% of men were first elected to the state house at the age of 56 or older. Members in this group are aged 60 or older when they reach their age of influence in the state house. Officeholders in this group could easily spend ten additional years in elected office, enough time for them to build influence in their current position. As for running for higher office, most in this group have enough time, if they have enough interest, to run for and serve in one other office. Few would have enough time to seek offices that require multiple electoral moves in order to reach them. These findings suggest that the four years difference between the median ages at which female and male officeholders were first elected to the state house did not restrict the potential women had to pursue multiple opportunities. Despite being older than their male colleagues, most women officeholders in the state house had enough time to increase their influence in their current position or to build political support to run for higher office. The pattern is somewhat similar for members of the state senate. 164 Age Range of Members of the State Senate The data in Table 38 show that gender significantly affected (p<.05, tauc=-.12) the age at which officeholders won their first election to the state senate. Male officeholders were likely to be younger when they first reached the state senate than their female colleagues. Forty-two percent of men and 58% of women were elected to the state senate when they were aged 45 or younger. Officeholders in this group will be 49 years old or younger when they reached the age of influence in the state senate. These officeholders could conceivably spend another 20 years in public office.

Table 38. Age range at which officeholders were first elected to the state senate

Current State Senators Age range at which officeholders Female Male were first elected to current state senate seat % %

45 or younger 42 58 46—to-55 years old 36 22 56 or older 22 21 Number of cases 130 73

one-tailed significance test: p<.05, tauc=-.12 165 Thirty-six percent of women and 22% of men won election to the state senate between the ages of 46 and 55 years old. These officeholders will reach the age of influence somewhere between the ages of 50 and 55 years old and could realistically spend another ten years in public office. They have time enough to increase their influence in their current position and to run for a higher office. About a fifth of female and male officeholders were first elected to the state senate at the age of 56 or older. Officeholders in this group will reach their age of influence in the state senate at age 60 or older. As with their counterparts in the state house, most have time, if they are so motivated, to run for and serve in another office. Few have enough time to seek offices that require multiple electoral moves in order to reach them. Given these findings, the six year difference between the median ages at which female and male officeholders were first elected to the state senate does not significantly affect women's overall career opportunities. The data show that nearly 80% of all officeholders have sufficient time after they reach the state senate to expand their influence if they choose to do so and if opportunities present themselves. Despite finding that female and male state legislators reached their current office at comparable ages does not mean that they have similar opportunities to pursue 166 leadership positions or run for higher office. The fact that there are five times as many male state legislators as there are female state legislators means that the pool of female officeholders willing to pursue expanded political power will still be much smaller than the pool of male officeholders with such aspirations. SUMMARY The factors that led female and male officeholders to seek their current legislative office and the path they followed to reach that office were quite similar. First­ time officeholders won election to their current office in their first race for public office. The median number of years that they have remained in those offices is 6.7 years for women and 7.8 years for men. Regardless of gender, a majority of first time officeholders have thought about running for other offices. Experienced female and male officeholders travelled nearly identical career paths on their way to election to their current office. All ran for other offices prior to winning their current office. A substantial majority were elected to at least one other office before reaching their current one. Experienced female state senators were more likely than their male colleagues to have served in local office and in the state house before winning election to the state senate. Besides running and being elected to other offices, over half of experienced officeholders had lost an 167 election sometime prior to running for their current office. Gender had no effect on the career pace at which officeholders progressed. Nearly two-thirds of experienced officeholders reached their current state legislative posts within eight years of running for office for the first time. Having children under the age of eighteen at the time officeholders started their career did slow the pace at which both female and male officeholders moved. A substantial majority of both female and male officeholders reached their current state legislative offices at ages that theoretically afforded enough additional time in office to pursue multiple career options. They also reached the state legislative phase of their careers with comparable levels of party and financial support. In several instances women actually received more party support or raised more money than their male colleagues. Findings presented in both this chapter and the previous one clearly challenge arguments from pre-1980 studies (Kirkpatrick 1974, Diamond 1977) that there were significant differences in the electoral careers of female and male officeholders. Instead, the data support findings from post-1980 studies (Carroll and Strimling 1983; Darcy, Clark and Welch 1987) which show that the careers of female and male officeholders at the local and state legislative level are quite similar. These latter studies, along with 168 ours, suggest that if gender significantly affects political careers, it does so after officeholders reach the state legislative level. One reason that this may be the case is that most officeholders consider a move from local office to the state legislature as more incremental and manageable than a move from the state legislature to higher office would be. Running at the statewide or federal level higher office requires officeholders to raise substantially more money and to commit more time than running for office at lower levels necessitates. In addition, candidates for higher office are likely to face tough competition in both the primary and general elections. The demands associated with running for and serving at the statewide and federal level discourage many officeholders - regardless of gender - from attempting to run. To run for higher office requires that officeholders not only have the ambition to do so but also the willingness to remain in public office for an extended period time. Most officeholders who run for statewide or federal office do so after serving in public office long enough to build a solid base of political and financial support. With such a base they are positioned to run for higher office if the opportunity to do so presents itself. It is to the topic of ambition and career planning that we now turn our attention. In the next chapter, we identify 169 the moves that officeholders are planning for their next election and those they are contemplating making later in their careers. We examine to what extent gender affects the direction that officeholders careers are moving. CHAPTER V FUTURE CAREER PLANS

Officeholders are periodically faced with deciding what career move to make next. As each regular election cycle approaches or as political opportunities present themselves, officeholders must decide whether to seek reelection, run for higher office, or retire from electoral politics. In this chapter, we examine the personal and political factors affecting officeholders' short-term and long-term career decisions. In addition, we identify the higher offices state legislators thought about running for and whether they thought it was likely that they will hold these offices during their political careers. CAREER PLANS REGARDING NEXT ELECTION Regardless of gender, over 80% of officeholders planned to seek reelection in their next election. Of those not planning to seek reelection, 6% decided to run for higher office, 5% expected to retire from elective office, and 7% remained undecided about what career move to make next. Not all officeholders were up for reelection in the same election cycle. As a result, we thought it was likely that those who faced later election dates would be more

170 171 likely to be undecided about what move to make next than those who faced earlier ones. We reasoned that most elected officials would wait as long as possible before deciding their next move so that they could adequately evaluate the personal and political circumstances relevant to such a decision. The data presented in Table 39 confirm our expectation. The next election cycle in which officeholders expected to run significantly affected (p<.001, taub=.24) whether they had reached a decision about their next move. Regardless of gender, state legislators who expected to run in the 1992-94 election cycle were more likely to be undecided about their plans than those who expected to run in the 1990-91 election cycle.

Table 39. Plans for next election: by election cycle

State Legislators Expect to run Expect to run next in 1990-91 next in 1992-94 Plans for next election

Decided 96 77 Undecided 4 24 Number of Cases 789 98

p < .001, taub=.24 172 Age was another factor that we expected would significantly affect the career move officeholders were planning to make. We thought that as officeholders aged they would be more likely to think about retiring and less likely to think about running for higher office. To test this notion we grouped female and male officeholders into two age groups: 55 and younger and 56 and older. The data confirmed our expectations. Age significantly affected (p<.02, tauc=.05) officeholders' plans for their next election. Although nearly 90% of state legislators in both age groups planned to seek reelection, 8% of those older than 56 as compared to 4% of their younger colleagues planned to retire from office. The reverse was the case in regard to running for higher office: 7% of officeholders younger than 56 planned to seek higher office, while 4% of those aged 56 or older had such plans. We now turn our attention to identifying the political and personal factors that affected officeholders' decisions about their next career move. Officeholders were asked choose from a list of political and personal factors the ones that most influenced their decision. In the next several sections, we discuss the factors that affected officeholders' plans to seek reelection, run for higher office, retire from electoral politics, or keep their options open about what career move to make next. 173 Factors Affecting Decision to Seek Reelection Female and male officeholders were in agreement about the importance that eight out of ten factors played in their decision to seek reelection. Over 80% noted that feeling competent in their current office influenced their decision to stay in that office. More than half of all officeholders identified three other factors as important: office deals with the policy issues that I care about, serving in current office is satisfying, and encouragement by others to stay in current office. Fourteen percent noted that they were running for reelection because running for higher office was not possible at this time. The reelection decisions of less than 10% of officeholders were influenced by three other factors: planning to retire from electoral politics after serving one more term in current office, cannot win election to another office at this time, and good exposure for my non-political career plans. The data in Table 40 show that gender significantly affected the importance officeholders seeking reelection attributed to two factors: political circumstances (p<.01, taub=.10) and family circumstances (p<.001, taub=.17). Female state legislators were more likely than their male colleagues to consider each of these factors as important. 174 Table 40. Factors important in decision to seek reelection: by gender

State Legislators Female Male Factors important in ______decision to seek reelection % % Political circumstances favor my running for reelection* Important 51 40 Not Important 49 60 Number of cases 505 233 Family circumstances favor my running for reelection** Important 38 22 Not Important 62 78 Number of cases 505 233 * p<. 01, taub=.l0 ** p<.001, taub=.17

In addition to gender, other variables that affected the importance officeholders attributed to several of the factors were age, electoral experience and legislative chamber. Regarding age, the data showed that the younger state legislators were, the more likely they were to report their decision to seek reelection was influenced by concerns about their nonpolitical careers (p<.001, taub=-.18) and because there were no opportunities to run for higher office (pc.01, taub=-.-18). The older state legislators were, the more likely they were to note that their plans to retire after serving for one more term influenced their decision to 175 seek reelection (pc.Ol, taub=.20). These relationships held regardless of gender. Gender did affect the relationship between age and two other factors: family circumstances and satisfaction with current office. The older women state legislators were the more likely they were to state family circumstances (p<.01, taub=.15) and satisfaction with current office (p<.05, taub.08) influenced their decision to seek reelection. Age had no effect on the importance male officeholders attached to these two factors. Gender also affected the relationship between electoral experience and three factors. For female state legislators, electoral experience significantly affected the importance they attributed to three of the ten factors: feel competent in current office (p<.05, taub=.10), political circumstances favor my running for reelection (pc.Ol, taub=.13), and serving in current office is satisfying (pc.05, taub=.12). Experienced women officeholders were more likely than first­ time women officeholders to rate each of these factors as important. Electoral experience had no significant effect on the factors that male officeholders thought were important. The data also revealed that the legislative chamber in which officeholders served affected how important their retirement plans were on their decision to seek reelection. Regardless of gender, members of the upper chamber were more 176 likely than those in the lower chamber to report plans to retire after serving for one more term influenced their decisions to seek reelection. This relationship was stronger for male state legislators (pc.Ol, taub=.24) than it was for women state legislators (pc.05, taub=.12). Factors Affecting Decisions to Seek Higher Office Six percent of officeholders planned to seek higher office in their next election. Regardless of gender, about 90% of officeholders reported that feeling qualified to hold higher office influenced their decision to run for higher office. A substantial majority of officeholders identified three other factors as important: encouraged by others to seek higher office, political circumstances favor running for higher office, and office deals with the policy issues that I care about. The ordering of these three factors was different for female officeholders than it was for male officeholders. Women were more likely than men to consider encouragement by others as important. Men were more likely than women to consider political circumstances and policy issues as important in their decisions to seek higher office. Less than a third of officeholders considered three other factors as important: family circumstances favor running for higher office, serving in current office is no longer satisfying, and office important stepping stone for even higher office. Female legislators were nearly twice as 177 likely as their male colleagues to report that family circumstances were important. Regardless of gender, only a handful of legislators reported that exposure for their non-political career plans influenced their decision to seek higher office. None of the officeholders reported that their decision to seek higher office was affected by their assessment that they could not win reelection. Factors Affecting Decision to Retire from Office Only five percent of officeholders planned to retire from political office. With such low numbers, no one factor was listed by a majority of potential retirees as important. About 40% of all state legislators did report that three factors were important: want to pursue non-political career, family circumstances favor my retirement from office, and serving in elected office no longer satisfying. Factors Affecting Being Undecided about Next Election At the time the questionnaire was administered, 7% of officeholders were still undecided about their next career move. Only one factor was mentioned by a majority of officeholders as important. Regardless of gender, 60% of officeholders reported that family circumstances influenced their being undecided about their next career move. Gender significantly affected the impact of two other factors on officeholders' undecided plans. Women were more likely than men to be contemplating retiring from public 178 office (p<.001, taub=-.38) and they were more likely than their male counterparts to no longer be satisfied serving in their current office (p<.05, taub=-.21). In the next section, we discuss how important specific personal and campaign circumstances were in officeholders' plans for their next election. We examine to what extent gender affected the importance officeholders attached to these circumstances.

IMPORTANCE OF PERSONAL AND CAMPAIGN CIRCUMSTANCES Officeholders who were not planning to retire from office in their next election were asked to rank how important five personal circumstances and twelve campaign circumstances were to their next career move: critical, I would not seek office without it; important but not critical; or minor/no importance. For our analysis, we collapsed the scale into two categories: critical and not critical. Personal Circumstances Critical to Next Election Of the five personal circumstances, one related to officeholders' assessment of their own qualifications: feeling you are the best candidate for the office. Two others tapped into the importance of personal support: support from spouse and support from friends and family. Two circumstances related to officeholders' role responsibilities: personal financial security and not having children in school. Nearly two-thirds of all officeholders reported that feeling that they were the best candidate for the office and support from their spouse were critical circumstances affecting their next election. Forty-five percent considered support from friends as critical to their next career move. Less than a quarter noted that concerns for personal financial security or not having children in school were critical circumstances. The data displayed in Table 41 show that gender significantly affected the importance officeholders attached to each of the five personal circumstances. Women state legislators were more likely than their male colleagues to consider each of the personal circumstances as critical to their next career move. 180 Table 41. Importance of personal circumstances in officeholders' decision about next move: by gender

State legislators Female Male Importance of Factors Feeling that you are best candidate for the office* Critical 69 58 Not critical 31 42 Number of cases 568 265 Support from spouse** Critical 68 58 Not critical 32 42 Number of cases 441 249 Support from friends and family*** Critical 48 39 Not critical 52 61 Number of cases 565 268 Personal financial security**** Critical 24 16 Not critical 76 84 Number of cases 544 251

Not having children still in school***** Critical 24 8 Not Critical 76 92 Number of cases 363 181

*p<.001, taub=.ll **p<.001, taub=.10 ***p<. 02, taub=.08 ****p<. 02, taub=. 09 *****p<.001, taub=.20 181 These findings support suggestions that personal factors affect the careers of both female and male officeholders but that they have a stronger impact on the women's careers. Campaign Circumstances Affecting Election Plans Of the twelve campaign circumstances candidates assessed, three related to internal campaign structure: enough campaign volunteers, experienced campaign staff, and professional consultants. Six dealt with external political support: sufficient campaign funds, party support, being recruited to run rather than having to initiate candidacy, key organization support, support from political colleagues, and favorable media treatment. Three other circumstances were associated with the political opportunity structure of the race: running unopposed in the primary, not challenging an incumbent in the primary, and not challenging an incumbent in the general election. No one campaign circumstance was considered critical by a majority of officeholders. Having sufficient campaign funds was the circumstance noted most often by officeholders as key to their immediate career plans. About 4 0% of state legislators regarded having sufficient campaign funds as critical to their upcoming election efforts. About a quarter of officeholders considered four other circumstances as critical: key organization support, enough campaign volunteers, party support, and support from political colleagues. About 20% of officeholders considered 182 three additional circumstances as critical: not challenging an incumbent in the primary, not challenging an incumbent in the general, and hiring an experienced campaign staff. Less than 12% of officeholders considered any of the remaining campaign circumstances as critical to their next election: favorable media treatment, being recruited to run rather than having to initiate candidacy, running opposed in the primary, and hiring professional consultants. Gender had no effect on whether officeholders rated external support or political circumstances as critical. Gender significantly affected the importance officeholders attached to the three factors related to internal campaign structure. Female state legislators were more likely than their male colleagues to consider having enough campaign volunteers as critical (p<.01, taub=.09). Women were also more likely than men to consider hiring an experienced campaign staff (p<.01, taub=.10) and professional consultants (p<.01, taub=.08) as critical to their election efforts. These findings suggest that although female and male officeholders considered the same external support factors and political circumstances as critical to their career decisions, women were more likely than men to also consider the structure of their campaigns as critical circumstances affecting their next move. In addition to being asked to rank the importance that party support and campaign funds played in decisions about 183 their next career move, officeholders were asked to project the level of party support and the amount of money they expected to receive in their next election. The results of officeholders' assessments of expected party and financial support are discussed in the next two sections. Level of Party Support Expected in Next Election The overwhelming majority of officeholders expected to be either recruited or supported by their party in their next election. The data presented in Table 4 3 show that gender significantly affected (pc.001, taub=.12) the level of party support anticipated by state legislators. Female state legislators were more likely than their male colleagues to think they would be either recruited or supported by their party.

Table 43. Level of party support expected by state legislators in their next election: by gender

State Legislators Female Male Expected level of party support

Recruitment 14 9 Support 75 70 Neutrality 4 9 Divided 7 9 Opposition .2 4 Number of Cases 525 255

pc.001, tauc=.12 We expected that officeholders' career plans significantly affected the level of party support they expected to receive. We reasoned that those running for reelection would be more likely to anticipate receiving party support than those running for higher office. Generally, parties are supportive of incumbents running for reelection because few incumbents face primary opposition. Conversely, parties are often not supportive of officeholders seeking new offices because these officeholders are likely to face primary battles. The data displayed in Table 44 confirm our expectations. Election plans significantly affected (p<.02, taub=.13) whether officeholders expected party support in their next race. Officeholders running for reelection were more likely to expect to be supported or recruited by their party than those seeking higher office. 185 Table 44. Level of party support state legislators expected to receive in next election: by career move

State Legislators Seeking Seeking reelection higher office Expected level of party support % % Support or recruitment 88 68 Neutrality/some opposition 12 32 Number of cases 681 41 p<. 02 , taub=.13

Level of Financial Support Expected in Next Election Along with party support, money is another vital ingredient in officeholders' careers. A little more than a third of officeholders expected to raise under $10,000 for their next campaign. Thirty percent anticipated they would raise $10,000 to $25,000; while 18% expected to raise $25,000 to $50,000. Sixteen percent planned on raising over $50,000 for their next electoral move. Gender had no effect on the amount of money officeholders expected to raise. Since campaigns for statewide or federal office generally require more money than campaigns for state legislative seats, we expected that officeholders' election plans affected the amount of money they expected to raise. The data in Table 45 confirm our expectation. Officeholders' election plans significantly affected 186 (pc.OOl, tauc=.ll) the amount of money they projected they would raise for their next election. The relationship is in the expected direction. Those running for higher office anticipated raising higher amounts of money than those running for reelection.

