Women Holding Elective Office
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Related to the focus on politics in this election year,
information is provided below about historical and contemporary women holding elective office nationally, internationally, and in Maryland.

DID YOU KNOW THAT...

NATIONALLY

• The first woman to run for president of the United States was Victoria Woodhull, a stockbroker and publisher, who ran as the candidate of the Equal Rights Party in 1872.

• In 1884 and 1888, Belva Lockwood (a lawyer who lived in Maryland) also ran for President as a candidate of the Equal Rights Party. She announced her candidacy from a farm in Maryland. Her candidacy for the Presidency was controversial, and she won only 4,149 votes, losing the election to Grover Cleveland. She had been denied permission to practice law in Maryland in 1873, and was told by the judge that “Women are not needed in the courts. Their place is in the home to wait upon their husbands, to bring up their children, to cook the meals, make beds, polish pans, and dust furniture.” Belva Lockwood drafted a bill to permit women to practice before the United States Supreme Court, and in 1879 became the first woman to win that right.

• In 1964 Senator Margaret Chase Smith, Republican from Maine, became the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for President at a major political party convention. In 1972 Representative Shirley Chisholm, Democrat from New York, ran for President in the Democratic primaries. In 2000 Elizabeth Dole was in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and in 2008 Senator Hillary Clinton is running to be the Presidential nominee for the Democratic Party .

• In 1984 Congresswoman Geraldine A. Ferraro (Democrat from New York) became the first woman ever to run on a major party’s national ticket as a Vice Presidential candidate.

• Senator Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland is the first Democratic female Senator elected in her own right (rather than to fill an unexpired term of a spouse).

• The first woman elected to the U. S. House of Representatives was Jeanette Rankin of Montana, who served from 1917-1919 and 1941-42.

• The first woman-versus-woman race for the U.S. House was in 1944, when Rep. Clare Booth Luce (R-CT) defeated Margaret Connor. The first woman-versus-woman race for the U.S. Senate was in 1960, when Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) defeated Lucia Cormier.

• Representative Patsy Mink from Hawaii was the first Asian American woman and the first woman of color elected to Congress (1965) Representative Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman to serve in Congress, elected in 1969, and the first Latina in Congress was Representative Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R-FL), who took office in 1989 .

• In 2007, Nancy Pelosi, a Baltimore native, became the first woman to serve as Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives.
• To date, a total of 35 women have served in the Senate in the history of the United States.

• In 2008, 86 women serve in the 110th U. S. Congress (out of 535 seats – 16.1%) . Sixteen serve in the 100-member Senate, and 70 in the 435-member House of Representatives. In addition, three women serve as non-voting Delegates to the House of Representatives from Guam, the Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C. Twenty of the women with voting rights are women of color, while the delegates from Washington D.C. and the Virgin Islands are also women of color.

INTERNATIONALLY

In 2008, there are 13 elected heads of state who are women – Michele Bachelet, Chile; Helen Clark, New Zealand; Luisa Diogo, Mozambique; Tarja Halonen, Finland; Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia; Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Philippines; Mary McAleese, Ireland; Angela Merkel, Germany; Yulia Tymnoshenko, Ukraine; Emily de Jongh-Elhage, the Netherlands Antilles; Pritibha Patil, India; and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina.

STATEWIDE

• There are currently 8 women governors and 10 women lieutenant governors. States with female governors are Michigan, Washington, Hawaii, Delaware, Arizona, Alaska, Connecticut, and Kansas. Maryland has not had an elected female governor, and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was the first and only woman to serve as Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. In 1925, Nellie Tayloe Ross (Wyoming) and Miriam “Ma” Ferguson (Texas) became the first females to be elected governors . Historically, 29 women have served as governors in 22 states.

• Maryland has had one woman in the U.S. Senate (Barbara A. Mikulsi), and 5 women in the House of Representatives – Helen Delich Bentley, Beverly B. Byron, Katherine Edgar Byron, Marjorie S. Holt, and Gladys Noon Spellman

• In 2008, 23.6%, or 1,741 of the 7,382 state legislators across the nation are women; 23% of female legislators are women of color. Since 1971, the number of women serving in state legislatures has increased more than fivefold. The first women state legislators in the United States were elected in 1894, from Colorado and Utah.

• Maryland ranks 8th in the nation in the percentage of women in the state legislature (31.4%), with 11 out of 47 Senators and 48 out of 141 Delegates (total – 59/188). This is an increase from 54 female members of the General Assembly in 1998 and 39 women in 1988. The highest ranking woman legislator in the Maryland General Assembly is Speaker Pro Tempore Adrienne A. Jones. Maryland ranks 2nd in the nation among states with the highest percentages of women committee chairs. Maryland was the first state in the nation to establish a State Women’s Legislative Caucus (in 1972),

• There are 2 women mayors of cities in Maryland with populations of over 30,000 – Ellen O. Moyer of Annapolis, and Sheila Dixon of Baltimore. In Baltimore City, the elected positions of Comptroller, City Council President, and State’s Attorney are also held by women.

(SOURCE: Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University)

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