The New Agenda calls on Gov. Ritter of CO to select the state’s first woman Senator…
December 18, 2008
by The New Agenda
|Today, The New Agenda issued a press release titled The New Agenda Calls on Governor Ritter to Make History.
Colorado Senator Ken Salazar has been appointed as Obama’s Secretary of the Interior. The New Agenda issued to this press release to national newspapers, CO state newspapers, and of course to Gov. Ritter’s office. We will also be sending out an action alert to our members tonight if you want to be involved too!
The New Agenda co-founder Amy Siskind said:
Governor Ritter has an important obligation to the women of Colorado and America. The Obama transition team has moved women back to the low levels of representation in the cabinet not seen since the Reagan Administration in the 1980’s with a mere four women out of 19 announced cabinet posts (21%). The New Agenda is optimistic that Governor Ritter, on behalf of a state with a rich history of women leaders, will move us forward.
Co-founder Star Waring added:
In 1893, Colorado became the second state in the union to approve women’s suffrage. After such a strong beginning it is disappointing that we’ve never had a woman serve in the U.S. Senate. Governor Ritter has an opportunity to change that and to make history by appointing our state’s first woman U.S. Senator.
And co-founder Sacha Millstone added:
Given the exceptional caliber of the women on this list, Governor Ritter has a tremendous talent pool from which to select our next U.S. Senator. Coloradans would be proud to have any one of them represent us in Washington, D.C.
The full press release and the list of our proposed qualified women candidates is listed here.
Great call!
Thanks for staying on top of this.
Thanks for filling the VOID of women leadership in the U.S.
Great, thanks for being on top of this the Gov also needs to be handed a list of qualified female candidates in case he hasn’t thought of this before.
Has anyone heard from NOW in ages? Are they just sitting their on their hands waiting to be called on? I guess they are defunct although they still send me requests for money.
This is super. Gosh, you’re very hard to ignore ; ).
Constance,
Great minds think alike!
If you look at the press release itself we did make 7 excellent suggestions of candidates just in case you are right about the thought not having crossed his mind.
NOW must be writhing. Not only did they back the biggest misogynist to ever come down the pike…but they’ve been replaced and outclassed.
Anyone read The Tipping Point? Change comes exactly like this. In a big wave. NOW’s obsolete.
Sec. Labor announced.
That’s now 5 women at Cabinet-level in Obama’s administration: Sec. Labor, Sec. State, Sec.DHS, plus EPA and UN Ambassador. He now has named as many women to Cabinet-level jobs as Bush has in his current Administration, and he still has two jobs to fill: Trade Rep and Director of Drug Control Policy.
He’s also been the first president to name a woman as permanent chair of the SEC.
PG,
Bush has 15 in his cabinet – so 5 of 15 are women (33%).
Obama has artificially increased his cabinet to 21 positions (1 left to be filled, he is not considering Drug Czar part of cabinet). Susan Rice was not considered part of cabinet for Bush although she served. So truly he has 4 of 19 selections of women – 21% – even with Rice it’s 5 of 20 – 25%. Well below Bush!
Amy,
I don’t know where you’re getting either your numbers on Bush or your claims about how he designates Cabinet level positions. If you count only those that are considered “Cabinet” (rather than Cabinet-level), there are 15, but only 4 of those are currently women: Education, State, Labor, Transportation. (And of course State and Education originally were filled by men.) If you include those Bush designated as Cabinet-level, it’s a total of 21, with one more woman (Trade Rep). 4/15 = 26.6%. 5/21=23.8%.
If Obama doesn’t consider the Director of Drug Policy to be Cabinet-level, you may want to inform the folks running this website, who include that position on their list of Cabinet-level positions.
Our source on W. Bush is the White House website.