Table 45. Amount of money officeholders expected to raise for their next election: by election plans

State Legislators Seeking Seeking reelection higher office Amount of money officeholders expected to raise % %

Under $10,000 37 7 $10,000-25,000 30 27 $25,001-50,000 18 9 $50,001 & Over 16 57 Number of cases 709 44

pc.OOl, tauc=.ll

Up to this point, our analysis has focused on the career moves that elected officials planned to make in their immediate political future. In the remaining sections of this chapter, we examine the moves that officeholders contemplated making sometime later in their electoral careers. 187 LONG-RANGE ELECTORAL CAREER PLANS Moving from initial entry into public life and then possibly to a higher office takes time, ambition, opportunity, and resources. It takes time for officeholders to master the intricacies involved with winning elections, serving in public office, and planning future career moves. Elected officials with the ambition to seek higher office often have only a few opportunities in their careers to do so. When such opportunities present themselves, officeholders must assess whether they have the necessary personal and campaign resources needed to take advantage of the particular political circumstances involved. In the next several sections, we examine issues related to ambition. We begin by determining the number of additional years officeholders were willing to remain in public office and whether they ever thought about running for higher office. For those with ambition for higher office, the offices for which they considered running are identified. We then assess whether officeholders thought it was likely they would actually serve in those offices sometime in their political career. We also discuss the political conditions and resources officeholders would require to run for higher office in three different types of races: against an incumbent, for an open seat, or for an office that was suddenly vacated. 188 Number of Additional Years Willing Serve in Office Predicting the number of years officeholders will spend in particular offices or in elective office in general is quite difficult. Individual political careers are dependent upon a variety of factors including the career moves made by of other officeholders. Decisions by others to seek higher office, to accept political appointments, to resign or retire from public office, as well as the effects of scandals and even physical death, can quickly change the political environment and time frame in which officeholders find themselves planning their next career move. The more time officeholders are willing to serve in elective office, the more political career opportunities they are likely to encounter. For that reason, one measures of political ambition is the number of years officeholders were willing to remain in elected office. To explore officeholders' long-range career plans, we posed the following question: If political opportunities were to go your way, how many more years would you be willing to serve in elective office? Officeholders could chose from three responses: four more years or less, five to twelve more years, or more than twelve additional years. Our analysis found that about 80% of state legislators were willing to remain in office for twelve or less additional years. The data in Table 46 show that gender significantly affected (p<.001, tauc=.13) the number of 189 additional years officeholders were willing to spend in public office. Male state legislators were willing to spend more additional years in public office than female state legislators.

Table 46. Number of additional years state legislators were willing to serve in public office: by gender

State Legislators Female Male Number of additional years officeholders were willing to serve if political opportunities went their way % %

Four years or less 40 31 Five to twelve years 46 43 More than twelve 14 26 Number of cases 582 270 pc.OOl, tauc=.13

Since women in office tend to be older than their male counterparts, we thought that age might be affecting the relationship between gender and the number of additional years that officeholder were willing to serve in elective office. To examine this possibility, we classified state legislators into three age groups: younger than 45, 45-to-55 years old, and older than 55. 190 When age is controlled for, the data produced mixed results. The data in Table 47 show that the original relationship remained significant and strengthened (pc.OOl, tauc=.27) for officeholders in the youngest age group. Men younger than 45 were nearly twice as likely as their female counterparts to be willing to serve more than twelve additional years in public office.

Table 47. Number of additional years state legislators younger than 45 were willing to serve in elective office: by gender

State legislators younger than 4 5 Number of additional years willing to serve in public in office if political Female Male opportunities went their way *6s- *5s-

Four years or less 27 11 Five to twelve years 45 38 More than twelve years 28 51 Number of cases 139 89 pc.OOl, tauc=.27

The original relationship between gender and the number of additional years willing to serve in elective office disappeared for officeholders in the middle and oldest age groups. For those aged 45-55, about half of both female and male officeholders were willing to spend another five to twelve years in office. The other half were split about 191 evenly between those willing to spend no more than four additional years in office and those willing to spend more than twelve additional years in office. As for officeholders older than 55, over half of female and male state legislators planned on spending no more than four additional years in office. About 40% were willing to stay in office another five-to-twelve years. Less than 3% were willing to spend more than twelve additional years in office. We examined age's direct effect on the number of additional years officeholders were willing to remain in office. To do so, we collapsed the three age categories into two: 55 and younger and 56 and older. As anticipated, age significantly affected (pc.OOl, tauc=-.41) the number of additional years that women officeholders were willing serve in public office. The data in Table 48 show that although nearly 75% of those 55 or younger were willing to serve for an additional five or more years, only about 40% of their older colleagues were willing to spend that many additional years in public office. 192 Table 48. Number of additional years female state legislators were willing to serve in public office: by age

Female state legislators Number of additional years willing to serve in elective in office if political Aged 55 or Aged 56 or opportunities were to go younger older their way % % Four years or less 27 61 Five-to-twelve years 51 38 More than twelve 23 1 Number of cases 342 328 p < .001, tauc=-.41

The data presented in Table 49 show that the relationship between age and additional time in office was similar for male state legislators (p<.001, tauc=-.48). Nearly 85% of those aged 55 or younger expressed a willingness to serve five or more additional years in office. Less than half of those older than 55 were willing to serve that many more years in office. 193 Table 49. Number of additional years male state legislators were willing to serve in public office: by age

Male state legislators Number of additional years willing to serve in elective Aged 55 or Aged 56 or in office if political younger older opportunities were to go their way % % Four years or less 17 53 Five-to-twelve years 44 42 More than twelve 40 5 Number of cases 167 102 p < .001, tauc=-.48

As mentioned previously, a willingness to spend a number of years serving in office is only one factor affecting officeholders' political career choices. Officeholders must also think about whether they plan to spend those years serving in their current office or in some other one. Ambition for Higher Office To achieve higher office, officeholders must not only be willing serve in office long enough for political opportunities to develop but also they must have the ambition to seek higher office. For some officeholders, the costs of running for higher office are prohibitively high: too much time away from family, a loss of privacy, endless hours devoted to fundraising and glad-handing, and too few hours engaged in actual policymaking. Others assess that the increased costs involved with running for higher office 194 are outweighed by the benefits derived from serving in higher office: opportunities to influence and direct public policy and to provide greater assistance to constituents. Our data showed that regardless of gender, about 7 0% of state legislators contemplated running for higher office. In the next several sections, we discuss the various offices for which officeholders thought about running. First, we look at whether officeholders currently serving in the lower chamber thought about running for a seat in the upper one. Second, we explore to what degree those serving in either state legislative house thought about running for statewide office. Third, we examine to what extent state legislators thought about running for Congress. Within each section, we report whether officeholders with ambition thought it was likely that they would actually hold office at that level sometime during their political career. State Senate Ambition About 60% of state house members thought about running for a seat in the upper chamber. Gender did not significantly affect whether state house members contemplated running for the state senate. When age is controlled for, the original relationship between gender and state senate ambition was unchanged for those officeholders aged 55 or younger. The data in Table 50 show that gender did significantly affect 195 (p<.001, taub=-.25) the senate ambition of those older than 55. Female house members in this age group were more likely than their male counterparts to think about running for a seat in the upper chamber.

Table 50. State senate ambition of state house members older than 55: by gender

State house members older than 55 Female Male Thought about running for state senate % % No 34 60 Yes 66 40 Number of cases 89 45

p<.001, taub=-.25

Age had no direct effect on the state senate ambition of female house members. About 65% of those in each age group expressed an interest in running for the state senate. The data in Table 51 show that age significantly affected (p<.05, tauc=-.20) the state senate ambition of male state house members. Male house members 55 and younger were more likely than their older counterparts to contemplate running for the state senate. 196 Table 51. State senate ambition of male state house members: by age

Male state house members Aged 55 or Aged 56 or younger older Thought about running for the state senate % %

No 38 60 Yes 62 40 Number of cases 111 45 p< .05, taub=-.20

Likelihood of Servincr in State Senate The data showed that about two-thirds of state house members with state senate ambition thought it was likely they would serve in the upper chamber sometime in their career. Gender did not significantly affect officeholders' assessment of whether they would eventually be elected to the state senate. The data in Table 52 show that age significantly affected (pc.OOl, taub=-.21) whether female state house members with state senate ambition thought that it was likely that they would serve in that office. Those aged 55 or younger were more likely than their older colleagues to think they would win election to the state senate sometime in their political career. 197 Table 52. Whether female state house members thought it was likely they would be elected to the state senate: by age

Female state house members with ambition for state senate Aged 55 Aged 56 Likely to be elected to or younger or older state senate during o, political career "o % No 30 53 Yes 70 47 Number of cases 135 57

p<.001, taub=-.21

The data indicate that the same relationship existed for male legislators with state senate ambition. Seventy- five percent of those aged 55 or younger were confident they would someday hold a seat in state senate. Less than 60% of their older counterparts thought such a career move was likely. Ambition for Statewide Office Nearly half of the state legislators thought about running for one or more statewide offices. Gender did not significantly affect officeholders' statewide ambition. To determine if the original relationship held when age was controlled for, we divided officeholders into three age groups: 44 or younger, 45-55 years old, and 56 and older. The data showed that the original relationship 198 was unchanged for state legislators in the youngest and oldest age groups. Sixty-four percent of legislators aged 45 or younger thought about running for statewide office. A third of officeholders aged 56 or older had such ambition. Gender significantly affected (p<05, taub=-.17) the statewide ambition of state legislators in the middle-age group. Women state legislators aged 45-55 were more likely than their male counterparts to think about running for statewide office. Over half of the women in this age group, as compared to about a third of their male colleagues, expressed statewide ambition. Age had a direct effect on statewide ambition of both female and male state legislators. The younger female state legislators were, the more likely they were to think about running for statewide office (p<.001, tauc=-.21). Sixty-one percent of female state legislators under the age of 4 5 thought about running statewide. More than half of those aged 45-55 expressed statewide ambition. About a third of female state legislators over the age of 55 thought about holding statewide office. The relationship between age and male state legislators' statewide ambition was in the same direction as that of their female colleagues but stronger (pc.Ol, tauc=-.39). Nearly 70% of male legislators under the age of 45 contemplated running for statewide office. Only about a third of those aged 45-55 and a quarter of 199 those older than 55 expressed an interest in running statewide. In addition to age, legislative chamber significantly affected whether state legislators (pc.OOl, taub=.20) thought about running for statewide office. Regardless of gender, those serving in the upper chamber were more likely to have statewide ambition than those serving in the lower chamber. Sixty-five percent of state senators, as compared to 42% of state house members, expressed statewide ambition. The data in Table 53 show the statewide positions for which female and male legislators thought about running. Regardless of gender, about a fourth of state legislators thought about running for either governor or lieutenant governor. Gender significantly affected (pc.OOl, taub=-.12) whether officeholders were interested in running for secretary of state and significantly affected (pc.OOl, taub=.14) whether they thought about running for state attorney general. More women than men contemplated running for secretary of state; while more men than women considered running for state attorney general. Gender also significantly affected (pc.OOl, taub=-.ll) whether state legislators had thought about running for other statewide positions. Women were more likely than men to have considered running for some other statewide position than governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, or attorney general. 200 Table 53. Statewide offices for which state legislators thought about running: by gender

State legislators with statewide ambition Statewide offices Female Male state legislators thought about running % % Governor 22 28 Lt. Governor 25 21 Secretary of State* 13 5 State Attorney General** 3 10 Other Statewide Position*** 10 4 Number of cases 367 198 *p<. 001, taub=-.12 **p<.001, taub= .14 ***p<. 001, taub=-.ll

Likelihood of Serving in Statewide Office Regardless of gender, 48% of state legislators with statewide ambition thought they would win election to statewide office sometime in their career. Age significantly affected (p<.001, tauc=-.31) whether female state legislators' with statewide ambition thought they would be elected statewide. The younger they were, the more likely they were to think they would someday hold statewide office. Nearly 60% of female legislators under the age of 45 who thought about running for statewide office thought they would be elected at that level. Forty-four percent of 201 those aged 45-55 were confident they would serve in statewide office sometime in their career. Only 20% of female state legislators over the age of 55 thought they would reach statewide office. For male state legislators with statewide ambition, age had a similar effect (p<.05, tauc=-.20). Nearly 60% of those under the age of 45 were confident they would be elected to statewide office. About half of those aged 45-55 thought it was likely they would serve in statewide office. Less than 3 0% of male state legislators over the age of 55 expected to reach office at that level. Congressional Ambition Over half of state legislators thought about running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Ten percent noted that they had thought about running for the U.S. Senate. Gender had no significant effect on whether officeholders thought about running for a seat in the U.S. House. Gender significantly affected (p<.02, taub=.l0) state legislators' ambition for the U.S. Senate. Fourteen percent of male state legislators, as compared to 7% of female state legislators, contemplated running for the U.S. Senate. Controlled for age, the relationship between gender and whether officeholders thought about running for Congress was significant for those in the youngest age group. Gender significantly affected (p<.01, taub=.19) whether state 202 legislators 45 and younger thought about running for the U.S. House; and significantly affected (p<.01, taub=.25) whether they thought about running for the U.S. Senate. For both offices, women under the age of 45 were less likely than their male counterparts to have thought about running. About half of female state legislators that age, as compared to 70% of their male colleagues, expressed an interest in running for the U.S. House. Nine percent of women and 28% of men in that age group thought about running for the U.S. Senate. Gender did not significantly affect whether officeholders aged 45 and older thought about running for the U.S. House or the U.S. Senate. Nearly half of all state legislators aged 4 5-55 thought about running for the U.S. House; while about 10% of this group expressed interest in the U.S. Senate. As for officeholders over the age of 55, 30% contemplated running for the U.S. House; while 3% had ambition for the U.S. Senate. Age directly affected Congressional ambition. For women state legislators, age significantly affected (pc.Ol, tauc=-.20) whether they thought about running for the U.S. House of Representatives. The data in Table 54 show that female state legislators 55 and younger were more likely than their older counterparts to have considered running for the U.S. House. Age had a similar effect (p<.05, tauc=-.06) on women's ambition for the U.S. Senate. 203 Table 54. Age's effect on women's Congressional ambition

Female state legislators Aged 44 Aged Aged 56 or younger 45-55 or older Thought about running for the U.S. House* %%% No 48 53 70 Yes 52 47 30 Number of cases 109 156 138 Thought about running for the U.S. Senate** No 91 90 97 Yes 9 10 3 Number of cases 109 156 138

*p<.0 1 , tauc=-.20 **p<.05, tauc=-.06

For male officeholders, the data in Table 55 show that age had a stronger effect (p<.01, tauc=-.38) on whether they thought about running for the U.S. House. Age also significantly affected (pc.01, tauc=-.25) whether male state legislators had ambition for the U.S. Senate. For both offices, the youngest cohort of male state legislators were much more likely to think about running for Congress. 204 Table 55. Age's effect on men's Congressional ambition

Male state legislators Aged 44 Aged Aged 56 or younger 45-55 or older Thought about running for the U.S. House* %%% No 29 52 71 Yes 71 48 29 Number of cases 82 63 65 Thought about running for the U.S. Senate** No 72 92 99 Yes 28 8 2 Number of cases 82 63 65

*p< . 01, tauc=-.38 **p<.01, tauc=-.25

The effect of legislative chamber on Congressional ambition was mixed. Regardless of gender, legislative chamber did not significantly affect whether officeholders thought about running for the U.S. House. Legislative chamber did significantly affect (p<.01, taub=.17) whether female state legislators thought about running for the U.S. Senate. Women serving in the upper chamber were more likely than those serving in the lower chamber to have contemplated making such a run. Legislative chamber had no effect on male state legislators' ambition for the U.S. Senate. 205

Likelihood of Serving in U.S. Congress About 40% of state legislators with Congressional ambition thought it was likely they would someday be elected to either the U.S. House or the U.S. Senate. Gender had no effect on whether officeholders with Congressional ambition thought that it was likely that they eventually would hold office at that level. Age significantly affected (pc.OOl, tauc=-.31) whether state legislators with Congressional ambition thought it was likely they would someday hold a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Over half of the legislators under the age of 45 thought they would be in the U.S. House sometime in their careers. About a third of those aged 45-55 thought it was likely they would reach the U.S. House; while 2 0% of those over the age of 55 were confident about a career at that level. When gender is controlled for, the original relationship weakens for women (pc.OOl, tauc=-.24) and strengthens for men (pc.OOl, tauc=-.39). The data indicate a similar relationships between age and ambition for the U.S. Senate but the relationship did not reach significance at . 05.26 We now turn our attention to the conditions officeholders said would have to exist for them to run for higher office given certain political circumstances. For

26pc . l o, tauc=- . 2 2 206 each set of circumstances, we determine whether gender affected the conditions officeholders thought would be necessary to mount a campaign.

CONDITIONS NECESSARY TO RUN FOR HIGHER OFFICE Officeholders were asked to identify the conditions that would have to exist in order for them to run for higher office against an incumbent or in an open seat. In addition, they were asked to identify how quickly they would make certain political moves if a higher office they were interested in was suddenly vacated. Running for Higher Office against an Incumbent From a list of nine conditions, officeholders identified which ones would have to exist in order for them to challenge an incumbent for higher office. Three of the conditions related to financial and party backing: sufficient campaign funds, party support, and party endorsement. Two focused on other types of support: support from friends and family and being asked by others to run. Three conditions dealt with the incumbent1s strength and that of the challenger: polling data indicating incumbent is vulnerable, negative press for incumbent, and polling data indicating officeholder would be a strong challenger. One condition related to officeholders' long-range career goals: good exposure for future run for higher office. Data analysis revealed that three-fourths of officeholders would require sufficient campaign funds in 207 order to challenge an incumbent for higher office. Over half would need support from friends and family, polling data indicating they would be a strong challenger, or polling data indicating the incumbent was vulnerable in order to make such a move. Nearly half of all officeholders would require party support or that others ask them to run. A third said they would require their party's endorsement in order to challenge an incumbent for higher office. About a quarter of officeholders said it would be necessary that the incumbent have negative press; while a fifth were willing to take the risk of running against an incumbent if it were good exposure for a future run for higher office. Only 8% of officeholders said they would not challenge an incumbent under any condition. Gender significantly affected whether officeholders thought three conditions would be necessary: polling data indicating that the incumbent was vulnerable (p<.05, taub=.08), polling data indicating they would be a strong challenger (p<.05, taub=.09), and receiving their party's endorsement (p<.05, taub=.08). In each instance, women were more likely than men to consider the condition necessary in order for them to run against an incumbent. Running for Higher Office in an Open Race Officeholders were given a similar list of nine conditions and asked to identify which ones would have to exist in order for them to run for higher office in an open 208 seat. Seven conditions were the same ones used to assess the conditions necessary to run against an incumbent: sufficient campaign funds, party support, party endorsement, support from friends and family, asked by others to run, polling data indicating officeholder would be a strong challenger, and good exposure for future run for higher office. Two conditions were changed to reflect the absence of an incumbent: negative press for the incumbent was replaced by positive press for the officeholder's candidacy; and polling data indicating incumbent would be vulnerable was replaced by polling data indicating officeholder would be a frontrunner. The data showed that the conditions that officeholders thought would be necessary to run in an open seat for higher office were similar to the ones they would require to run against an incumbent. Eighty-five percent of officeholders said they would need sufficient campaign funds and three- fourths would want support from friends and family. Over 60% of officeholders reported that polling data indicating they would be a strong candidate would be necessary for them to run in an open race for higher office. Nearly half thought three other conditions would be necessary: party support, being asked by others to run, and having positive press. About a third thought it would be necessary to receive their party's endorsement in order to run and a quarter would require polling data indicating they would be 209 a frontrunner. Less than 20% of officeholders thought that good exposure for a future run for higher office would be a necessary condition. Female and male state legislators were in almost complete agreement on the conditions they would need in order to run for higher office in an open seat. The only condition that gender significantly affected (pc.01, taub=.13) was whether officeholders required polling data indicating they would be a strong candidate. Women were more likely than men to consider this condition as necessary. In sum, the conditions officeholders would require to run for higher office against an incumbent or in an open seat were similar. For the most part, gender did not significantly affect the conditions that officeholders thought would be necessary. The data did suggest that for female state legislators to run in either type of race, they would be more likely than their male colleagues to require independent information (polling data, party endorsement) indicating that their candidacy would be viable. Political Moves for Suddenly Vacated Higher Offices Officeholders were also asked how quickly they would make a variety of political moves if a higher office in which they were interested was suddenly vacated. Moves could be made within one of four time frames: immediately 210 (within 48 hours); soon (within a week); later (after more than a week); and never would make such a move. Of the eleven moves examined, four related to officeholders finding out what others thought about the race: discuss the potential race with family, discuss the race with media, ask other potential candidates about their plans, and commission a poll. Three moves focused on officeholders asking for support or assistance: ask friends and past supporters for support, ask the party for support, and hire consultants. The remaining two moves dealt with fundraising activities: ask friends and supporters for money and begin raising money from PACs. Either immediately or within a week, about 90% of all officeholders would ask friends and supporters for support and discuss the potential race with family. Within that same time frame, nearly three-fourths of officeholders would ask their party for support. Over 60% would ask friends and supporters for money and assess how much personal or family money they could invest the race. Nearly half of all officeholders would begin raising money from PACs and discuss the race with the media. Forty percent of officeholders would commission a poll, while about a fourth would hire consultants. 211 Gender significantly affected how quickly officeholders anticipated making nine of the eleven moves.27 In each case, women expected to move more swiftly. Female state legislators expected to move more quickly than their male colleagues when it came to discussing the potential race with family (tauc=.12), asking friends and supporters for support (tauc=.14), asking the party for support (tauc=.15), asking friends and supporters for money (tauc=.19), assessing how much personal and family money could be invested (tauc=.10), raising money from PACs (tauc=.l3), commissioning a poll (tauc=.19), and hiring consultants (tauc=.17). Gender did not significantly affect how quickly officeholders would discuss the race with other potential candidates or with the media. Controlling for age produced mixed results. Regardless of age, gender continued not to effect how quickly officeholders would discuss the race with other potential candidates or with the media. In regard to the nine moves on which gender was originally found to have an effect, the data showed that the relationship between gender and eight of these moves disappeared for officeholders younger than

