The Impact of Jennifer Dunn

A Woman First The Impact of Jennifer Dunn BY TROVA HEFFERNAN LEGACY PROJECT First Edition Copyright © 2012 Washington State Legacy Project Offi ce of the Secretary of State All rights reserved. ISBN 978-1-889320-26-7 Front cover photo: Harley Soltes/Th e Seattle Times Book Design by Kathryn E. Campbell Printed in the United States of America by Gorham Printing, Centralia, Washington Printing sponsored by For young women considering the path of public service iii CONTENTS Introduction . vii 1 Early Infl uences . 1 2 Record Breaker . 23 3 Milestones . 55 4 “Th e Death Tax” . 67 5 W. 73 6 Th e Ring . 79 7 Blind Date . 91 8 Th e Happiest Summer . 97 9 “My mother lives on.” . 101 Issues . 107 Tributes . 151 Source Notes . 161 Donors . 177 Index . 179 v The congressional candidate in 1992, the Year of the Woman. Washington State Archives INTRODUCTION ou could hastily make assumptions about Jennifer Blackburn Dunn. YBorn in the Emerald City at the brink of World War II, Dunn wore pink dresses and braided her blond hair. Eventually, she attracted a bevy of male suitors. “It was very funny, because at one time I was dating four Larrys, four Jerrys and two Johns. And I didn’t know who I was talking to. I would make a date with someone and I wouldn’t know who it was. I didn’t know who was going to show up. I was embarrassed to ask for his last name.” But the same Jennifer Dunn could eff ortlessly shoot a .22 rifl e and once yanked 11 fl opping trout from Issaquah Creek in 20 minutes, out- fi shing her brother and 100 other boys. Dunn graduated from Stanford in 1963, when men outnumbered women two to one. She worked at IBM, when most women stayed at home. She married and divorced, becoming the very single mother she would one day represent in Congress. In 1999, Dunn became the third Republican woman in history to respond to the State of the Union Address. “I know what it’s like to have that knot in your stomach,” the single mother said. Dunn refused to take a back seat to men in Washington, D.C. or at home. Her fi rst spouse, Dennis, once kidded the Republican National Committee (RNC) about the divorced couple’s ongoing work. “For those of you on the RNC implying theories of conspiratorial politics, I want you to know that I don’t have any more control over this woman than I did when I was married to her.” Dunn and her predecessors in Congress fought men for equal footing. A Reagan Republican, a Newt Gingrich protégé, a Bush million-dollar fun- draiser, Dunn’s star rose, spawning admiration and snide remarks. Dunn wore plenty of labels while trying to close a stubborn gender gap between vii viii A WOMAN FIRST, The Impact of Jennifer Dunn the Republican Party and women—Th e House It Girl, Face of the Party, Th e Golden Girl. New York Magazine dubbed her “GOP’s new glamour girl.” In a cartoon, Dunn bore a striking resemblance to actress Michelle Pfeiff er in Th e Fabulous Baker Boys. Dunn sat perched on an elephant as a matronly woman, presumably a less desirable colleague, followed behind with a broom. “She’s a very attractive woman, but she’s also a smart woman,” said Slade Gorton, former Washington senator. “Th e fi rst gets men to look and the second gets men to listen.” Th e attention to her appearance was incessant. “Her high cheekbones and upright posture explain why the 58-year-old Dunn was once described as ‘Margaret Th atcher with better clothes,” portrayed author Michael Graetz. “It wasn’t unfair if it had been written in a respectful manner, but it wasn’t,” her brother, John Blackburn, said. “It was done in a very deroga- tory method to denigrate her abilities and brains. Kind of a ‘dumb blonde’ attitude and used by women more than men. Liberal women loved to put Jen down because she was everything they weren’t and it unnerved them. I don’t feel women’s lib did much to fl atter women at the time.” “Women always deal with the glass ceiling,” said Lisa LaBrache, a long- time Dunn aide. “You can be at this level, but you’re never going to be the CEO.” “Jen mentioned the ‘Good Ole Boys’ network many times,” Blackburn acknowledged. “She was always butting heads with people who would disrespect her opinions and her mental abilities in favor of their bud- dies. Th at’s why she had to work so hard to prove herself. I doubt [Newt] Gingrich has ever mentioned her efforts to many people about his Contract with America, but he did stand behind her and was her mentor in Congress.” More than 130 years aft er the fi rst women’s rights convention, Dunn blazed