{"id":9762,"date":"2018-03-05T07:00:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9762"},"modified":"2018-03-05T12:32:25","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T17:32:25","slug":"democratic-party-chair-kathleen-matthews-defends-new-gender-balance-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9762","title":{"rendered":"Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Matthews Defends New Gender Balance Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am pleased to publish this response to earlier post by Maryland Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Matthews:<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u00a0wanted to respond thoughtfully to Ed Kimmel’s Seventh State blog<\/a> about the Maryland State Democratic Central Committee’s recent decision to adopt new rules to achieve gender balance by popular election on our county and state central committees.<\/p>\n

\n

These rules were debated over the past year, to be ready by last week\u2019s filing deadline for the 2018 primary election. The policy\u00a0was vetted for sex discrimination and other concerns by members of each county\u2019s Democratic Central Committee.\u00a0 While it was initiated by women in the state party \u2014 including Montgomery County\u2019s gender balance member, Jennifer Hosey\u2014it was supported by men and women in a unanimous voice vote at the November 4, 2017 Maryland Democratic Party statewide meeting.<\/p>\n

Women have had the vote for nearly 100 years, but we have a long way to go to achieve gender parity in our American politics. Women represent more than half our population, an even greater percentage of voters, and yet they are 20 percent of our Congress, about one-third of our Maryland Legislature, and we have yet to elect a woman President or woman governor of Maryland. At the current rate, we are centuries away from true parity.<\/p>\n

But I’m excited about the progress this year as more women are stepping into the political arena. We just reviewed the candidate filing data on the Democratic side, and compared to 2014,\u00a0we have three times as many Democratic women running for county executive, double the number of women running for state senate, and a 60 percent increase in the number of women running for House of Delegates. <\/strong>This is\u00a0the result of women who are saying “Me Too,” especially after the 2016 Presidential election, but also the hard work of our state party and organizations like RepresentWomen and Emerge Maryland, on whose board I am honored to serve.<\/p>\n

At a moment in our political life when the old norms are changing, it is appropriate to ensure that women have an equal ELECTORAL chance to be represented\u00a0in the party’s governing bodies, and this gender balance rule helps move us in that direction.<\/p>\n

The changes we adopted have created a uniform process for gender balance across all 24 county and city jurisdictions of the state; they align with the national Democratic Party rules; provide women and men an equal opportunity to gain experience in a grassroots elected position; most importantly, they put power back in the hands of the voters who get to decide who will represent\u00a0them. This is inherently more democratic and preferable to appointment, and adds greater legitimacy to the party governing bodies who claim to truly represent its members.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For those who care to read on, it\u2019s interesting to note that the history on this issue goes back to women’s suffrage when the\u00a019th Amendment, ratified in 1920, granted women full\u00a0voting rights.\u00a0\u00a0Soon after, political parties began wooing women in earnest, seeking to double their constituencies. \u201cFifty-fifty\u201d rules were soon adopted\u00a0to attract female voters at both the national and state levels.<\/p>\n

In the 1930s, the Democratic Party took a more active role in the fight for gender equity.\u00a0Molly Dewson, the head of the Democratic National Committee\u2019s Women\u2019s Division, argued that\u00a0gender-balance requirements were\u00a0the most effective way to increase women\u2019s participation and leadership in political parties.\u00a0She wisely framed the issue\u00a0as providing women with opportunities, rather than limiting those of men.\u00a0<\/strong>(In fact today, when\u00a0county\u00a0parties appoint\u00a0members\u00a0to achieve gender balance, often it is to add men to their membership.)<\/p>\n

Fast forward to today, when the Charter and Bylaws of the Democratic Party of the United States (Article Nine, Section 16) requires all party governing bodies, including state central committees, to be \u201cas equally divided as practicable according to gender\u201d for the purpose of conducting their affairs and\u00a0selecting\u00a0delegates for the Party\u2019s quadrennial National Convention.\u00a0Subsequent court review has found the Democratic Party\u2019s “Equal Division Rule: to be constitutionally sound and an effective way of enhancing the diversity of members and perspectives among Party leadership.<\/p>\n

In Maryland, we have had a system to achieve this 50-50 gender equity but it varied widely by jurisdiction. Cecil County adopted gender balance\u00a0at the ballot<\/strong>\u00a0for its central committee back in 1920, with\u00a0Allegany, Carroll, Fredrick, Harford, and Washington Counties following suit. 7 counties, including Montgomery County, passed laws requiring gender balance\u00a0by appointment\u00a0<\/strong>after voters made their selection. The remaining counties had provisions in their central committee bylaws requiring gender\u00a0balance by appointment.<\/strong> As a result, the size of central committees would expand and contract depending on the balancing requirements.<\/p>\n

Most concerning, in some counties, members who had been appointed for gender balance did not\u00a0have full voting rights. This was particularly problematic, we felt, when central committees had the responsibility to fill vacancies in the state legislature.<\/p>\n

Many of these concerns have been addressed in our state party\u2019s new gender balance rules, and for Maryland Democrats they are are another step forward in a long journey. Other countries — Norway, Rwanda, for example — have achieved diversity more quickly through\u00a0gender quotas, but thus far, the American electoral system has resisted this approach, looking for other ways to achieve\u00a0gender equity. I am proud to be involved with other Marylanders, like Cynthia Terrell at RepresentWomen and Martha McKenna and Diane Fink at Emerge Maryland, who are working hard on structural reforms and practical solutions to bring more women\u2019s voices into our political process. Women\u2019s voices are vital to strengthen the democratic process, represent women\u2019s perspectives on policy, and build collaborative solutions to our nation\u2019s most pressing problems. In the end, I firmly believe this progress towards a more diverse and inclusive Democratic Party is in everyone\u2019s best interest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am pleased to publish this response to earlier post by Maryland Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Matthews: I\u00a0wanted to respond thoughtfully to Ed Kimmel’s Seventh State blog about the Maryland State Democratic Central Committee’s recent decision to adopt new rules to achieve gender balance by popular election on our county and state central committees. These … Continue reading Democratic Party Chair Kathleen Matthews Defends New Gender Balance Rules<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[790],"tags":[2155,1308,1466],"class_list":["post-9762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democrats","tag-gender-balance","tag-kathleen-matthews","tag-mcdcc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2xs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9762"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9788,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9762\/revisions\/9788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}