27The relationship between gender and assessing how much personal or family money could be invested was significant at .05. All of the other relationships were significant at .01 or less. 212 45 . 28 For officeholders in this age group, gender had no effect on how quickly they would discuss the potential race with their family, ask friends and supporters for support, ask their party for support, ask friends and family for money, assess how much personal and family money could be invested, commission a poll, or hire consultants. The original relationship between gender and these particular eight moves remained significant at .05 or less for officeholders aged 45-55 and those aged 56 or older. Women state legislators in these two age groups, especially those in the oldest group, were more likely to anticipate making these moves sooner than their male counterparts. In sum, women state legislators 45 or older were prepared to make various political moves more swiftly than their male colleagues in order to position themselves to enter a race for a suddenly vacated higher office. The data revealed no instance in which male state legislators anticipated making a particular political move sooner than their female colleagues.

28Raising money from PACs was the one move for which controlling for age produced a different pattern from the other moves on which gender had an effect. The original relationship between gender and how quickly officeholders would begin raising money from PACs remained significant for officeholders in the youngest and oldest age groups. Women in these two groups, especially those in the oldest one, were more likely than men to make this move immediately. Gender had no effect on how quickly officeholders aged 45-55 would begin raising money from PACs. 213 At each step in their careers officeholders reported that campaign fundraising played a vital role in their decisions about running for office. We conclude this chapter by examining campaign fundraising in more detail. We discuss officeholders' current attitudes towards fundraising and how these attitudes have evolved since first running for office. We also identify how much personal/family money and the amount of early money officeholders thought they could raise if they were to run for higher office.

CAMPAIGN FUNDRAISING To take advantage of both expected and unexpected political opportunities that present themselves, officeholders must not only be in the right place at the right time but they also must have access to the resources needed to mount an effective campaign. One of the most important resources is money. As noted previously, the overwhelming majority of officeholders said that they would need sufficient campaign funds in order to run for higher office under any circumstance. Whether raising money for reelection or for a race for another office, officeholders spend an enormous amount of time on fundraising activities. In the next two sections, we discuss officeholders' fundraising attitudes and experiences. Fundraising Attitudes After noting that ''officeholders react in many ways to the task of raising campaign funds," we asked officeholders 214 to check the response that best matched their current attitude about their role in campaign fundraising: find it very difficult to ask for money, find it somewhat difficult to ask for money, or find little or no difficulty in asking for money. The data revealed that about half of all officeholders found it somewhat difficult to ask for money. The remaining half were nearly evenly split between finding the task to be very difficult (28%) or finding it to be of little or no difficulty at all (24%). Gender had no effect on officeholders' attitudes toward campaign fundraising. Officeholders were also asked how their attitude towards fundraising had evolved since first being elected: more difficult now, same degree of difficulty now as when first elected, or easier now. The overwhelming majority of officeholders found their current role in campaign fundraising was easier now than when they were first elected. The data in Table 56 show that gender significantly affected (p<.02, tauc=.07) the direction in which officeholders' fundraising attitudes had evolved. Female state legislators were more likely than their male colleagues to think campaign fundraising was easier now than it was when they first ran. 215 Table 56. State legislators current attitudes about campaign fundraising as compared to their attitudes when first elected: by gender

State Legislators Female Male Current attitudes towards campaign fundraising % %

Find it easier now to ask for money 67 60 Same degree of difficulty in asking for money now as when first ran for office 30 34 Find it more difficult now to ask for money 3 7 Number of cases 601 198

p<.02 , tauc=.07

Established Access to Money In addition to asking officeholders about their attitude towards fundraising, we asked them about their established access to money. Having such access allows officeholders to raise the early money which can be so critical to mounting a successful campaign. When political opportunities appear, officeholders who raise early money quickly establish themselves as viable candidates. By doing so, officeholders often prevent or pare down primary opposition. 216 Early campaign contributions come most often from those who have contributed to the candidate before and from the candidates' personal and family resources. To examine officeholders established access to early money, we asked three questions. Two dealt with access to personal and family money: What is the largest amount of personal or family money that you have invested in one of your own campaigns and (w)hat is the largest amount of personal or family money that you would be willing to invest in any of your future campaigns? The third question dealt with a very special category, access to immediate money. The question we used to tap one's access to immediate money was: If an incumbent retired unexpectedly from a statewide or federal office for which you would consider running, how much money could you raise in the 72-hour period following such an announcement? In response to the first question, about half of the officeholders reported they had contributed under a $1,000 of personal or family money to one of their previous campaigns. Another third had contributed from $1,000 to $5,000. Less than 15% had invested over $5,000 of personal or family money in one of their previous races. Gender significantly affected (p<.05, tauc=.07) the amount of personal or family money candidates had contributed to their own campaigns. Male state legislators 217 were more likely than their female counterparts to have contributed $1,000 or more to a past campaign. The amount of personal or family money that officeholders projected that they would invest in a future campaign was similar to the largest amount of money they had contributed in the past. Forty-four percent of officeholders were willing to invest under $1,000 of personal or family money in any of their future campaigns. Slightly more than a third were willing to invest $1,000- $5,000; while a fifth were prepared to use $5,000 or more in a future race. The data revealed a significant but not strong relationship (p<.05, tauc.06)29 between gender and the amount of amount of money officeholders were willing to invest in a future race for public office. Male state legislators were more likely than their female colleagues to be willing to invest $5,000 or more in a future campaign for higher office. As for raising money quickly, gender had no effect on officeholders' assessment regarding the amount of money that they could raise in the 72-hour period after hearing of an incumbent's unexpected retirement from a higher office for which they were interested in running. Forty-five percent of officeholders thought that they could raise under $10,000 within that time period. Slightly more than a quarter

29Significance at .05 reached using a one-tailed t-test. 218 expected to collect $10,000-$20,000. Thirty percent projected they could raise over $20,000.

SUMMARY The findings presented in this chapter challenge arguments that female officeholders are less ambitious than male officeholders or less likely to have the political resources necessary to run for higher office. The data showed that female and male state legislators had similar short-range and long-range career goals and that they expected to receive comparable levels of party and financial support in their future elections. Although female officeholders planned to spend fewer additional years in office than men, they were as likely as their male colleagues to have thought about running for the state senate, statewide office, or for a seat in the U.S. House. For the most part, female and male state legislators agreed on the conditions they would need and the moves they would make in order to run for higher office. The data did show that women officeholders were more likely than male officeholders to require independent indicators (polling data, party endorsement) confirming they would be viable candidates in order to run for higher office. The data also revealed that women state legislators were more likely to move more swiftly than men to position themselves to enter a race for a suddenly vacated higher office. Age continued to significantly affect officeholders' career plans in several ways. It affected the number of years officeholders were willing to remain in office and whether they thought about running for statewide or Congressional office. As officeholders aged, the number of additional years they planned to stay in office as well as their ambition for higher office declined. Age also affected the relationship between gender and how quickly officeholders would make various moves to position themselves to run for higher office. The older women state legislators were the more likely they were to move more swiftly than their male colleagues to assess their viability and begin laying the groundwork for their potential candidacy. Bivariate analysis presented in this chapter suggested that female and male state legislators had similar levels of ambition. In the next chapter, we use multivariate analysis to further explore the factors that influence officeholders' long-range career goals. CHAPTER VI MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS OF FUTURE CAREER PLANS

Thus far we have tested essentially bivariate hypotheses about the impact of personal and political factors on officeholders' career decisions. In this Chapter, we use multivariate analysis to examine the effect of these factors on officeholders' strategic career choices. Unlike bivariate analysis, multivariate analysis determines both the separate and combined effects of several independent variables on a given dependent variable. For our analysis, we regress three dependent variables on appropriate independent variables. Our three dependent variables represent specific decisions state legislators faced regarding their future career plans: number of additional years they were willing to remain in public office, statewide ambition, and Congressional ambition. It is important to note two things about the cases used in the regression analysis. First, our overall sample is made up of only women and men who won election to public office. As a result, we cannot make any assumptions about how our findings would apply to politicians who have never ran for office or who ran but were never elected. Second,

220 221 the cases that are included in the regression models are a subset of the entire sample. Only state legislators who expressed an interest in running for higher office are included. Because of a screening question in the questionnaire, officeholders not interested in running for higher office were asked to skip some of the questions that were used to develop the variables in the regression models. Consequently, our findings from multivariate analysis apply only to those officeholders who initially decided to run for the state legislature, were successful in that attempt, and then thought about running for higher office.

NUMBER OF ADDITIONAL YEARS IN OFFICE Based on previous research and the bivariate analysis presented in Chapter V, we identified five independent variables to include in our explanation of the number of additional years officeholders were willing to remain in office. The independent variables in our explanatory model are gender, age, statewide ambition, Congressional ambition, and legislative status. We include gender and age in our model because bivariate analysis showed that both variables affected the dependent variable. Men were more willing than women to spend more than twelve additional years in office. As for age, officeholders aged 55 or younger were willing to spend more additional time in office than their older colleagues. 222 Statewide ambition and Congressional ambition are included in our equation because previous studies on ambition (Schlesinger 1966? Black 1972; Bledsoe and Herring 1990) posited that officeholders' ambition influenced the electoral moves and plans they made throughout their careers. Consequently, we reasoned that compared to officeholders without ambition to hold higher office, officeholders with such ambition would be willing to remain in public office for an extended period of time in an attempt to realize that ambition. Legislative status is included because our bivariate analysis suggested that the more professional the legislature, the more likely its members were to consider officeholding as their full-time career. Legislators who considered full-time officeholding as their primary career and who were in legislatures that provided the most financial rewards were expected to serve for more additional years than those legislators who had other careers to consider or fewer resources upon which to rely. Table 57 summarizes the bivariate relationship among the variables in the regression equation. The low-to- moderate correlations among the independent variables suggest no immediate problems with multicollinearity. 223 Table 57. Correlation matrix for number of additional years willing to stay in office and five independent variables

Variables Y1 X; X2 X 3 X 4 X 5

More Years (Y^ 1.0 .16 - . 4 2 .24 .28 .11 Gender (X^ -.10 .01 .10 . 01 Age (X?) - . 2 8 - . 3 6 - . 00 Statewide Ambition (X3) .23 - .05 Congressional ambition (X4) .06 Legislative Status (X5)

Note: n=576 Variable Coding:

MORE YEARS (Y,) 1= 4 yrs. or less, 2= 5-to-12 yrs., 3= more t han 12 yrs; GENDER (Xj) 1= female 2= male;

AGE (X2) interval data;

STATEWIDE AMBITION (X3) 0= have not thought about running at this level 1= thought about running for one or more statewide offices but do not think election at statewide level is likely 2= thought about running for one or more statewide offices and think election at statewide level is likely;

CONGRESSIONAL AMBITION (X«) 0= have not thought about running at this level 1= thought about running for one or more Congressional offices but do not think election at Congressional level is likelv 2= thought about running for one or more Congressional offices and think election at this level is likely;

LEGISLATIVE STATUS (X5) 1= part-time 2“ mixed 3= full-time. 224 Table 58 arrays the results of the regression of the number of additional years officeholders were willing to stay in public office on the five independent variables. The independent variables account for about a quarter (Rz=.23) of the variance in the dependent variable. All five are statistically significant at .01 or less and the coefficients are in the expected direction.

Table 58. Results of regression of number of additional years state legislators are willing to serve in public office on five independent variables

Variables B Beta T Sig T Gender .17 .11 3.11 .01 Age .02 -.33 -8.19 . 001 Statewide Ambition .11 .12 2 .95 .01 Cong. Ambition .10 .12 2 .95 .01 Legislative status .11 .11 2 .97 .01 n=576, R2=.23, adjusted R2=.23, intercept=2.5 3

A comparison of the standardized regression coefficients shows that the impact of age on the dependent variable (beta=-.33) is about three times as great as the impact of any of the other independent variables. The negative direction of the coefficient indicates that as state legislators aged, the number of additional years they were willing to devote to public office decreased. This 225 finding mirrors the bivariate relationship found between age and additional time in office. The standardized regression coefficients of the four other independent variables indicate that they all had a similar impact on the dependent variable: gender (beta=.ll), statewide ambition (beta=.12), Congressional ambition (beta=.12), and legislative status (beta=.ll). The interpretation of these variables is fairly straightforward. Men were willing to spend more additional years in public office than women. The more resolved legislators were to seeking either statewide or Congressional office, the more additional years they were willing to spend in office. The more professional the legislature was, the more additional years its members were willing to remain as elected officials. To explore whether the patterns revealed by this regression model exist in similar form for both female and male state legislators, we use the same variables (excluding gender) to run separate regressions for each group. The results of the regressions are reported in Table 59. 226 Table 59. Results of the regression of number of additional years state legislators are willing to serve in public office on four independent variables: by gender

B Beta T Sig T Women Variables (Men) Age -.02 -.30 -5.96 .001 (-.03) (-.42) (-5.87) (.001) Statewide .09 .10 2.04 . 04 ambition ( -16) ( .18) ( 2.67) (.01) Congressional .14 .16 3.20 .01 ambition ( -01) ( -oi) ( -20) (.85) Legislative .09 .09 1.99 . 05 status ( -14) ( -14) (2.23) (-03)

n=381, R2=. 18, adjusted R2= .17, intercept=2 . 60 (n=195 R2= .29, adjusted R2=.28, intercept=3 .14)

The proportion of the variance in the dependent variable explained is somewhat higher for male state legislators (R2=.28) than for women state legislators (R2=.17). As in the original equation, age is the best predictor: for women, beta=-.30; for men, beta=-.42. The negative coefficient indicates that as officeholders aged, the number of additional years they were willing to spend in elective office decreased. Two other independent variables are statistically significant for both female and male state legislators: 227 legislative status and statewide ambition. Legislative status is significant at .05 for women, and at .03 for men. Analysis of the two regressions indicates that the relationship between legislative status and the dependent variable is similar for both groups of legislators: for women, b=.09? for men, b=.14. The relationship is in the expected direction. Regardless of gender, the more professional the legislature, the more additional years its members were willing to serve in public office. Statewide ambition is significant at .04 for female state legislators and .01 for male state legislators. For each group, the impact of statewide ambition on the dependent variable is similar: for women, b=.09 and for men, b=.16. The relationship is in the expected direction. The stronger legislators' thoughts were about serving in statewide office, the more additional years they were willing to remain in office. The impact of Congressional ambition on the dependent variable is different for female and male state legislators. For female state legislators, Congressional ambition is significant at .01 and is the second best predictor (beta=.16) of the number of additional years they were willing to serve in elective office. For men, the Congressional ambition variable is not significant. What might account for this difference? Intuitively, it makes sense that women considering a career in Congress were willing to spend more additional years in elective office than those not considering such a move. Women with Congressional ambition realized that it might take a number of years before both personal and political factors provided them with the opportunity to make such a move. Yet, if this explanation is plausible for women, then why is it not also plausible for men? We suspect the reason is because age is a stronger predictor for males than it is for females in terms of both the number of additional years they were willing to spend in office and their Congressional ambition. As a result, men's Congressional ambition offers no independent explanatory power to the number of years they were willing to remain in public office.