trails and built an uncommon resume. She made history as the fi rst woman to chair the state Republican Party. She secured a seat in Congress during 1992’s Year of the Woman. Dunn was the fi ft h woman to sit on the prestigious Ways & Means Committee, third woman in history to serve INTRODUCTION ix as vice chair of the House Republican Conference and fi rst woman to run for House majority leader. Th ree times Dunn engaged in the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, a summit dedicated to women’s rights. Aft er the fall of Saddam Hussein, Dunn co-chaired the Iraqi Women’s Caucus and helped inspire a new beginning for Iraqi women. None of it came easily. “Jen had to prove herself at every step of her life,” Blackburn said. “She felt she had to prove herself to Mother grow- ing up. She had to prove herself to her teachers and professors at college. She proved herself to IBM. She proved she could raise money for the Republican Party to the heads of Boeing and several Seattle banks. She proved that she was electable both for the state of Washington Republican Party and to the U.S. House of Representatives. She proved she was more than a pretty face.” Orphaned, Jennifer’s grandmother Kate Maloney and her three sisters traveled from Ontario to Alberta. John Blackburn Collection 1 Early Influences eople all around were dying of tuberculosis when the orphan girl P climbed into a wagon in Th ornbury, Ontario, circa 1890. She had brown wavy hair and couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 years old. Kate Maloney was the eldest of four and seemingly alone in the world. Th e infection took both of her parents within six months. Her father passed in the winter of 1889. Her mother followed that summer. Now they rested in peace, buried together at a cemetery in town. And Kate was leaving—with younger sisters May, Jane and Emcy. Th e girls traveled over rocky terrain, through thick pockets of trees and across rolling prairies. Th eir wagon fi nally reached St. Albert, in the middle of Alberta province. Father Albert Lacombe founded the town three decades earlier to minister to Cree Indians and Metis, progeny of Euro-Canadian fur traders and Native women. Townsfolk considered Lacombe a legend. He fostered peace between warring Indian tribes and whites, preventing “the slaughter of every white man on the prairies,” during a rebellion of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Kate and her sisters settled in the city and lived with an aunt and uncle. But the arrangement didn’t last. Eventually, the girls moved into a convent with the Grey Nuns. Th eir Youville Home was the only known Catholic orphanage in St. Albert, and a place for new beginnings. Th e sisters there healed the sick, educated the youth and cared for the bereft , people like Kate and her sisters. Furniture was especially scarce in the early days of the orphanage—a table, two chairs and scattered trunks for sitting. When a delivery of fruit arrived in 1881, a tenant exclaimed with exuberance, “We have not seen or smelled anything 1 2 A WOMAN FIRST, The Impact of Jennifer Dunn The orphanage in St. Albert and home to the Maloney children. Provincial Archives of Alberta like this in ten years. Could these be APPLES?” Th e orphans knew poverty to be sure, but they were also benefi ciaries of a rich education. Grey Nuns were touted as the fi rst educators in St. Albert. Th ey decidedly impressed an inspector who toured the school in 1890. “Th is is just like in France. eyTh learn everything here,” he exalted. Kate grew up aff able, independent and in-charge. Her short hair never fell much below the ear. She had “English teeth and a big smile.” She traded with Indians and mastered fi ve or six Native dialects—in addition to English and French. No one knows for sure when Kate left the orphanage, but she married Benjamin Franklin Blackburn, a slim Illinoisan with a six-foot frame, a mustache and a penchant for pipes. Eventually, the Blackburns traded Alberta for the states. Kate poured her energy into her boys, canoeing with them, hiking in the woods and fi shing. A no-nonsense disciplinarian, Kate was steamed when authorities picked up her teenage son (Jennifer Dunn’s father) for skinny-dipping at Madrona Beach in Seattle. Chagrined, she stomped into the police station where Jack was waiting and promptly EARLY INFLUENCES 3 assured authorities she’d take over at home “and wallop the daylights out of him—which she did.” Kate was unquestionably feisty for a woman of her day.

Load more