Chandra McPherson, Hope Blackley, Pamela Rodriguez To Skip Webb, not enough S.C. women are aspiring to elected office. That’s why he started the Southeastern Institute for Women in February 2008. “I woke up one night and said, ‘I wonder where all the women have gone’,” said Webb at the institute’s pre–legislative session reception, held January 7.

The reception, called “Through the Looking Glass,” was designed to draw attention to the lack of S.C. women serving in elected office and to honor women running for and elected to public office. Approximately 70 men, women, and elected officials attended the event held at downtown Columbia’s First Citizens Bank. Webb said S.C. ranked 36th in the nation in the number of women running for office in 1992. Today, S.C. ranks 50th.

As institute board member and S.C. Representative, Jenny Horne (R) pointed out in an interview, women have to run in order to win public offices. She also spoke at the event. More women held public office when Horne was a state House page in the early 1990s than today. Horne decided to run when her House District seat 94—in Charleston and Dorchester counties—became open. She lost but ran again six months later after attending a campaign training school in Columbia.

Rep. Jenny Horne with Leighton Lord, a candidate for Attorney General But for Horne, being a woman in public office is about more than just being in office. It’s about representing approximately half of the population. “If women are not at the table, 50 percent of the population is being left out of the decision– [making] process,” she said.

Marguerite Willis agreed. An attorney at Nexsen Pruet, Willis thinks of the working relationship between men and women in politics as an alloy—they strengthen each other when they work together. But she said the key to economic development in S.C. is outreach to women. “If this state really wants to have real economic development, they must focus on women in the state because the face of poverty in this state is rural and female.”

Former Columbia City Council member, Anne Sinclair with Skip Webb But when institute board member and marketing director for Nexsen Pruet Heather Hoopes-Matthews said that when she asks women why they don’t run for office, they say they had not considered

it. “I don’t think women consider themselves as candidates.”

The institute earlier that day revealed to the media its action plan to get women thinking of themselves as candidates. And Barbara Rackes, board member and founder of The Rackes Group— an Internet marketing company—shared a plan with those at the reception. The plan included a goal of tripling the number of women running for office in 2012, measures to improve campaign training efforts, and the launch of a talent bank together with the Alliance for Women to identify women for nomination to public and private boards.

Sheryl McAlister, of the Alliance for Women, with Elizabeth Guillem, a member of Capital City Republican Women The institute plans to accomplish its goal of recruitment by placing one person in each Congressional district to improve outreach efforts.

www.scelectswomen.com.
Past president for S. C. Women Lawyers Kathy Dudley Helms with Marguerite Willis