STATEWIDE AMBITION In this section, we regress statewide ambition on eight independent variables. The dependent variable was constructed from responses to the following two questions: Ql: What offices have you thought about running for since being elected? Q2: Now, all things considered, which of these elected offices do you think you are likely to hold during your political career? For each question, officeholders were asked to choose from a list of offices for which they thought about running. Based on their responses, officeholders were classified according to the degree to which they thought about statewide office. The values and value labels for the statewide ambition variable are: 229 0 - have not thought about running for statewide office 1 - thought about running for one or more statewide offices but do not think election at statewide level is likely 2 - thought about running for one or more statewide offices and think election at statewide level is likely Based on previous research and the bivariate analysis of our data, we identified eight independent variables to include in our explanation of statewide ambition. The independent variables in the equation are gender, age, legislative status, legislative chamber, legislative leader, budget leader, ability to raise money within 72-hours, and statewide opportunity. Gender is included because bivariate analysis produced mixed results about the relationship between gender and statewide ambition. When age was controlled for, gender significantly affected whether state legislators aged 45-55 expressed statewide ambition. Female state legislators in this age group were more likely to think about running for statewide office than their male counterparts. Gender had no effect on the statewide ambition of state legislators in the 44-and-younger age group or the 56-and-older age group. These findings challenged most previous studies (Jennings and Thomas 1968; Costantini and Craik 1972; Kirkpatrick 1976; Farah 1976; Diamond 1977; Fowlkes et al. 1979; Sapiro and Farah 1980; Jennings and Farah 1981; Carroll 1985a; Bledsoe and Herring 1990; but also see Carroll 1985b) which suggested that female elites were less ambitious than male 230 elites. Multivariate analysis provides another opportunity to examine both the separate and combined effect of gender on statewide ambition. Age is the most obvious independent variable to include in our equation. Numerous studies (Matthews 1960; Barber 1965; Schlesinger 1966, 1991; Hain 1974; Johnson and Carroll 1978; Schlesinger and Schlesinger 1981; Payne et al. 1984) found age had a dampening effect on ambition. Our bivariate analysis also found that age significantly affected whether state legislators thought about running for statewide office and whether they thought it was likely they would someday be elected at that level. State legislators aged 44-and- younger were more likely than their older counterparts to think about running statewide and that they would someday hold statewide office. Legislative status is included in the equation because our bivariate analysis suggested that the more professional the legislature, the more likely its members were to consider officeholding to be their primary careers. The analysis also showed that the more professional the state legislature, the more money its members raised for their campaigns. Given these two findings, we reasoned that the more professional the legislature, the more likely its members were to have the resources and the ambition to run for statewide office. Legislative chamber was included because the state senate, as compared to the state house, is considered more of a stepping stone to statewide office. A seat in the upper chamber is generally considered more influential than a seat in the lower chamber. Compared to those who serve in state houses, state senators usually raise more money for their campaigns, serve more constituents, receive more media coverage, and attract members who consider officeholding as their full-time careers. For these reasons, statewide office is more of a logical next step for state senators than it is for state house members. Bivariate analysis confirmed that state legislators in the upper chamber were more likely to have statewide ambition than those in the lower chamber. State legislators also gain influence and access to resources by being leaders in their legislative bodies. Regardless of the chamber in which they served, we thought that legislators who were viewed as leaders by their legislative colleagues would be more likely to contemplate taking those skills into the executive arena than legislators who were not recognized as leaders. As a result, we include legislative and budget leadership as independent variables in our explanatory model. The legislative leadership variable represents leadership qualities in general. 232 The budget leadership variable represents leadership in a policy area that all statewide offices deal with to one degree or another. We expected that legislators who were viewed as leaders on budget matters might be more interested in holding executive positions than those who did not have such expertise. Not only did their budget expertise provide them with a platform on which to mount a credible campaign for governor but it also established their credibility to run for other statewide offices that focused more on the financial aspects of state government (i.e. comptroller, auditor, treasurer, tax commissioner). The amount of money that state legislators anticipated raising within a 72-hour period for a sudden vacancy is included because it measures their potential viability as statewide candidates. We reasoned that candidates who thought they could raise significant amounts of immediate money had access to the financial resources and support needed to run statewide. We expected that state legislators with these resources were more likely to have statewide ambition than those without such resources. The statewide opportunity variable measures state legislators' assessments of the number of statewide offices in the next two election cycles in which they expected the incumbent to face a strong challenge or leave that office for one reason or another. We included this variable based on arguments that officeholders' ambition was tied directly to the opportunity structure in which they operated (Schlesinger 1966; Black 1972; Darcy et al. 1985; Bledsoe and Herring 1990; Costantini 1990). If these arguments were accurate, we reasoned that the more turnover state legislators expected in statewide offices, the more opportunities they perceived they had to run at that level. As a result, they would have more statewide ambition. Conversely, the less turnover state legislators expected at the statewide level, the fewer opportunities they perceived they had to run at that level. Perceptions of fewer opportunities would lead to reduced statewide ambition. Table 60 is the correlation matrix of the relationship among the dependent and independent variables used in the statewide ambition equation. The bivariate correlations suggest no significant multicollinearity problems. 234 Table 60. Correlation matrix for statewide ambition and eight independent variables

1 i l l 1 1 1

Variables K 1 x2

nj nj j X 3 *4 X 5 X 6 X 7 X 8 Stwide ambition (Y2) 1.0-.05 -.25 -.09 -.19 . 17 .12 .15 .09 Gender (X,) -.14 -.01 .03 .00 .00- .01 .07 Age (X2) .06 .08 .01 .04- .03 .02 Legislative status (X3) .04--.01 .03 .17 . 06 Legislative chamber (x4) .10 .11 .24 .05 Legislative leader (X5) .22 .10- .01 Budget leader (X6) .07 .02 Funds72h (X7) - .01 Statewide opportunity (X8)

Notes n=357 Variable Coding:

STATEWIDE AMBITION (Y2) 0= have not thought about running for statewide office 1= thought about running for one or more statewide offices 2=thought about running for one or more statewide offices and think election at statewide level is likely;

GENDER (Xj) 1= female 2“ male;

AGE (X2) interval data;

LEGISLATIVE STATUS (X3) 1= part-time 2- mixed 3= full-time;

LEGISLATIVE CHAMBER (X4) 5“ lower chamber 6“ upper chamber;

LEGISLATIVE LEADER (X5) 0= no 1= yes;

BUDGET LEADER (X<) 0= no 1= yes;

FUNDS72h (X7) 1= under $10,000 2= $10,001-20,000 3= $20,001-30,000 4= over $30,000;

STATEWIDE OPPORTUNITY (X„) 0-1= one 2= two 3= three 4 -four 235 Table 61 displays the results from the regression of statewide ambition on the eight independent variables. The model accounts for 15% of the variance found in statewide ambition.

Table 61. Regression of statewide ambition on eight independent variables

Variables B Beta T Sig T

Gender -.16 -.09 -1.9 .06 Age -.02 -.27 -5.4 . 001 Legislative status -.12 -.10 -2.1 .04 Legislative chamber .35 .17 3.4 .001 Legislative leader .21 .13 2.5 .01 Budget Leader .13 .07 1.4 .15 Funds72h .07 . 10 1.9 .05 Statewide oppty. .07 . 10 2.1 .04 n=357, R2=. 17, adjusted R2=. 15, intercept=. 15

Seven of the variables are significant at .06 or less. The coefficients for five of these variables - age, legislative chamber, legislative leadership, funds that could be raised within 72-hours, statewide opportunity - are in the expected direction. A comparison of the standardized regression coefficients shows that age (beta=-.27) is the strongest predictor of statewide ambition. Its impact on the 236 dependent variable is more than double the impact of all but one of the other significant independent variables. After age, legislative chamber (beta=.17) exerts the most influence on statewide ambition. Legislators serving in the upper chamber were more likely than those serving in the lower chamber to think to some degree about moving up to statewide office. Interpretation of the other significant independent variables is fairly straightforward. Legislators viewed as leaders in their current posts were more likely than others to think about being elected statewide (beta=.13). The more money legislators thought they could raise within a 72-hour time period, the more likely they were to think about holding statewide office (beta=.10). The more turnover legislators perceived in statewide offices within the next two election cycles, the more likely they were to have statewide ambition (beta=.10). Gender is significant at .06. Based on bivariate analysis, the relationship is in the expected direction. Women were more likely than men to think about holding statewide office. Legislative status is significant at .04 but its influence on statewide ambition was different than anticipated. We expected that the more professional the legislature, the more likely its members would be to think they would someday hold statewide office. Legislators 237 serving in full-time legislatures considered officeholding a full-time career and had access to key resources (staff, media contacts, constituency services, campaign donations) necessary to run for statewide office. As a result, we thought they would have more desire to advance in their political careers and more resources to do so than legislators serving in mixed or part-time legislatures. Consequently, we expected full-time legislators to be confident about someday holding statewide office. The analysis does not confirm this expectation. The negative coefficient indicates that the more professional the legislature was, the less likely its members were to think they would hold statewide office. We can think of two reasons for this relationship. First, legislators serving in full-time legislatures might not have considered running for most statewide offices to be a move up. Instead, they may have assessed remaining in the legislature and becoming part of the leadership as much of a career advancement as election to statewide office. Second, those serving in full-time legislatures may be more inclined to think about running for Congress than statewide office because they preferred legislative to executive responsibilities. The one variable that is not significant at .10 or less is leadership on budget issues. The variable is included because we expect it to be significant for male state legislators. 238 Using these same variables (excluding gender), we ran separate correlation matrices and regressions for female and male state legislators. For both groups, correlations between statewide ambition and the independent variables and among the independent variables are not high; none exceed r=.3 0 Results of both of the regressions are displayed in Table 62. As indicated, the variance in statewide ambition accounted for by the combined effect of the independent variables is 13% for women and 16% for men. 239 Table 62. Regression of statewide ambition on seven independent variables: by gender

B Beta T Sig T Women Variables (Men) Age -.02 -.26 -4.1 .001 (-.02) (-.28) (-3.3) ( .001) Legislative status -.12 -.11 -1. 66 . 10 (-.15) (-.28) (-1.45) (.15) Legislative chamber .38 . 18 2 .91 . 01 (.32) (.16) ( 1.72) (.09) Legislative leader .28 .17 2.72 . 01 (.07) (.04) ( -46) (.65) Budget leader .02 .01 .20 .85 (.33) (.18) ( 2.11) (.04) Funds72h .09 . 13 2.04 . 04 (.03) (.04) ( -50) (.62) Statewide oppty. .07 . 11 1.76 .08 (.07) (.10) ( 1.14) (.26) n=231, R2=.16, adjusted R2=.13, intercept= -.25 (n=126, R2=.21, adjusted R2=.16, intercept^ .17)

Age is the only independent variable to reach statistical significance (p<.001) in both equations. The impact of age on the statewide ambition of female and male state legislators is identical: b=-.02 in both equations. A comparison of the standardized regression coefficients within each regression also indicates that age is the 240 strongest predictor of statewide ambition for both sexes: for women, beta=-.26; for men, beta=-.28. The negative direction of the coefficients shows that age dampened statewide ambition. Regardless of gender, older state legislators were less likely than their younger colleagues to think somewhat about holding statewide office. In addition to age, the analysis suggests that women's statewide ambition is affected by three other independent variables: legislative chamber, legislative leader, and immediate money. In contrast, men's statewide ambition is influenced by only one other independent variable: budget leader. In regard to women's statewide ambition, legislative chamber is significant at .01 and is the second best predictor (beta=.18). The positive direction of the coefficient suggests that legislators in the upper chamber were more likely than those in the lower chamber to think about moving up to statewide office. The legislative leadership variable has a similar impact on women's statewide ambition. Legislative leadership is significant at .01 and is the third strongest predictor (beta=.17). The positive direction of the coefficient indicates that women viewed as legislative leaders were more likely to think about holding statewide office than women who were not viewed as leaders. Neither the significance level nor the regression coefficient 241 indicates that legislative leadership had any effect on the statewide ambition of male state legislators. Intuitively, this difference in influence seems logical. The number of women viewed as legislative leaders is small. Those who attain that distinction would likely be the target of those groups and individuals who were interested in recruiting women to run for higher office. As a result, women who were perceived as leaders might be more confident than those who were not to think they could win their party's backing, attract media and voter attention, and raise enough money to compete effectively for statewide office. Men who were considered legislative leaders were greater in number, and as a result, less inclined to consider that this attribute would provide them with any advantage in seeking higher office. A second variable that appears to affect women and men differently is the amount of immediate money legislators think they can raise. For women, this variable is significant at .04. The positive direction of the coefficient (beta=.13) indicates that the more immediate money a woman anticipated she could raise, the more likely she was to think to some degree about holding statewide office. Neither the significance level (p=.62) nor the regression coefficient (beta=.04) indicates that the ability to raise immediate money significantly affected men's statewide ambition. One possible explanation for this 242 difference is that raising money quickly may be a better measure of women's overall fundraising capabilities than it is for men. Men who could not raise a lot of money quickly still believed that they could eventually raise enough money to run credible statewide campaigns. The opposite may be true for women. Women who could not quickly raise significant amounts of money believed they could not raise enough money to be viable candidates for statewide office. Leadership on budget issues is another variable that appears to have a different effect on the statewide ambition of women and men. For female state legislators, neither the significance level (p=.85) nor the regression coefficient (beta=.01) indicates that being a leader on budget issues significantly affected their statewide ambition. For male state legislators, this variable is significant at .04. The positive regression coefficient (beta=.18) indicates that male state legislators who were leaders on budget issues had more statewide ambition than those who were not leaders. We do not have a good explanation about why this variable affects men's statewide ambition differently than it affects men's. Perhaps women who are leaders on budget issues expected they could be more influential in shaping budget matters by staying in the legislature than by running for statewide office. Based on this analysis and our experience working with women politicians, we think that women's ambition for higher 243 office often relies more on external cues regarding political viability than does men's. In regard to statewide ambition, being accepted as leader and having the ability to quickly raise significant amounts of money are examples of external cues that affected women's but not men's assessments about someday holding statewide office.

CONGRESSIONAL AMBITION We anticipated that many of the same variables that influenced statewide ambition similarly affected Congressional ambition. Consequently, we included several of these variables in the regression of Congressional ambition on seven independent variables. Of the seven independent variables, five are from the statewide regression model: gender, age, legislative chamber, budget leader, and funds that could be raised within 72-hours. Congressional opportunity and leadership on women's issues are the two variables in the Congressional ambition model that were not included in the statewide ambition model. The Congressional opportunity variable is similar to and replaces the statewide opportunity variable. This variable is based on legislators' assessments about whether their members of Congress (both U.S. Senators and their U.S. House member) were likely to retain their current offices over the next two election cycles. Our expectation is that the more turnover state legislators expected at the 244 Congressional level, the more ambition they would have to run at that level. The leadership on women's issues variable is added because we thought that it would influence women1s Congressional ambition in three ways. First, women viewed as leaders on women's issues might think their policy concerns could best be dealt with at the Congressional level. Second, these women might expect that because of their leadership on women's issues they could raise significant amounts of money from supporters of these issues to mount competitive Congressional campaigns. Third, women with such a track record might be encouraged by their party to seek Congressional office if party leaders perceived gender-related issues would be key campaign themes. We did not expect this factor to be a significant one in regard to men's Congressional ambition. We did not think that by being a leader on women's issues men would derive the same electoral benefits as women. Table 63 is the correlation matrix summarizing the relationship among the variables in the Congressional ambition model. The bivariate correlations are low-to- moderate and suggest no immediate problems with multicollinearity. 245 Table 63. Correlation matrix for Congressional ambition and seven independent variables

Variables Y3 x, x2 X 3 X 4 X 5 X 6 X 7 1 O • CJ Cong, ambition (Y3) 1.0 • 0 .07 .16 .06 .19 .07 Gender (X.,) -.13 .03 .00 -.43 -.04 -.06 Age (X2) .09 .03 .11 .02 -.00 Legislative chamber (X3) .13 .09 .20 -.12 Budget leader (X4) .15 .06 .04 Women's Issues Leader (X5) .11 .11 Funds72h (X6) -.00 Congressional opportunity (X7)

Notes n=397 Variable Coding:

CONGRESSIONAL AMBITION (Y3) 0= have not thought about running at this level 1= thought about running for one or more Congressional offices but do not think election at Congressional level is likely 2= thought about running for one or more Congressional offices and tnink election at this level is likely;

GENDER (Xj) 1= female 2= male;

AGE (X2) interval data;

LEGISLATIVE CHAMBER (X3) l=state house 2“state senate;

BUDGET LEADER (XA) 0= no 1= yes;

WOMEN’S ISSUES LEADER (X5> 0= no 1= yes;

FUNDS72H (Xj) 1= under $10,000 2= $10,001-20,000 3= $20,001-30,000 4= over $30,000;

CONGRESSIONAL OPPORTUNITY (X7) 0= none 1- one 2= 2-3 246

Table 64 displays the results of the regression of Congressional ambition on the seven independent variables. This analysis indicates that the independent variables explain 15% of the total variance in Congressional ambition.

Table 64. Results of regression of Congressional ambition on seven independent variables

Variables B Beta T Sig T

Gender .12 .07 1.32 . 19 Age -.03 -.31 -6.70 . 001 Legislative chamber .09 .05 .94 .35 Budget leader .25 .14 2.94 .001 Women1s issues leader .17 .07 1.33 . 18 Funds72h .12 .18 3.69 .01 Congressional oppty. .07 .07 1. 39 . 17 n=397, R2=.17, adjusted R2=. 15, intercept=l . 08

Three of the seven variables are significant at .05 or less. The coefficients for all three significant variables are in the expected direction. Once again age is the strongest predictor. The negative coefficient (beta=-.31) indicates that as age increased, ambition for Congressional office decreased. The independent variable measuring the amount of money officeholders thought they could raise within 72-hours is 247 significant at .01. The relationship is in the expected direction and is the second strongest predictor (beta=.18) of Congressional ambition. The more money legislators thought they could raise in a short period of time, the more likely they were to have some degree of Congressional ambition. Budget leadership is significant at .001 and the third strongest predictor (beta=.14) of Congressional ambition. The relationship is in the expected direction. Those who were leaders on budget matters were more likely than those who were not to aspire to Congressional office. Based on the bivariate analysis discussed in Chapter V, we expected gender might be significant, but unlike the statewide solution gender is not close to reaching significance in the Congressional ambition model (p<.19). Even when significance is ignored, the weakness of the standardized regression coefficient (beta=.07) suggests gender had little influence on Congressional ambition. Neither legislative chamber nor women's issues leader reaches significance. To see if the overall pattern in this analysis exists in similar form for both female and male state legislators, we used the same variables (excluding gender) in separate regressions for each group. The results of these regressions are reported in Table 65. 248 Table 65. Results of regression of Congressional ambition on six independent variables: by gender

B Beta T Sig T Women Variables (Men)

Age -.03 -.33 -5.61 .001 (-.03) -.35) (-4.33) (.001) Legislative chamber .27 . 13 2.22 . 03 (-.12) -.06) ( -.67) (.50) Budget leader .26 .15 2.53 .01 ( .31) . 17) ( 2.02) (.05) Women's issues leader .17 .11 1.82 . 07 (-.17) -.06) ( -.77) (.44) Funds72h . 17 .24 4.14 .001 ( -05) .06) ( . 69) (.49) Congressional oppty. .07 .07 1.39 . 17 ( .07) . 06) ( .77) (.45) n=255, R2=.20, adjusted R2= 18, intercept= .25 (n=142, R2=.17, adjusted R2= 13, intercept=2 . 67)

The variance in Congressional ambition accounted for by the combined effects of the independent variables is 18% for women and 13% for men. Age and budget leadership are the only variables that reach significance at .10 or less in both equations. The coefficients are in the expected direction. Regardless of gender, age had a negative effect 249 on Congressional ambition: as legislators aged their ambition for Congressional office waned. A comparison of the standardized regression coefficients in each of the equation indicates that age is the strongest predictor of Congressional ambition: for women, beta=-.33; for men beta=- .35. Leadership on budget issues positively affects Congressional ambition: for women, beta=15; for men, beta=.17. Regardless of gender, those legislators viewed as leaders on budget issues were more likely to think to some degree about holding Congressional office than those not viewed as leaders on these issues. This finding suggests that the reason leadership on budget issues did not significantly affect women's statewide ambition was because those who were leaders on these issues were more interested in running for Congressional office instead. State legislators assessments of the amount of money they could raise within 72-hours is significant at .001 for women but did not even come close to reaching significance for men (p<.49). This independent variable is the second most powerful predictor (beta=.24) of women's Congressional ambition. Bivariate and regression analysis on statewide ambition also found that women's assessments about their ability to raise money exerted a stronger influence on their career plans than it did on men's. 250 In regard to the other variables in the two models, legislative chamber and leadership on women's issues are both significant at .07 or less for women but are not significant for men. The coefficients of these variables are in the expected positive direction. The impact of legislative chamber (beta=.13) and women's issues leader (beta=.ll) on women's Congressional ambition are similar. Women in the upper chamber and women's issues leaders were more likely to think about running for Congressional office than women without those characteristics. Congressional opportunity does not reach significance at .10 in either eguation. The lack of relationship between Congressional opportunity and Congressional ambition may be because anticipated turnover at the Congressional level was not translated by most state legislators into opportunities for them to run for Congress. Instead, they may have assessed that open Congressional seats would likely attract incumbent statewide officeholders as candidates. As a result, Congressional vacancies actually might influence statewide ambition more than it does Congressional ambition.

SUMMARY Our summary begins with a discussion of the impact of gender and age on the three dependent variables. We then identify the overall patterns that emerged regarding the variables that affect state legislators' future career plans. 251 The impact of gender on Congressional ambition did not come close to reaching significance (p<.19). Yet, gender significantly affected the number of additional years state legislators planned to remain in office (p<.01, beta=.ll) and their statewide ambition (p<.06, beta=-.09). Male state legislators were willing to spend more additional time in office than female state legislators. Female state legislators were more likely than their male counterparts to express statewide ambition. As did our bivariate findings, these multivariate findings clearly challenged arguments that female state legislators were less ambitious than their male colleagues. Our analysis also showed that the strongest predictor in each of our models was age. As state legislators aged, the number of additional years they were willing to spend in office decreased.30 The older state legislators were, the less likely they were to have either statewide ambition31 or Congressional ambition.32 These findings matched those from bivariate analysis which showed age significantly affected officeholders' career decisions. As for the overall pattern in regard to state legislators' statewide ambition, multivariate analysis showed that in addition to age three other independent

30For men, beta=-.42; for women, beta=-.30. 31 for men, beta=-.28; for women, beta=-.26. 32For men, beta=-.35; for women beta=-.33. 252 variables significantly affected women's ambition at this level: legislative chamber, legislative leader, and immediate money. Women who served in the upper chamber of their legislatures or who were legislative leaders were more likely to have statewide ambition than their counterparts without these attributes. The more immediate money female state legislators thought they could raise, the more likely they were to have ambition at this level. In contrast, budget leadership was the only independent variable in addition to age to significantly affect the statewide ambition of male state legislators. Male state legislators who were leaders on budget issues were more likely to have statewide ambition than those who were not leaders on these issues. In regard to Congressional ambition, three independent variables, in addition to age, significantly affected women's ambition at this level: legislative chamber, budget leader, and immediate money. As with their statewide ambition, men's Congressional ambition was influenced only by age and budget leadership. For both female and male state legislators, being a leader on budget issues had a positive effect on their Congressional ambition. The interpretation of the other variables that affected women's Congressional ambition is straightforward. As was the case with their statewide ambition, female state legislators in the upper chamber were more likely to have Congressional 253 ambition than those in the lower chamber. In addition, the more immediate money female state legislators thought they could raise, the more likely they were to have Congressional ambition. A comparison of the regression equations for the statewide ambition and Congressional ambition of female state legislators shows two different patterns in regard to the relative influence of the independent variables. Although age was the strongest predictor in both models, it had a greater impact on women's Congressional ambition than it did on their statewide ambition. This was also the case for the immediate money variable. The ability to raise immediate money exerted more of an influence on women's Congressional ambition than it did on their statewide ambition. The reverse pattern is found in regard to the impact of legislative chamber on the two dependent variables. The legislative chamber in which women state legislators served was a stronger predictor of their statewide ambition than it was of their Congressional ambition. Being a leader on budget issues was the only independent variable that significantly impacted women's ambition at one level but not their ambition at the other. As noted, women who were leaders on budget issues were more likely to have Congressional ambition than those who were 254 not leaders on these Issues. Being a budget leader had no impact on women's statewide ambition. For male state legislators, the patterns in the two ambition equations were only slightly different. Age was the strongest predictor in both models but it had a greater impact on men's Congressional ambition than it did on their statewide ambition. Being a leader on budget issues similarly influenced both men's statewide ambition and their Congressional ambition. Overall, our analysis suggests that women's ambition, as compared to men's, was affected more by their officeholding experience and expertise. Serving in the upper chamber and having the ability to raise significant amounts of immediate money were independent variables that affected women's ambition but not men's. Age and budget leadership were the only two independent variables that impacted, at one level or the other, the ambition of both female and male state legislators. In the next and final chapter, we summarize the findings from the four analytical chapters. We also discuss the implications of these findings. CHAPTER VII CONCLUSION: STRATEGIC CHOICES

The four previous chapters examined the impact of various factors on the political career choices officeholders made at strategic points in their careers. In this concluding chapter, we return to the three major theories introduced in Chapter I and reviewed in Chapter II: political socialization and gender roles, structural political barriers, and ambition. We discuss to what extent these theories are useful in explaining the political careers of women who were successful in winning election to public office. At this point, it is important to reiterate that our sample includes only women and men who were successful in winning election to public office. As a result, it is an open question whether our findings apply to female and male politicians who decided not to seek office or to those who ran for office but were never elected. IMPACT OF GENDERED SOCIALIZATION AND ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES As previously noted, factors related to gendered political socialization and role responsibilities raised questions about women's suitability, as well as their

255 256 availability, for holding public office. Pre-1980 research on women's political careers led us to expect that female and male officeholders had different experiences running for public office. Scholars argued that the factors that affected women's decisions to seek office were different from the ones that affected men's decisions. Women were said to run out of a sense of civic duty or because of a concern for issues rather than because of political ambition. In addition, scholars argued that women were socialized in ways that minimized their formal credentials for holding office. As a result, they waited until political and other adult experiences convinced them they were gualified to run or until they were encouraged by others to do so. Even women who thought they were gualified to hold office delayed running until family circumstances favored their taking on the responsibilities associated with public officeholding. Post—1980s studies on women's political careers led us to expect fewer gender differences in the experiences officeholders encountered during their electoral careers. The same factors that affected men's decisions about running for office affected women's decisions as well. One exception was the role that family circumstances played in officeholders' decisions to seek public office. Women were still thought to be more sensitive than men about the impact of their political careers on family relationships. 257 Our findings correspond with those from the more recent studies. The data confirmed that political socialization and role responsibilities had certain effects on women's political careers but that women's and men's political careers were quite similar overall. In general, the factors that motivated most women to seek office were the same factors that motivated most men: feeling qualified to hold office, being encouraged by others to run, and having a concern for issues. As expected, gender affected the importance officeholders attached to favorable family circumstances but the relationship was not a strong one. Decided majorities of both female and male respondents rejected favorable family circumstances as important factors in their decision to first seek office, although women were less likely to do so than men. As for the age at which officeholders started their careers, the data confirmed women were likely to be older than men when they first ran for office. The data revealed that regardless of family status, the median age at which women started their careers was 4-6 years older than the median age at which men first ran. These findings challenged arguments that childcare responsibilities were the major reason for women's delayed entry in public office. Instead, the findings suggested that a combination of factors including family responsibilities affected the age at which women began their careers: women's own 258 expectations about their role in public life, their lack of access to the traditional routes and resources used to seek office, and women's perceptions about how voters would judge their candidacies. The data confirmed expectations that gender affected the decisions parents of preschool children made about whether to run for office and, if they did, at what level. Nearly three times as many men than women started their political careers while still caring for children five- years-old or younger. Female candidates who were parents of preschool children, were the only group of women more likely than their male counterparts to start their careers at the local level. After running for office for the first time, gender and role responsibilities exerted little influence on the decisions officeholders made about their careers. Women and men progressed at a comparable pace from one election to the other. They agreed on the factors that were important in their decisions to seek their current posts. Again, a majority of officeholders ran because they felt qualified to hold that particular office, others encouraged them to run for that office, and the office dealt with the issues they cared about. The data showed that female and male officeholders made similar electoral moves to reach their current office. Over half of experienced officeholders ran for and lost at least 259 one election before being elected to their current post. A substantial majority of state legislators were elected to at least one other office before winning election to their current one. The only effect that gender had on electoral moves was in regards to those made by legislators serving in the upper chamber. Female state senators were more likely than their male colleagues to serve at both the local and state house level before reaching the state senate. As anticipated, the data revealed that gender affected the age at which officeholders reached their current state legislative positions. Given that women started their careers at an older age than men and progressed at a similar pace as their male colleagues, women were older than men when they reached their current legislative office. Still, a substantial majority of both female and male officeholders reached their current positions at ages that theoretically afforded enough additional time in office to pursue multiple career options. Given these findings, we conclude that the impact of gendered socialization and role responsibilities on the electoral decisions women state legislators made to reach their current office was minimal. We now turn our attention to a summary of the impact of these factors on the experiences officeholders' encountered once they were serving at the state legislative level. 260 Scholars argued that because of their primary role in the family and their image as political "outsiders", female officeholders found it more difficult than male officeholders to balance demands in their public life with demands in their private lives. They also suggested that elected women were treated differently by their colleagues. Our data only partly supported these arguments. In regard to the effect of gender on balancing demands and dealing with conflict, the data produced mixed results. Female and male officeholders reported similar degrees of difficulty dealing with losing, competing with others, and at times having to compromise their convictions. Gender also had no effect on officeholders' difficulty dealing with their loss of privacy, dividing their time to meet many different demands, or having less time to spend with their spouse. The data revealed that gender affected officeholders attitudes towards being criticized, arguing about issues, and spending less time with their children in order to meet their officeholding demands. In all three instances, women were more likely than men to express difficulty in handling these demands. As for relationships, the data showed that gender did not impact how officeholders felt their political careers affected their relationships with spouses and other adult family members. Gender did influence the impact 261 officeholders felt their careers had on their relationships with their children, close personal friends and colleagues in nonpolitical careers. Women were significantly more likely than men to report that their political careers strained their relationships with their close personal friends and nonpolitical colleagues. Men were significantly more likely than women to note that their careers strained their relationships with their children. When it came to evaluating their competency in a variety of roles, a similar majority of both female and male officeholders felt competent as elected officials, spouses and parents. But significantly more women than men felt less competent than they would like to be or even incompetent as friends and as income providers.33 These latter findings indicated that women were experiencing role strain in different areas of their lives than the literature previously indicated. Instead of reporting doubts about their competency as elected officials, spouses or parents, women were concerned about their role as income providers. This finding supported the notion that feelings of marginality for women were being

33In regard to their role as income providers, nearly three times as many women than men reported that they were not employed outside of their political careers. Although both female and male officeholders reported identical median family incomes of $60,000 to $74,999, female officeholders noted significantly lower median personal incomes. The median personal income for women state legislators was $25,000 to $29,999 while the median personal income for male state legislators was double that at $50,000 to $59,000. 262 replaced with the pressures of becoming superwomen: women who were not only competent as family caretakers and public officials but also as family wage earners. The only hint that men were feeling any strain in balancing the demands placed upon them in their various roles was that men were more likely than women to acknowledge that officeholding strained their relationships with their children. But as noted, despite that acknowledgement, men were as likely as women to feel competent as parents.34 As for their treatment in office, the data showed few gender differences in how state legislators perceived they were treated in a variety of situations they encountered. Gender significantly affected how state legislators perceived they were treated in four of twelve specific situations. Women were more likely than men to report being looked to for leadership on women's issues and being part of informal networks.35 Men were more likely than women to report being looked to for leadership in formulating public policy in committees and making committee assignments. Although there were differences in the experiences and treatment female and male officeholders encountered, most

34Future research may help determine upon what criteria men and women judge themselves to be competent in these various roles and whether their evaluations correspond with those of their spouse, children and others with whom they have important relationships. 35The relationship between gender and leadership on women's issues was particularly strong, p<.001, taub=.40. None of the other relationships exceeded p<.05, taub=.08. 263 were not strong. These findings challenged arguments that female officeholders found it more difficult than male officeholders to balance demands in their private lives with demands in their public lives. They also challenged perceptions that most elected women were treated as political outsiders. The finding that five times as many women as men were looked to for leadership on women's issues added weight to arguments that female officeholders were more likely than their male colleagues to treat women's issues as legislative priorities. In sum, the most significant impact that socialization and role responsibilities had on women's electoral careers was on the age at which they began their careers and their treatment on women's issues. Given these findings, we conclude that the overall impact of gendered socialization and role responsibilities on women's political careers was not as strong as previous research suggested.

IMPACT OF STRUCTURAL POLITICAL BARRIERS Findings from research done prior to the mid-1980s suggested that structural political barriers were another set of factors that adversely affected women's opportunities to run for public office. Scholars argued that female candidates received less party support and raised less money than their male counterparts. Systematic studies conducted since the mid-1980s found few gender differences in the level of party support candidates received or the amount of 264 money they raised when running in similar election circumstances. Our findings were in line with these latter studies. The data revealed few gender differences in the level of party or financial support candidates received. In the instances in which gender significantly affected these factors, the relationships were not strong and in an unexpected direction. Party Support In regard to party support, the data showed that female officeholders were recruited and supported as much as male officeholders in all previous elections examined. As for the level of party support officeholders thought they would receive in their next bid for office, female state legislators running for reelection were more likely than their male counterparts to expect to be either recruited or supported. Gender had no effect on the level of support expected by officeholders running for higher office. As for hypothetical races for higher office, the data showed that female legislators under most election scenarios were more likely than their male colleagues to think their party's involvement would be important. Compared to male state legislators, women state legislators were more likely to consider their party's endorsement as a necessary condition for them to seek higher office in either a race against an incumbent or for an open seat. Women state legislators also were significantly more likely than their 265 male colleagues to state that if they were to run to fill a sudden vacancy, they immediately would ask their party for support. In regard to non-electoral party activities, the data showed that gender had no effect on the treatment officeholders reported they received in partisan caucuses. In addition, when officeholders were asked how often they tried to attend political party activities, women were significantly more likely than men to state that they always tried to meet this demand. Fundraising Our findings supported findings from studies made since the mid-1980s which showed that female and male candidates running in comparable races raised similar amounts of money. We found no evidence that women raised less money than men or that they were more likely than men to consider fundraising to be difficult. The data confirmed having sufficient campaign funds was a critical factor in officeholders' campaigns. The data did not confirm that gender affected officeholders' current attitudes towards fundraising. Regardless of gender, about half of all state legislators found asking for campaign contributions to be somewhat difficult. The other half split about evenly and found fundraising to be very difficult or not difficult at all. The data showed that gender significantly affected the direction in which 266 officeholders' attitudes about fundraising had evolved. Women were more likely than men to report that asking for money was easier now than it was when they first ran for office. In regard to the effect of gender on fundraising for specific races, the data produced unexpected results. In most electoral circumstances, gender had no effect on the amount of money officeholders raised. In those elections in which gender significantly affected fundraising efforts, the data showed that women raised more money than their male counterparts. As for future races, gender had no effect on the amount of money officeholders expected to raise in their next election. Gender also had no effect on the amount of money officeholders thought they could raise quickly. The only area in which women's fundraising efforts lagged behind men's was in donating personal or family money to their campaigns. The amount of personal or family money women were willing to invest was lower than the amount their male colleagues were willing to commit. The reluctance that women had about investing personal or family funds in their campaigns might have been related to the fact that women earned less than men and were concerned about their competency as income providers. Also, if men earned more than women, they may have had a greater willingness to use "their" money because if they were to lose it, they had 267 greater confidence in replacing it. As a result, men were not as concerned as women about the impact that losing money invested in a campaign would have on overall family finances. Overall, the data on party support and campaign fundraising did not show that women as candidates or as officeholders experienced discrimination in either critical campaign activity. These findings corresponded with results from other post-1980s studies but were at odds with anecdotal information from that time period that was widely published in the popular press. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, women candidates and their supporters continued to argue that women did not receive the same level of party support or financial backing as male candidates.

IMPACT OF AMBITION As was discussed in Chapter II, most previous research on women's political ambition was based on information from party activists or convention delegates. These studies concluded that female party elites were less ambitious about holding office than their male counterparts. When Carroll (1985b) examined the ambition of state legislators and local elected officials who were in office in 1981, she found no significant gender differences. The results from both bivariate and multivariate analysis of our data closely paralleled Carroll's findings. 268 The data confirmed that gender did not significantly affect state legislators' ambition. Regardless of gender, nearly 70% of state legislators thought about running for at least one other office. There was no significant difference between women and men regarding the point in their careers, or under what conditions, they first considered running for another office. Gender had little direct effect on the offices that elected officials aspired to hold sometime in their careers. More than half of those in the lower house thought they would move up to a seat in the upper house. About a fifth of all state legislators thought they would be elected to statewide office or win a seat in the U.S. House. A handful expected to be elected to the U.S. Senate. When age was controlled for, gender was found to significantly affect state legislators' ambition in two instances. First, women state legislators aged 45-55 were more likely than their male counterparts to think about running for statewide office. Second, male legislators under the age of 45 were more likely than their female counterparts to think about running for a seat in the U.S. House or for a seat in the U.S. Senate. The data confirmed that age had a direct effect on state legislators' ambition. Multivariate analysis showed that age was the best predictor of ambition. Regardless of 269 gender, as state legislators aged, their ambition for higher office decreased. Multivariate analysis also suggested that women's ambition for higher office, as compared to men's, was affected more by their officeholding experience and expertise. Serving in the upper chamber, being a leader on women's issues, and having the ability to quickly raise significant amounts of money were independent variables that affected women's but not men's ambition. Age and being a leader on budget matters were the only two independent variables that similarly impacted, at one level or the other, the ambition of both female and male state legislators. Another gauge used to measure ambition was the number of additional years officeholders were willing to serve in public office. Bivariate analysis showed that male state legislators younger than 45 were willing to remain in office for more additional years than their female counterparts. We speculated that this latter finding was tied to the fact that many women this age were still involved with family responsibilities and were either reluctant or unable to think about long-term career commitments. Gender had no effect on the number of additional years officeholders 45 or older were willing to remain in office. Multivariate analysis found that gender, age, statewide ambition, Congressional ambition, and legislative status 270 significantly affected the number of additional years state legislators were willing to remain in public office. Men were willing to spend more additional time in office than women. The more resolved legislators were to seeking either statewide or Congressional office, the more additional years they were willing to spend in office. The more professional the legislature, the more years its members were willing to remain as elected officials. Except for Congressional ambition, these independent variables had a similar affect on the number of additional years female and male state legislators were willing to remain in public office.36 Regardless of gender, age was the best predictor of the amount of additional time officeholders were willing to remain in office. Because of the nature of our sample, our findings cannot be used to refute arguments that female politicians in general have lower levels of ambition than male politicians. Our findings do challenge arguments that elected women have less political ambition than men. Our data showed that the career paths along which female and male state legislators thought their careers would move were quite similar.

36Congressional ambition did not significantly affect the number of additional years male state legislators were willing to spend in public office. 271

IMPLICATIONS OF FINDINGS The bulk of the pre-1980 literature on women's political careers, which we reviewed in Chapter II and at the beginning of this chapter, argued that female officeholders and male officeholders made different decisions regarding their political careers. As discussed, more recent systematic studies - including this one - challenged those arguments. Our data found few gender differences in the decisions officeholders made at the start of and throughout their officeholding careers. Yet, the data showed that one factor, age, significantly affected the career choices officeholders made at each step in their careers. In the next two sections, we discuss the implications of the major negative findings and the pervasive influence of age. Negative Findings Findings from most studies on women's political careers suggested gendered political socialization and role responsibilities affected women's political careers in a number of ways: age at which they started their careers, level of office first sought, factors they considered important, career pace, type of personal support needed to seek office, balancing family demands with officeholding demands, and officeholding ambition. For the most part, the data did not confirm these expectations. 272 Gender did affect the age at which officeholders first ran but it did not affect the level of office they first sought. Regardless of family status, women were older than their male counterparts when they started their careers. Because public officeholding was a nontraditional career choice for most women, women were also expected to be more likely than their male colleagues to start their careers at the local level rather than at higher levels. The data did not confirm this expectation. Family responsibilities were also expected to affect the level of office women first sought. The data only partly confirmed this expectation. The data showed that the having children still at home did not affect the level at which officeholders ran for the first time. Yet, the data did show women candidates with preschool children were more likely than their male counterparts to start office at the local level. Women with children that age also were significantly less likely to run for office in the first place. Except for being somewhat more concerned with having favorable family circumstances, the factors that influenced women's decisions to seek office at each point in their careers were similar to factors that affected men's decisions. Female and male officeholders were equally as likely to report being encouraged by others to seek public office. Few men or women reported that either nonpolitical or political ambition were primary motivators for seeking a 273 particular office. Gender differences found in regard to the importance of issues, favorable political circumstances and feeling qualified to hold public office were minimal. For the most part, female and male officeholders did not travel different paths or progress at different career paces to reach their current office. Women were not more likely than men to lose their first or subsequent elections. Those serving in the state house ran for and held similar offices before being elected to that post. Having children still at home not only slowed the career pace of female officeholders but also the career pace of male officeholders. Although there were differences in the way in which female and male officeholders assessed their difficulty in handling competing demands in their public and private lives, there was little evidence that women felt marginal in their family or officeholding roles. Except for the expectation of female leadership on women's issues, there were no strong differences in the way in which female and male officeholders perceived they were treated by their political colleagues. These findings did not support arguments that most elected women were treated as political outsiders. We think that a major reason our findings, as well as those from other post-1980s systematic studies, contradict earlier research is that the political environment over the 274 last twenty years, like the public environment in general, became more receptive of women as participants. Over this time period there became less of a distinction between the ways in which women and men were expected to live their private and public lives. Women were competing with men on a more equal footing in educational and occupational endeavors. As a result they had greater access to the routes and resources men traditionally used to reach office. The political system also evolved to allow more women candidates to enter from nontraditional routes. Our findings which suggested that female and male officeholders with children had similar experiences in their political careers mirrors what has taken place over the past two decades in the overall paid labor force. Whereas, mothers working outside the home use to be the exception, it is now the rule.37 Mothers of preschool children still tend to work inside the home; if they do work outside the home it is generally in part-time positions. This latter pattern is similar to the one we found in regard to women candidates who were parents of preschool children. They either did not run for elective office or they ran at the local level in order to minimize the time they spend away from their family.

37In 1992, 67% of women with children younger than 18 had full- or part-time jobs; 31% of women with infants younger than 1 worked full-time (Stratton 1993). 275 In general, we did not think these findings meant the women and men reached the point where they shared equally in the day-to-day care of children. Instead these findings suggested that more men may have, out of both necessity and design, shared enough of the household and childcare duties that it made it possible for greater numbers of women to pursue outside the home interests, including running for political office. Another reason that the political careers of female and male state legislators became more similar in the 1980s and 1990s was because voters were more supportive of women serving in public office. With greater voter acceptance, women candidates were able to focus on issues beyond women's role in pubic service. During the 1992 elections, 63% of the voters agreed with the statement that it would be better to have half the government offices filled by women. Even though that figure dropped to 53% after the hype of the "Year of the Women" subsided, it still suggested that voter support for women in public office was solid. Increased public acceptance of women in public office and increased numbers of women actually serving in office translated into a political environment in which most women perceived they were accepted and able to compete effectively with their male colleagues. Two other measures by which the data showed that women competed effectively with men were in winning party and financial support for their campaigns. 276 The data revealed no election in which women received less party support or raised less money than their male counterparts. In several instances women were more likely than men to have received party support or raised more money. Only when it came to contributing personal or family money to their campaigns did women's efforts in these area lag behind men's. These findings certainly challenged conventional wisdom. Why would this be the case? One possible answer was the level of office on which this study was focused. Running for most state legislative seats was not as competitive as running for offices at higher levels. Consequently, neither female nor male officeholders at this level found it difficult to win their party's support and raise adequate financial backing. Yet, the data showed that even in races for the more competitive full-time legislative seats, women received similar or greater levels of party support and raised comparable amounts of money. The data also showed that gender had no effect on the amount of money officeholders thought they could raise within a 72-hours. Perhaps, the differences between our findings and conventional wisdom was related to a difference in how each perceived how to measure the level of party support and amount of money candidates raised. While our data found that female state legislators either matched or exceeded the levels of party and financial support received by state 277 legislators, the data could not measure whether women had to exert more effort than men to achieve these outcomes. The data also could not confirm whether these findings were applicable to candidates at the statewide and federal level.38 These two factors may help account for why anecdotal information from our face-to-face interviews with women officeholders and popular perceptions about the effect of gender on party support and campaign fundraising are at odds with these findings. Women officeholders and their supporters have been widely quoted in the popular press as acknowledging that both major political parties were more receptive to women candidates. In addition, they agreed that viable women candidates were raising more money. Yet, female politicians continued to insist that women still did not enjoy equal status with men in the areas of party support and fundraising. They argued that women worked longer and harder to win support from their party and that they had to rely on nontraditional donors to finance their campaigns. Backers of women candidates noted that this was especially true for women who ran for higher office. Cindy Ewing, a board member of the New Mexico Women1s Foundation commented

38 Other data suggest that this is the case. Burrell (1993) found that since 1984 women candidates for the U.S. House have raised as much money or more than male candidates who were of the same party and faced similar election circumstances. 278 We can elect women to local political office, but when they try to get into the big leagues they hit a financial glass ceiling...(Koenenn 1991). Those involved directly in partisan politics echoed the same sentiments. Ginny Terzano, former press secretary for the Democratic National Committee acknowledged that 11 (w) omen still aren't on an equal footing with men when it comes to raising money" (Koenenn 1991). Anita Dunn, a former staffer at the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) added "(B)oth parties take a very conventional approach to recruitment. They look at the governors and the visible congressman. Recruitment is a very subjective process, depending on the same small, predominately male circle. And if you're a Democrat, the conventional wisdom is that you shouldn't run a candidate who's perceived as liberal, as are most Democratic women in the House. Sometimes 'liberal' is a code word for 'women' (Kaminer 1992:62). Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, a twenty-year veteran in the U.S. House, noted that in 1986 when Gary Hart vacated his U.S. Senate seat she was not even approached by her party to run. Instead, Schroeder explained that the party regulars "anointed" Representative Tim Wirth as the candidate. She pointed out that it did not matter to party leaders that Wirth had served in Congress for fewer years than Schroeder (Kaminer 1992). Some women candidates continued to believe that political parties were still more likely to recruit them to run in races in which their party had no hope of winning. Christine Todd Whitman, a New Jersey Republican who in 1990 279 almost defeated U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, thought that was true in her race. She posited that the Republican party never would have nominated a women to run against Bradley if they had thought that he was vulnerable (Kaminer 1992),39 There were numerous campaign war stories that further illustrated why supporters of women candidates were reluctant to accept findings that suggested women received similar levels of party and financial support. One such story is the following account describing the obstacles that then Representative Barbara Mikulski faced in her 1986 race for the U.S. Senate: In early 1986, Mikulski was 20 points ahead in the polls - a lead healthy enough to convince EMILY'S List members that she was a good bet, but apparently not sufficient enough to convince 'ole boy' funders in Washington...traditional funders shied away from the Mikulski campaign, complaining that her lead was due only to name recognition. They favored Rep. Mike Barnes, a popular and effective congressman ... and were convinced that Barnes would be the only candidate who could raise sufficient money to win the race. As supporters of women candidates, we have faced this skepticism before...without the $60,000 raised by EMILY's List...(t)he 'ole boys' judgment would have been confirmed...Mikulski would have had a very difficult time raising funds, and the outcome of the primary could have been very different from her overwhelming victory (EMILY's List 1986:1). Fast forward from 1986 to 1992 and a similar story was told about Barbara Christmas' campaign in Georgia's first congressional district:

39Yet in 1993, Whitman easily won her party's nomination to run against the vulnerable incumbent governor of New Jersey. She went on to win a plurality of the vote in a crowed field and was elected New Jersey's first woman governor. 280 She defeated six of the Good 011 Boys in the primary and then Buddy Deloach, hometown hero, in the runoff. And now the quick, lean candidate was making sure the Ol' Boy establishment - bankers and lawyers and real estate developers here use the term proudly - were opening their checkbooks to her in late tribute, since her hard-won Democratic nomination pretty much means a lock on a seat in Congress (Clines 1992 :A8) .40 Even when women candidates win the all out support of their party, they argued that they still had to rely on small contributions to make-up a bulk of the campaign funds they raised. This type of fundraising required that candidates spend considerably more time raising money than they would have to if they had contributors who donated in larger amounts. A Congressional Quarterly study of Carol Moseley Braun's successful 1992 campaign for the U.S. Senate, found that a third of her contributions were for sums of less than $200 (Donovan 1992). Contributions of that size represented less than 15% of the contributions raised by her male opponent. Anecdotal information tended to focus on the difficulties women candidates encountered trying to obtain their party's support and raise sufficient campaign funds. Experiences such as the ones recounted above were highlighted by those working to elect more women and, consequently, often received the most media attention. As a result, skepticism abounded when post-1980 analytical studies suggested that women and male officeholders received

A0 Christmas lost in the general election 43% to 57%. 281 similar levels of party and financial support. Additional research into the effort that female and male candidates made to gain similar levels of party support and to raise comparable amounts of money would give scholars a richer understanding of the role that gender played in these activities. In addition to showing that gender had little impact on the level of party support received or the amount of money raised, the data revealed few gender differences in regard to officeholders' ambition. Gender had no effect on the career plans officeholders were making regarding their next election. Over 80% of state legislators planned to seek reelection, while 6% planned to run for higher office. As for long-term ambition, female and male state house members were equally as likely to be interested in running for the state senate and to think they would someday hold that office. Regardless of gender, nearly half of state legislators thought about running for statewide office. Gender had no effect on whether these officeholders thought it was likely they would be elected to statewide office sometime in their careers. The same pattern was evident in state legislators' ambition for the U.S. House. The only office in which women expressed less ambition than men was the U.S. Senate: 14% of male state legislators as compared to 7% of female state legislators expressed interest in running for the U.S. Senate. Gender had no effect on 282 whether those with U.S. Senate ambition thought it was likely the would eventually be elected to that office. These findings were at odds with most other research that found women's political ambition to be lower than men's. Did these differences mean that women's political ambition has increased since the other studies were conducted? Perhaps, this was the case. Arguments that ambition was tied to officeholders' perceptions about their electoral opportunities and the political environment in which they worked suggest women's ambition should be higher now than it was in the 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1990s, more women serve in statewide and Congressional offices and voters were more willing to vote for women running for higher offices. If women perceived they had more opportunities to run for higher office, more women officeholders could be expected to be interested in seeking office at these levels. Our findings also suggested that Carroll (1985b) was correct in challenging whether the results of ambition studies on political elites and convention delegates adequately captured the ambition of elected women. Whereas those studies found women's ambition to be lower than men's, both Carroll's and our study of officeholders found few gender differences in regard to ambition. Having similar levels of ambition does not necessarily mean that female and male officeholders have similar 283 opportunities to compete for higher office. Despite the similar career paths that female and male state legislators expect to follow, male officeholders as a group had a distinct numbers advantages over female officeholders as a group in regard to political career advancement. First, there were five times as many men in the state legislatures as there were women. As a result, there was a much smaller pool of women than men who were likely to pursue office at any one level. The interpretation of the finding that nearly twenty percent of female and male state legislators thought it was likely that they would someday be elected to Congress took on a different meaning when one calculated the actual numbers behind that statistic. Based on the number of women and male state legislators serving in office in 1990, this finding told us that 1,240 male state legislators as compared to 275 women state legislators thought it was likely that they would someday be elected to Congress. For both female and male officeholders, age was the one factor that influenced every aspect of their political ambition. In the next section, we take a closer look at the impact of age on officeholders' political careers. Pervasive Influence of Age Multivariate analysis revealed that age was the best predictor of all three measures of officeholders1s ambition: the number of additional years they were willing to remain in office, their statewide ambition, and their Congressional 284 ambition. Regardless of gender, the data showed that as officeholders aged, the number of years they were willing to remain in office and their ambition for higher office decreased. Bivariate analysis showed that regardless of family status women started their careers at ages older than their male counterparts. Given that women progressed in their careers at a comparable career pace as men, their later entry into public office meant they would be older at each stage of their careers. We speculated that this would be a significant finding if being older than their male counterparts meant that women had fewer opportunities to advance in their careers than men. We suggested that because 80% of both female and male officeholders reached their age of influence in their current state legislative offices at ages 59 or younger that, at least theoretically, women's later start would not be a long-term obstacle. Yet, bivariate analysis showed men may still have an advantage in regard to running for higher office. Female officeholders under the age of 45 were the only group of women who were less likely than their male counterparts to think they would someday be elected to Congress. They also were the only group of women who planned to serve fewer additional years in elective office than the men in their age group. Men younger than 45 were nearly twice as likely 285 as their female counterparts to be willing to remain in office for more than twelve additional years. We speculated earlier that these two findings were probably related to the fact that women officeholders in this age group were the women most likely to be parents of preschool children. Because of their family responsibilities, women this age may not have had the opportunity to think about long-range career plans. As a result, their not planning to remain in office for an extended period of time may not necessarily be an adequate reflection of their ambition. On the other hand, for those young women in office who are single or without children, thinking about running for Congress or staying in office for an extended period of time may be at odds with their nonpolitical career plans or their desires to someday have a family. As discussed previously, young women may also have a more difficult time than young men believing they would receive the political support needed to make public officeholding a long-term career. To level the ambition playing field, not only would more women under the age of 45 need to run but also they would need to be as free as their male colleagues to pursue running for office at any level at which there were opportunities. Electing more young women to office may be only one way women could compete more effectively with men for higher 286 office. The age advantage that men have by starting their political careers at a younger age may also be somewhat mitigated by some studies which suggested that women's mid­ life years may be a new "prime” period in their life cycle. Mitchell and Helson (1990) explained By their early 50s, most college-educated women have launched their children, with feelings of accomplishment and with continuing contact to ease the sense of loss. Life at home becomes simpler, and the energy that went to children is redirected to the partner, work, the community, or self-development... women in their early 50s (compared to women in younger and older age groups) rated their quality of life the highest of all...the (50s) for women is a time when various forces converge to support them - the formerly subordinate and adapting sex - in a sense of entitlement and self-efficacy in the real world... (Mitchell and Helson 1990:453,465,468). In their study on how politicians decided whether or not to run for Congress, Fowler and McClure (1989) presented anecdotal information that supported the notion that women as compared to men may have less concerns about starting a new political career when they are middle-aged. The male politicians they interviewed expressed several concerns about starting a career in Congress at mid-life. They felt that such a move might have a negative impact on their financial situation. To serve in Congress, many would have to give-up the private sector jobs that they had been able to maintain as local politicians or as state legislators. Those involved with paying college tuition for their children were especially concerned with making any political move that might put them at financial risk. This was one of 287 the few times in which the fact that women were not the primary wage-earner in the family may work in their favor. For most women politicians, the income they would make as statewide elected officials or members of Congress would match or exceed the income they made as local officials or state legislators. As a result, a decision to seek higher office for most women would not have the same negative impact on family finances as it would for most men who would have to leave lucrative private sector jobs in order to make the move to Congress. Fowler and McClure compared the attitude that Louise Slaughter had about running for Congress with the attitudes of three males who were also middle age and considering a such a career move. They found Slaughter's assessment of the risks involved with such an effort to be more positive than the assessment made by her male colleagues. Fowler and McClure explained

(Slaughter) had less seniority at stake and little formal power to relinquish, but she also had a different conception of time. Like most women in politics she had got a later start, and was just beginning to feel the rush of ambition at an age when many men are already losing theirs. If Slaughter had run in the 3 0th Congressional District and won, she would have been nearly a decade older than the average man entering the House in 1985, but considerably younger than the two women who did begin congressional careers in that same year...Slaughter did not express the ambivalence about the value of serving in the House 288 that we heard from so many male politicians. She saw a seat in Congress as a challenging promotion, and there was never any question in her mind about the desirability of winning it (1989:110).41

Age also did not seem to be a major factor in the career plans of Ohio state treasurer, Mary Ellen Withrow. In 1993, at age 62, Withrow considered several political career options. She was on President Clinton's short list to be appointed U.S. Treasurer. Withrow had also been mentioned as a possible candidate in the 1994 Ohio governor's race. No matter which move she made, Withrow said her age would not have a negative impact on her future plans. She explained: "It's how productive you are. I think I'm building up speed rather than slowing down" (Leonard 1993:1C). Our findings did not support suggestions that older female state legislators were less reluctant than their male counterparts to make political career changes. Multivariate analysis revealed that the impact of age on officeholders'

41 Slaughter was first elected to local office at age 47. At the age of 53, she was elected to the New York assembly. Slaughter was still serving in her first term in the assembly, when she was recruited but declined to run in an open seat race for Congress. Two years later, at age 57, Slaughter successfully challenged the one-term incumbent and was elected to represent New York's 30th Congressional District in Congress. In 1992, she was reelected to her sixth term in Congress by winning in the New York's newly redistricted 28th Congressional District. 289 ambition was identical for both female and male state legislators. In final summation, this dissertation found that the political climate at the state legislative level was one in which women operated effectively as candidates and as officeholders. Our data show that the political careers of female and male state legislators who were serving in office in 1990 were quite similar. The factors that motivated women to enter and remain in public office were the same ones that motivated men to pursue public officeholding as a career. The shape of legislators' careers was heavily influenced by their age. Age was the one factor that exerted influence on officeholders' decisions at every stage of their careers. It was an especially powerful predicator of officeholders' long-range career goals. Overall, female and male officeholders moved at a similar pace and travelled nearly identical paths to reach election at the state legislative level. Throughout their careers, they received comparable levels of party and financial support. As for future plans, the data showed that female and male state legislators had similar levels of ambition for higher office. Given these findings, we expect that the number of women elected to higher office should continue to climb steadily over the next decade. Once more women are serving at all levels of office, researchers will have a better opportunity to determine to what extent having a substantial number of women in elected office affects both the public policy agenda and the way in which politics is practiced. REFERENCES Abramson, Paul R., John H. Aldrich, and David W. Rohde. 1987. Progressive Ambition among United States Senators: 1972-1988. Journal of Politics. 49:3-35. Abzug, Bella and Mim Kelber. 1984. Gender Gap: Bella Abzug's Guide to Political Power for American Women. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Alexander, Deborah and Kristi Andersen. 1991. Gender Role Beliefs as Frameworks for Candidate Evaluation. Presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL Amundsen, Kirsten. 1971. The Silenced Majority: Women and American Democracy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- Hall, Inc. Andersen, Kristi. 1975. Working Women and Political Participation, 1956-1972. American Journal of Political Science. 19:439-453. Andersen, Kristi and Elizabeth A. Cook. 1984. From Home to Workplace: Effects on Women's Political Attitudes. Presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL. Andersen, Kristi and Stuart J. Thorson. 1984. Congressional Turnover and the Election of Women. Western Political Quarterly. 37:143-156. Andersen, Margaret L. 1993. Thinking About Women: Sociological Perspectives on Sex and Gender. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. Barber, James David. 1965. The Lawmakers. New Haven: Yale University Press. Baxter, Sandra and Marjorie Lansing. 1980. Women and Politics: The Invisible Majority. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Beckwith, Karen. 1986. American Women and Political Participation: The Impact of Work. Generation and Feminism. New York: Greenwood Press.

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Strategic Choices: Career Decisions of Elected Officials QUESTIONNAIRE Strategic Choices: Career Decisions of Elected Officials

1. IN HHAT YEAR DID YOU FIRST RUN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE? ------(YeAr) 2. HHAT OFFICE DID YOU SEEK IN YOUR FIRST RUN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE?

(Check One) 1. School Board 8. Governor 2. City or loan Council 9. State Attorney General 3. County Office 10. ,, Secretary of State 4. Mayor 11. Other Stateaiide Position S. . State Representative 12. , U.S. Representative 6. State Senator 13. U.S. Senator 7. . .. Lt. Governor 20. OTHER (please specify

3. HHAT HERE THE HOST IHPORTANT FACTORS INFLUENCING YOUR DECISION TO RUN FOR THIS PARTICULAR OFFICE?

(Check One or Hore) 1 .____ FELT QUALIFIED to hold this particular office 2 .____ GOOD EXPOSURE for »y non-political career plans 3 .____ Office dealt «ith the ISSUES I CARED ABOUT 4 .____ Office IMPORTANT STEPPING STONE to higher office 5 .____ POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES aere favorable 6 .____ ENCOURAGEO BY OTHERS to seek this particular office 7 .____ FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES Bere favorable 8 .____ OTHER (please explain)______

4. DIO YOU HIN THE FIRST TIME YOU RAN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE? (Check Only One) 1 .____ No (Skip to Question 9) 2 .____ Yes (Proceed to Question 5)

5. HHAT HAS THE LENGTH OF THE TERM OF OFFICE TO UHICH YOU HERE FIRST ELECTED?

(Check One) 1 .____ ONE Year or less 5. - FIVE Years 2 .____ THO Years 6.____ SIX Years 3 .____ THREE Years 4 . FOUR Years 10. : OTHER (Please specify)

1 6. AFTER WINNING YOUR FIRST ELECTION, DID YOU EVER THINK ABOUT RETIRING FROM BEING AN ELECTED OFFICEHOLDER?

(Check One) 1 .____ NO 2 .__ _ Yes. but NOT SERIOUSLY 3 .____ Yes. SERIOUSLY

7. HOW LONG DID YOU SERVE IN THE FIRST OFFICE TO WHICH YOU MERE ELECTED?

(Check One) 1 .____ Aa STILL SERVING in that office (Skip to Question 14) 2 .____ ONE Ter* or less 3 .____ TWO Teras 4 .____ THREE Teras 5 .____ FOUR Teras or aore

8. WHY DID YOU LEAVE THE FIRST OFFICE TO WHICH YOU WERE ELECTED?

(Check One) 1 .____ RAN for another office 2 .___ _ DEFEATED for reelection 3 .____ Accepted a POLITICAL APPOINTMENT 4 .____ Retired for FAMILY REASONS 5 .____ Retired to PURSUE NON-POLITICAL CAREER 6 .____ Retired for HEALTH REASONS 7 .____ OTHER (please explain)______

9. IN WHAT YEAR HERE YOU FIRST ELECTED TO YOUR CURRENT OFFICE?

______(Year)

10. WHAT OFFICE DO YOU HOLD NOW?

(Check One) School Board 8. , Governor City or Toan Council 9. State Attorney General County Office 10. Secretary of State Mayor 11. . Other Stateaide Position State Representative 12.__ __ U.S. Representative State Senator 13. U.S. Senator Lt. Governor 20. OTHER (please specify)

2 11. WHAT IS THE LENGTH OF THE TERN OF OFFICE IN WHICH YOU ARE CURRENTLY SERVING?

(Check One) 1 .____ ONE Year or less______S.____ FIVE Years 2 .____ TWO Years______6.____ SIX Years 3 .____ THREE Years 4 .____ FOUR Years 10.____ OTHER (Please specify)

12. WHAT WERE THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTORS INFLUENCING YOUR OEC1SION TO RUN FOR YOUR CURRENT OFFICE?

(Check One or Hore) 1 .____ FELT QUALIFIED to hold this office

2 .____ GOOD EXPOSURE for »y non-political career plans

3 .____ Office deals Bith the POLICY ISSUES that I care about

4 .____ Office IMPORTANT STEPPING STONE to higher office

5 .____ POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES sere favorable

6 .____ ENCOURAGED BY OTHERS to seek this particular office

7 .____ FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES Here favorable

8. OTHER (please explain)______

13. 010 YOU WIN THE FIRST TIME THAT YOU RAN FOR YOUR CURRENT OFFICE?

(Check One) 1 . No 2 . Yes

14. PLEASE CHECK ALL OF THE OFFICES TO WHICH YOU HAVE BEEN ELECTED.

(Check One or More) 1. School Board 8. ... Governor 2. City or Toan Council 9. State Attorney General 3.__ County Office 10. Secretary of State 4. ... Mayor 11. ... Other Stateiaide Position S. State Representative 12. U.S. Representative 6. State Senator 13. „ U.S. Senator 7. Lt. Governor 20. OTHER (please specify)

3 15. IN WHAT YEAR DO YOU EXPECT NEXT TO BE A CANDIDATE FOR PUBLIC OFFICE?

(Check One) 1. 1990 2. 1991 3.___ . 1992 10.____ I Aa not planning to run 4.___ .. 1993 Again for public office 5. 1994

16. REGARDING YOUR NEXT ELECTION, HHAT ARE YOUR CURRENT CAREER PLANS?

(Check One) 1 .____ To seek REELECTION (Go to question 17).

2 .____ To run for HIGHER OFFICE (Go to Question 18).

3 .____ UNDECIDED at this tine (Go to Question 19).

4 .____ To RETIRE froa electoral office (Go to Ouestion 20).

5. OTHER (Please Explain ______

______(Go to Question 21).

17. IF IN THE NEXT ELECTION YOU PLAN TO SEEK REELECTION HHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTORS INFLUENCING THAT DECISION?

(Check One or More) 1 .____ FEEL COMPETENT in current office 2 .____ GOOD EXPOSURE for ay non-Political career plans 3 .____ Office deals aith the POLICY ISSUES that I care about 4 .____ Running for HIGHER OFFICE not possible at this time 5 .____ POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES favor ay running for reelection 6 .____ ENCOURAGEMENT BY OTHERS to stay in current office 7 .____ FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES favor ay running for reelection 8 .____ Serving in current office is SATISFYING 9 .____ CANNOT HIN ELECTION to another office at this tiae 10. _ Plan to RETIRE froa electoral politics after serving one aore tern in current office.

20.____ OTHER (please explain)______

i(Go aa to Question 21) I

4 18. IF IN YOUR NEXT ELECTION YOU PLAN TO SEEK HIGHER OFFICE. HHAT ARE THE MOST IHPORTANT FACTORS INFLUENCING THAT DECISION?

(Check One or More) 1 .____ FEEL QUALIFIEO to hold higher office 2 .____ GOOD EXPOSURE for my non-political career plans 3 .____ Office deals orith the POLICY ISSUES that 1 care about 4 .____ Office IMPORTANT STEPPING STONE to even higher office 5 .____ POLITICAL CIRCUHSTANCES favor running for higher office 6 .____ ENCOURAGED BY OTHERS to seek higher office 7 .____ FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES favor running for higher office 8 .____ Serving in CURRENT OFFICE is NO LONGER SATISFYING 9 .____ Oo not think I can aiin REELECTION TO CURRENT OFFICE

20.___ OTHER (please explain)______

^ ( ( • M t a Question 21) {•

19. IF FOR THE NEXT ELECTION YOU ARE UNOECIOEO ABOUT YOUR POLITICAL PLANS. HHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTORS INFLUENCING THAT OECISION?

(Check One or More) 1 .____ FEEL QUALIFIED to hold higher office 2 .____ Exposure for «y NON-POLITICAL CAREER PLANS 3 .____ Concern for the POLICY ISSUES that I care about 4 .____ Plans for SEEKING HIGHER OFFICE 5 .____ POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES regarding upcooing races unclear 6 .____ ENCOURAGED BY SOME to seek reelection, by others to run for higher office 7 .____ FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES 8 .____ Serving in CURRENT OFFICE NO LONGER SATISFYING 9 .____ Oo not think I can nin REELECTION to current office 1 0 .___ Concerned about EXCESSIVE MEDIA SCRUTINY 1 1 .___ Thinking about RETIRING fron office

2 0 .___ OTHER (please explain)______;______

(Go on ta Question 21) { ■

5 20. IF IN THE NEXT ELECTION YOU PLAN TO RETIRE FROM ELECTED OFFICE. WHAT ARE THE MOST IHPORTANT FACTORS INFLUENCING THAT DECISION?

(Check All that Apply) 1 .____ FEEL UNQUALIFIED to stay in elected office 2 .____ Want to pursue NON-POLITICAL CAREER 3 .____ Have accomplished PUBLIC POLICY GOALS 4 .____ Have no desire to hold HIGHER OFFICE 5 .____ POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES favor my retirement from office 6 .____ ENCOURAGEMENT BY OTHERS to retire from office 7 .____ FAMILY CIRCUMS1ANCES favor my retirement from office 8 .____ Serving in elected office NO LONGER SATISFYING 9 .____ Do not think I can min REELECTION 1 0 .___ NO OPPORTUNITY to run for higher office at this time 1 1 .___ Tired of EXCESSIVE MEDIA SCRUTINY 1 2 .___ HEALTH Reasons 13 .___ MOVING 1 4 .___ Reached retirement AGE OF 65 YEARS OR OLDER

20.___ OTHER (please explain)______

-^(Ca on to Question 21) ^

6 21. ELECTED OFFICIALS REPORT THAT THE IMPORTANCE OF INDIVIDUAL FACTORS VARY FROM ELECTION TO ELECTION ACCORDING TO CHANGES IN THEIR PERSONAL AND POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES. In the next question please use your political experience to evaluate the importance that various factors have had on your political career decisions. Beside each item, circle the number that comes closest to your oan feeling about important that particular factor is to you non as you contemplate your next election. 1=CRITICAL, 1 MOULD NOT SEEK OFFICE HITHOUT IT

2=IHP0RTANT BUT NOT CRITICAL

3=OF HINOR OR NO IMPORTANCE

9=NOT APPLICABLE TO MY SITUATION OR OFFICE

7 (laportince non) CIRCLE APPROPRIATE FACTORS NUMBER

1. ENOUGH CAMPAIGN VOLUNTEERS 1 2 3 9 2. SUFFICIENT CAMPAIGN FUNDS 1 2 3 9

3. FAVORABLE MEDIA TREATMENT 1 2 3 9

A. PARTY SUPPORT 12 3 9

5. KEY ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT 1 2 3 9

6. RUNNING UNOPPOSED IN THE PRIMARY 1 2 3 9

7. NOT CHALLENGING AN INCUMBENT 1 2 3 9 IN THE PRIMARY

8. NOT CHALLENGING AN INCUMBENT 1 2 3 9 IN THE GENERAL ELECTION

9. FEELING THAT YOU ARE THE BEST 1 2 3 9 CANDIDATE FOR THE OFFICE

10. PERSONAL FINANCIAL SECURITY 1 2 3 9

11. NOT HAVING CHILDREN IN SCHOOL 1 2 3 9

12. SUPPORT FROM SPOUSE 12 3 9

13. SUPPORT FROM FRIENDS AND FAMILY 1 2 3 9

14. SUPPORT FROM POLITICAL COLLEAGUES 1 2 3 9

15. EXPERIENCED CAMPAIGN STAFF 1 2 3 9

16. HIRING PROFESSIONAL CONSULTANTS 1 2 3 9

17. BEING RECRUITED TO RUN RATHER THAN 1 2 3 9 HAVING TO INITIATE CANDIDACY

18. NOT HAVING TO MOVE OR TRAVEL 1 2 3 9

7 A 22. OFFICEHOLDERS REACT IN MANY HAYS TO THE TASK OF RAISING CAMPAIGN IMIS- PART I: CHECK the response below that best Batches your current attitude about your role in caapaign Fundraising.

1 .____ Find it VERY DIFFICULT to ask for Boney

2 .____ Find it SOMEHHAT DIFFICULT to ask for aoney

3 .____ Find LITTLE OR NO DIFFICULTY in asking for aoney

PART II: CHECK the response beloe that best Batches how your attitude about fundraising has evolved since first being elected.

1 . MORE Difficult now

2 .____ SAME DEGREE of difficulty now as when first elected

3 .____ EASIER now

23. PLEASE PUT A CHECK BESIDE THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT YOU HAVE RAISED OR EXPECT TO RAISE IN THE RACES BELOH.

FIRST RUN FIRST RUN FOR NEXT FOR OFFICE CURRENT OFFICE CAMPAIGN (check one) (check one) (check one)

1. UNDER $10,000 ______

2. 10.000 - 25,000 ______

3. 25.001 - 50,000 ______

4. 50.001 - 75.000 ______

5. 75.001 - 100.000 ______;______

6. over $100,000 ______

NOT RUNNING FOR OFFICE AGAIN ______

24. HHAT IS THE LARGEST AMOUNT OF PERSONAL fiH FAMILY MONEY THAT YOU HAVE INVESTED IN ONE OF YOUR OHN CAMPAIGNS?

(Check One) 1 .______UNDER $1,000 2 .______$1,000 - $5,000 3 .______$5,001 - $10,000 4 .______$10,001 - $15,000 5 .______$15,001 - $20,000 6 .______OVER $20,000

8 25. HHAT IS THE LARGEST AMOUNT OF PERSONAL OR FAMILY MONEY THAT YOU HOULO BE HILLING TO INVEST IN ANY OF YOUR FUTURE CAMPAIGNS? (Check One) 1 .______UNDER $1,000 2 .______$1,000 - $5,000 3 .______$5,001 - $10,000 4 .______$10,000 - $15,000 5 .______$15,001 - $20,000 6 .______OVER $20,000

26. IF AN INCUHBENT RETIRED UNEXPECTEDLY FROM A STATEHIDE Qg FEDERAL OFFICE FOR HHICH YOU HOULD CONSIDER RUNNING, HOH MUCH MONEY COULD YOU RAISE IN THE 72-HOUR PERIOD FOLLOHING SUCH AN ANNOUNCEMENT? (Check One) 1 .______UNDER $10,000 2 . $10,000 - $20,000 3 .______$20,001 - $30,000 4 .______$30,001 - $40,000 5:______$40,001 - $50,000 6 .______OVER $50,000 7 .______HOULD NOT CONSIDER RUNNING FOR SUCH AN OFFICE

27. OFFICEHOLDERS OFTEN SAY THAT PARTY SUPPORT VARIES OVER THE COURSE OF THEIR POLITICAL CAREERS. BASED ON YOUR EXPERIENCE. CIRCLE THE RESPONSE THAT BEST DESCRIBES YOUR PARTY'S INVOLVEMENT IN EACH OF THE THREE RACES INDICATED BELOH. 0 = Non-partisan race 1 = RECRUITEO Be to run 2 = SUPPORTED ny candidacy 3 = Regained NEUTRAL 4 = DIVIDED, sone support, some opposition 5 = OPPOSED ny candidacy 9 = Not APPLICABLE to Me

1. FIRST RUN for elective office 0 1 2 3 4 5 9

2. First run for CURRENT OFFICE 0 1 2 3 4 5 9

3. NEXt CAMPAIGN for office 0 1 2 3 4 5 9

28. SOME OFFICEHOLDERS FEEL MORE EFFECTIVE IN LEGISLATIVE TYPE JOBS LIKE STATE LEGISLATOR OR MEMBER OF CONGRESS. OTHERS FEEL MORE EFFECTIVE IN EXECUTIVE POSITIONS LIKE MAYOR OR GOVERNOR. PUT A CHECK NEXT TO THE IN HHICH YOU HOULD FEEL MOST EFFECTIVE.

1 ._____ LEGISLATIVE job

2 ._____ EITHER Legislative or Executive job

3 ._____ EXECUTIVE job

9 29. AFTER BEING ELECTED 1 2 OFFICE £2fi IiiE ^IRST TIME. WHEN DID YOU BEGIN THINKING ABOUT RUNN1N6 £2B A DIFFERENT OFFICE?

(Check One) 1 .____ IMMEDIATELY

2 .____ AFTER SERVING for * tera or tao

3 .____ When the POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY AROSE

4 .____ When OTHERS SUGGESTED that I do so

5 ._____ I have NEVER THOUGHT about running for another office (Skip to Ouestioa 35) ^ .. —

6 ._____ OTHER (please explain)______

30. HHAT OFFICES HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT RUNNING FOR SINCE BEING ELECTED TO OFFICE?

(Check One or More) 1. School Board 9. State Attorney General 2. City or Toan Council 10. Secretary of State 3. County Office 11. Other Stateaide Position 4. Mayor 12. U.S. Representative 5. State Representative 13. U.S. Senator 6. State Senator 14. U.S. Vice President 7. Lt. Governor 15. U.S. President 8. Governor 20. OTHER flistl

.. NON. ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. HHICH OF THESE ELECTED TICES DO YOU THINK YOU ARE (.1W-Y T° HOLD DURING YOUR ILITICAL CAREER?

(Check One or More) 1. _ School Board 9. State Attorney General 2. City or Toam Council 10. . Secretary of State 3. _ County Office 11. Other Stateaide Position 4. Mayor 12. U.S. Representative 5. State Representative 13.__ __ U.S. Senator 6. _ State Senator 14. U.S. Vice President 7. Lt. Governor 15. U.S. President 8. Governor 20. OTHER flistl

10 32. HHAT CONDITIONS HOULD HAVE TO EXIST FOR YOU TO RUN FOR HIGHER V. OFFICE aflftlNSi & INCUMBENT?

(Check One or Hore) 1 ._____ SUPPORT fro* frientls and family

2 ._____ ASKED BY OTHERS to RUN

3 ._____ NEGATIVE PRESS for incumbent

4 ._____ Polling data indicating INCUMBENT VULNERABLE

5 ._____ Polling data indicating I mould be a STRONG CHALLENGER

6 ._____ PARTY support

7 . Party ENDORSEMENT

8 ._____ Sufficient CAMPAIGN FUNDS

9 ._____ GOOD EXPOSURE for a future run for higher office

1 0 ._____ UNDER NO CONDITION mould I challenge an incumbent

1 1 ._____ OTHER (Please explain)______

33. HHAT CONDITIONS HOULD HAVE TO EXIST FOR YOU TO RUN FOR HIGHER OFFICE IN AN OPEN ELECTION?

(Check One or More) 1 ._____ SUPPORT from friends and family

2 ._____ ASKED BY OTHERS to run

3 ._____ POSITIVE PRESS for my candidacy

4 ._____ POLLING DATA indicating I mould be a STRONG CANDIDATE

5 ._____ POLLING DATE indicating that I mould be FRONTRUNNER

6 ._____ PARTY support

7 ._____ Party ENDORSEMENT

8 ._____ Sufficient CAMPAIGN FUNDS

9 ._____ GOOD EXPOSURE for a future run for higher office

10._____ OTHER (Please explain)______

11 34. IF ONE OF THE OFFICES THAT YOU MOULD LIKE TO HOLD SUDDENLY DID BECOME VACATED, H2H QUICKLY MOULD YOU MAKE THE POLITICAL MOVES INDICATED BELOH? 1 = IMMEDIATELY (Mithin 48 HOURS)

2 = SOON (Mithin a aeek)

3 = LATER (After aore than a meek)

9 = NEVER Mould aake such a aove

1. Ask friends and supporters for SUPPORT 1 2 3 9

2. LEAVE TOWN for a fem days to think 1 2 3 9

3. DISCUSS the potential race uith FAMILY 1 2 3 9

4. Ask the PARTY FOR SUPPORT 1 2 3 9

S. Hire CONSULTANTS 1 2 3 9

6. Ask friends and supporters for MONEY 1 2 3 9

7. Discuss the race «ith MEDIA 1 2 3 9

8. Begin RAISING MONEY froa PAC’s 1 2 3 9

9. Ask OTHER POTENTIAL CANDIDATES their plans 1 2 3 9

10. Assess hoa auch PERSONAL or' FAMILY HONEY 1 2 3 9 could be invested in race

11. Coaaission a POLL 1 2 3 9

20. OTHER (Please explain!

12 35. OFFICEHOLDERS REPORT BOTH ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES TO SERVING iU HIGHER OFFICE.

Based on your expectations, circle the response nuaber that BEST HATCHES WHETHER YOU THINK THAT YOUR SERVING IN A HIGHER OFFICE WOULD HAVE A POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE EFFECT on the follosing concerns.

l=Positive 2=NEITHER Positive or negative 3=Negative

9=N0T A CONCERN for ae CIRCLE APPROPRIATE NUMBER

1. Your ability to influence PARTY MATTERS 1 2 3 9

2. Your ability to influence PUBLIC POLICY MATTERS 1 2 3 9

3. Your ability to influence BUDGET MATTERS 1 2 3 9

4. Your ability to influence WOMEN’S ISSUES 1 2 3 9

5. Achieving your POLITICAL CAREER goals 1 2 3 9

6. Increasing your MEDIA COVERAGE 1 2 3 9

7. Helping CONSTITUENTS 1 2 3 9

8 . Achieving NON-POLITICAL CAREER goals 1 2 3 9

9. Increasing your INCOME 1 2 3 9

10. Your relationship aith your SPOUSE 1 2 3 9

11. Your relationship aith your CHILDREN 1 2 3 9

12. The quality of your PERSONAL LIFE 1 2 3 9

36. SOME ELECTED OFFICIALS PREFER TO HOLD OFFICES WHICH EMPHASIZE INDIVIDUAL DECISIONMAKING. OTHERS PREFER TO HOLD OFFICES THAT ALLOW < FOR MORE GROUP DECISIONMAKING OPPORTUNITIES.

Check the type of DECISIONMAKING ENVIRONMENT that you prefer.

1 ._____ Eaphasizes INDIVIDUAL Decisionmaking

2 ._____ Allots for BOTH INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP Decisionnaking

3 ._____ Eaphasizes GROUP Decisionnaking

13 37. GIVEN THE CURRENT STATE OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS. PLACE THE RESPONSE NUMBER THAT BEST MATCHES YOUR POLITICAL ASSESSMENT OF HHAT HILL HAPPEN OVER THE NEXT TMO ELECTION CYCLES TO THE INCUMBENTS HOLDING THE OFFICES LISTED BELOH.

1 = Incumbent should CONTINUE TO UIN REELECTION

2 = Incuabent Bill FACE A STRONG CHALLENGE

3 = Incuabent aore than likely HILL RUN FOR ANOTHER OFFICE

4 = Incuabent aill voluntarily RETIRE FROM THIS ELECTIVE OFFICE

5 = Incuabent aust RETIRE BECAUSE OF LIMIT ON NUMBER OF TERMS that incuabent can serve in office

7 = Seat CURRENTLY VACANT

6 = NOT AN ELECTED OFFICE inay state

OFFICES

a .____ SENIOR U.S. Senator f.____ State ATTORNEY GENERAL

b .____ JUNIOR U.S. Senator g.____ SECRETARY OF STATE

c .____ Your U.S. REPRESENTATIVE h. Your STATE SENATOR (District f______) (District t_____ )

d .____ Governor i.____ Your STATE REPRESENTATIVE (Oistrict I ) e .____ Lt. Governor

14 38. SOME ELECTED OFFICIALS REPORT FINDING IT DIFFICULT TO BALANCE THE DEHANDS OF OFFICEHOLDING WITH OTHER DEHANOS IN THEIR LIFE. OTHERS FEEL THAT THEY HAVE LITTLE DIFFICULTY ACHIEVING SUCH A BALANCE.

Beside each item, circle the response number that best matches Juu difficult it is for you to meet the demands belorn.

1 = EXTREHELY Difficult 2 = DIFFICULT 3 = LITTLE OR NO Difficulty at all 9 = NEVER EXPERIENCED this demand

CIRCLE APPROPRIATE NUHBER a. DIVIDING YOUR TIME to meet 1 2 3 9 many different demands b. The LOSS Of PRIVACY 12 3 9 c. LESS TIME mith your CHILDREN 1 2 3 9 d. LESS TIHE mith SPOUSE 1 2 3 9 e. LESS TIHE at NON-POLITICAL 1 2 3 9 CAREER

39. HOLDING PUBLIC OFFICE OFTEN MEANS BEING IN SITUATIONS THAT INVOLVE CONFLICT.

Beside each of the items belon, circle the number of the response that best matches horn difficult you have found the situations belom to be in your political career.

1 = EXTREMELY Difficult 2 = DIFFICULT 3 = LITTLE OR NO DIFFICULTY at all 9 = NEVER EXPERIENCED this demand

CIRCLE APPROPRIATE NUMBER a. Being CRITICIZED 1 2 3 9 b. ARGUING about Issues 1 2 3 9 c. COMPROMISING your convictions 1 2 3 9 d. COMPETING mith others 1 2 3 9 e. LOSING 1 2 3 9

15 40. SOME OFFICEHOLDERS REPORT THAT BEING AN ELECTED OFFICIAL STRAINS INTER-PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS. OTHERS NOTE THAT HOLDING OFFICE ACTUALLY STRENGTHENS SUCH RELATIONSHIPS.

Based on YOUR EXPERIENCE, circle the response number that best Hatches HON BEING IN PUBLIC OFFICE HAS AFFECTED YOUR RELATIONSHIP with the persons listed below.

1 = STRENGTHENED relationship 2 = NO EFFECT on relationship 3 = STRAINED the relationship

9 = Relationship NOT APPLICABLE to me

CIRCLE APPROPRIATE NUHBER

1. Spouse 12 3 9

2. Children 12 3 9

3. Other Family Members 12 3 9 (INCLUDING PARENTS) 4. Close personal FRIENDS 12 3 9

5. COLLEAGUES in non-political career 1 2 3 9

41. SOME OFFICEHOLDERS REPORT THAT BEING PULLED IN SO MANY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS MAKES IT DIFFICULT FOR THEM TO FEEL COMPETENT IN ANY OF THEIR ROLES. OTHERS REPORT THAT THEY FEEL QUITE COMPETENT IN MANY ROLES.

Circle the response number that BEST MATCHES COMPETENT YOU FEEL in the various roles listed below.

1 = COMPETENT 2 = NOT AS COMPETENT as I would liKe to be 3 = INCOMPETENT

9 = Role NOT APPLICABLE to me

1. Elected Official 1 2 3 9

2. Income provider 1 2 3 9

3. Spouse 1 2 3 9

4. Friend 1 2 3 9

5. Parent 1 2 3 9

16 42. SOME OFFICEHOLDERS REPORT THAT ONCE ELECTED TO OFFICE THEY GIVE UP TRYING TO MEET fiJJ, THE DEMANDS PLACED ON THEM BY FAMILY. FRIENDS. AND COLLEAGUES. OTHERS NOTE THAT DESPITE THE ADDED RESPONSIBILITIES OF BEING IN ELECTED OFFICE THEY STILL TRY TO MEET SUCH DEMANDS.

Based on YOUR EXPERIENCE, circle the response nuaber that best matches H2H YOU RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING DEMANDS.

1 = ALWAYS meet this demand 2 = Try to meet this demand WHENEVER POSSI8LE 3 = RARELY OR NEVER meet this demand 9 = NOT APPLICABLE to ay situation

a . Take FAMILY VACATIONS 1 2 3 9

b. Attend SOCIAL OCCASIONS for spouse's business 1 2 3 9

c . Attend CHILDREN'S SCHOOL ACTIVITIES 1 2 3 9

d. Go Out On DATES 1 2 3 9

e , Take PERSONAL VACATIONS 1 2 3 9

f. Attend CHURCH t 2 3 9

9- Go Out With FRIENDS 1 2 3 9 h. Attend POLITICAL PARTY ACTIVITIES 1 2 3 9

i . Participate in POLITICAL CONFERENCES 1 2 3 9

Attend ISSUE WORKSHOPS 1 2 3 9

k. VOLUNTEER for community mark 1 2 3 9

1. Attend CULTURAL EVENTS 1 2 3 9

m. Pursue HOBBIES 1 2 3 9

n.EXERCISE .< -- 1 2 3 9

0. Attend SPORTING EVENTS 1 2 3 9

17 43. SOME OFFICEHOLDERS REPORT THAT ONCE IN ELECTIVE OFFICE THEY HERE TREATED DIFFERENTLY THAN THEIR COLLEAGUES. OTHERS NOTE THAT THEY DIO NOT EXPERIENCE ANY DIFFERENT TREATMENT.

In REGARD TO YOUR CURRENT OFFICE, circle the response number that best Bitches HOW YOU ARE TREATED IN THE FOLLOWING SITUATIONS.

l=Looked to for LEADERSHIP

2=Treated the SAME as other colleagues

3=IGN0RED

4=EXCLU0ED

9=Situation NOT APPLICABLE to aie

^eeeColuHN I: STATE AND FEDERAL LEGISLATORS

1. MAKING connittee assignments 1 2 3 4 9

2. RECEIVING conaittee assignments 1 2 3 4 9

3. Formulating PUBLIC POLICY in committees 1 2 3 4 9

4. Participating in LEGISLATIVE LEADERSHIP sessions 1 2 3 4 9

5. Participating in meetings aiith EXECUTIVE BRANCH 1 2 3 4 9

6. Participating in PARTISAN CAUCUSES 1 2 3 4 9

7. Working on BUDGET ISSUES 1 2 3 4 9

8. Working on WOMEN'S ISSUES 1 2 3 4 9

9. Being a part of INFORHAL NETWORKS 1 2 3 4 9

10. Acting as a MEDIA SPOKESPERSON 1 2 3 4 9

11. Attending informal SOCIAL GATHERINGS 1 2 3 4 9

12. Being chosen to attend OUT-OF-TOWI CONFERENCES 1 2 3 4 9

• •M B M tttV O tS AM) STATEWIDE EXECUTIVES ANSICft IN COLUM l l m t t t s

18 II: MAYORS AMD STATEWIDE EXECUTIVES OWLY^)

l=Looked to for LEADERSHIP

2=Treated the SAME as other colleagues

3=IGN0RED

4=EXCLUDED

9=Situation NOT APPLICABLE to me

1. MAKING Political appointments 1 2 3 4 9

2. BEING APPOINTED to boards and conaissions 1 2 3 4 9

3. Formulating PUBLIC POLICY in coaaittees 1 2 3 4 9

4. Participating in EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP sessions 1 2 3 4 9

S. Participating in aeetings with LEGISLATIVE BRANCH 1 2 3 4 9

6. Participating in PARTISAN CAUCUSES 1 2 3 4 9

7. Working on BUDGET ISSUES 1 2 3 4 9

8. Working on HOHEN’S ISSUES 1 2 3 4 9

9. Being a part of INFORMAL NETWORKS 1 2 3 4 9

10. Acting as a MEDIA SPOKESPERSON- 1 2 3 4 9

11 . Attending informal SOCIAL GATHERINGS 1 2 3 4 9

12 . Being chosen to attend OUT-OF-TOWN CONFERENCES 1 2 3 4 9

19 44. IF POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES HERE TO GO YOUR HAY. HOH MANY MORE YEARS HOULO YOU BE HILLING TO SERVE IN ELECTIVE OFFICE?

(Check One) 1 ._____ FOUR aore years or less

2 ._____ FIVE to THELVE more years

3 ._____ MORE than tiielve years more

45. DO YOU CONSIDER BEING AN ELECTED OFFICIAL TO BE YOUR PRINCIPAL CAREER?

1 ._____ No 2 ._____ Yes

46. HHAT IS YOUR POLITICAL PARTY AFFILIATION? 1 ._____ Oeaocrat 2 . Republican 3 ._____ OTHER (Please identify)______

47. PLEASE CHECK ALL OF THE OFFICES FOR HHICH YOU HAVE fiiUJ £!( I I D HHICH YOU HERE NEVER ELECTED OR FOR HHICH YOU H£|)f£ fiilM MORE THAN ONCE BEFORE HINNING ELECTION TO THAT OFFICE.

(Check One or More) 1. School Board 9. State Attorney General 2. City or Toan Council 10. Secretary of State 3. County Office 11. Other Stateuide Position 4. . Mayor 12.__ __ U.S. Representative 5. State Representative 13. U.S. Senator 6. State Senator 14. U.S. Vice President 7. Lt. Governor 16. U.S. President 8. Governor 20. OTHER flistl

21. I HAVE NEVER RUN AND LOST AN ELECTION TO OFFICE

20 BACKGROUND INFORMATION

48. IN HHAT YEAR HERE YOU BORN?

(Year)

49. HHAT IS YOUR SEX? 1 ._____ Feaale 2 ._____ Male

50. HHAT IS YOUR CURRENT MARITAL STATUS?

X. Single. NEVER aarried 2 ._____ Single, LIVING H1TH SOMEONE 3 ._____ Single. DIVORCEO OR SEPARATED 4 ._____ MARRIED 5 . Hidoaed

51. HHAT HAS YOUR MARITAL STATUS HHEN YOU FIRST RAN FOR OFFICE?

1 ._____ Single. NEVER aarried 2 ._____ Single, LIVING HITH SOMEONE 3 ._____ Single, DIVORCED OR SEPARATED 4 ._____ Married 5 . Hidoaed

52. HHAT IS YOUR HIGHEST LEVEL OF SCHOOLING? (check one) 1 ._____ Grade school or some high school 2 ._____ High school GRADUATE 3 ._____ High school GRADUATE PLUS OTHER NON-COLLEGE TRAINING 4 ._____ Soae COLLEGE 5 ._____ R.N. 6 ._____ College GRADUATE. B.S., B.A. 7 ._____ Soae GRADUATE HORK 8 ._____ MASTER'S Degree (Field:______) 9 ._____ LL.B., J.D. 1 0 ._____ M.D., D.D.S. 1 1 ._____ Ph.D., D.Ed. (Field:______)

53. IF CURRENTLY MARRIED, HHAT IS YOUR SPOUSE’S HIGHEST LEVEL OF SCHOOLING? (Choose appropriate number froa Question 52 above)

(CURRENT Spouse's schooling)

54. IF YOU HERE MARRIED HHEN ^ FIRST RAN FOR OFFICE. HHAT HAS YOUR SPOUSE'S HIGHEST LEVEL OF SCHOOLING? (Choose appropriate nuaber froa Question 54 above)

(FORMER Spouse’s schooling)

55. FOR HOH MANY CHILDREN HAVE YOU BEEN A PRIMARY CARETAKER?

(Nuaber of children)

21 56. HHAT ARE THE CURRENT ACES OF THOSE CHILDREN? ______(Children-current ages)

57. HOH MANY CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 18 ARE CURRENTLY LIVING IN YOUR HOME? ______(Nuaber of dependent children living at hoae)

58. ARE YOU CURRENTLY EMPLOYED OUTSIDE OF YOUR POLITICAL CAREER? 1 ._____ No 2 ._____ Yes. PART-TIME 3 ._____ Yes, FULL-TIME

59. IF YOU ARE CURRENTLY EMPLOYED flfi EVER WORKED FOR AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME. HHAT IS (HAS) YOUR OCCUPATION?

______(Occupation)

60. IF YOU ARE CURRENTLY MARRIED, HHAT IS YOUR SPOUSE'S PRIMARY OCCUPATION? ______(Spouse’s Occupation)

61. PLEASE INDICATE THE APPROXIMATE INCOME OF YOUR FAMILY AND YOURSELF FOR THE LAST YEAR - BEFORE TAXES. FAMILY PERSONAL (Check One) (Check One)

1. Less than $15,000 ______2. $15,000 - $19,999 ______3. $20,000 - $24,999 ______4. $25,000 - $29,999 ______5. $30,000 - $39,999 ______6. $40,000 - $49,999 ______7. $50,000 - $59,000 ______8. $60,000 - $74,999 ______9. $75,000 - $99,999 ______10. $100,000 and over ______

62. HHAT IS YOUR RELIGIOUS PREFERENCE? (Check One) 1..____ Catholic 2 ._____ Jeaish 3 ._____ Protestant 4 ._____ OTHER (Please Specify)__ 5 ._____ NO RELIGIOUS PREFERENCE

63. HHAT IS YOUR RACIAL OR ETHNIC HERITAGE? (Check One) 1 ._____ African-Aaerican 2 ._____ Aaerican Indian or Alaskan Native 3 ._____ Asian Aaerican 4 ._____ White, HISPANIC AMERICAN ■ 5. ■ White, NON-HISPANIC AMERICAN

64. IN HHAT STATE DO YOU CURRENTLY LIVE? ______(State)

22 65. SINCE 1980. FOR HOH MANY YEARS HAVE YOU BEEN A RESIOENT OF THIS STATE? ______{Years in state since 1980]

66. HOH MANY TOTAL YEARS HAVE YOU LIVED IN THIS STATE? ______(TOTAL Length of time in STATE)

67. HOH LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN THE COrtiUNITY THAT YCU NOH REPRESENT? ______(Length of time in COMMUNITY)

THANKS FOR COMPLETING THE QUESTIONNAIRE AND HELPING TO MAKE THIS PROJECT A SUCCESS! PLEASE FOLD IT IN HALF LENGTHHISE - THEN ENCLOSE IT IN THE POSTAGE PAID ENVELOPE AND MAIL IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

AGAIN. MANY THANKS!

23 Joan E. McLean Department of Political Science The Ohio State University 154 North Oval 223 Derby Hall Columbus, Ohio 43210

24