“The folks running this website” are us, the founders. We’re including the Director of Drug Policy as Cabinet-level because it’s listed that way on Obama’s own transition site:
http://change.gov/learn/administration
In the words of Sojourner Truth at the bottom of this page, If women want our rights, than we need to take them. NOW is doing nothing but asking for money and pretending that Obama will do right by us, while he shits in our faces in front of them. I understand the frustration many of us have with them. They stood by and did nothing while the misogyny and gender bashing took place against Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. They were obviously intimidated by the male democratic establishment.
Part of what hursts is that Hillary has always had their backs at every turn. She is the primier feminist of our time!!! She is brave and brillient, and willing to put herself out there. She is a fighter and she can take a beating, as well as give one. When NOW didn’t stick up for her publically and loudly, I lost all respect for them. Their phony hall of shame bull shit failed to call out the misogynists within the democratic establishment. They tip toed around the sexist dems. and targetted a few news commontadors, such as Chris Mathews. They listed them on their face page, but took no real action. They didn’t organize, hold a press conference or make any effort to draw attention to the truth of what was happening. They didn’t even question the deliberate disenfranchisement of Florida and Michigan, clearly designed to hobble her during the democratic primaries.
After the public assaults and mind rape of Hillary Clinton and the women (and men) who supported her, NOW ‘s Kim Gandy went on CNN to tell us all to vote for Obama or Roe v. Wade would be overturned. It was sickening!!!
It reminded me of the scene in the color purple, when Celie tells Harpo to beat his wife, or the mother who tells her daughter to go back to her abusive husband for the sake of the children.
I am so greatful for the New Agenda, Women Count, The Confluence, others and many of you here on the feminist blogs. Thank you! Your support has kept me focused and energized.
The torch has been passed and we are the ones who need to fight the good fight that the feminist establishment has failed to.
It’s like a new talented artist who first hits the scene with the fire in their belly and their raw talent not yet spoiled by becoming overly commercialized. NOW and NARAL has long since sold themselves to the male democratic establishment. That is why, they so easily sacrificed Hillary.
But for us who are still angry at what happened her, because we understand that she represented and fought for all of us, it is our turn to pick up the mantal and carry on with the business of fighting for women’s equality. Hillary did her part, now let her example inspire us, the way she was treated infuriate us, and the fire in our bellies propel us to march forward in TAKING the rights and privilages that are rightfully ours.
Amy,
According to Violet, you got it wrong about Obama not considering Drug Czar to be Cabinet-level. The only “inflation” he’s engaged in is not insulting the rest of the world the way Bush did by not considering UN Ambassador to be a Cabinet-worthy position. (Bush then further insulted by interim-appointing John “we wouldn’t miss 10 stories lopped off the UN building” Bolton as ambassador, but that’s another story.)
Re: your source on Bush, great, same source as mine (see my link in my last post). So who do you think is the 5th woman in Bush’s current Cabinet? I named Education, State, Labor, Transportation — who is the person I assumed was a man but actually is a woman?
Or are you referring to a version of the Cabinet different from the current one; if so, which date? Members of Bush’s Cabinet have changed significantly over time, particularly with regard to women — Elaine Chao, to my knowledge, has been the only constant, while Christine Whitman was pushed out at EPA and Gail Norton resigned from Interior. He didn’t have any more women in his original Cabinet than he has now, either — the only women were Chao, Norton, Whitman and Ann Veneman (Sec.Ag).
I haven’t made a timeline, but I doubt you will find any date on which there were more than 4 women serving in the 15-member Cabinet-Cabinet, and more than 5 in the “extended Cabinet,” i.e. all 21 Cabinet-level positions.
According to Obama’s website, Susan Rice is NOT a cabinet member (UN Ambassador). However, the majority of the press considers her position to be and Obama has publicly stated this as well – so we have counted her. According to the Washington Post, Drug Czar will not be a cabinet position. As you can see, when Obama’s own website does not give the correct information (e.g. Rice) our work involves best guesses based on reading the MSM and other information.
I will come back to you on source for W. Bush.
What Amy said. The Obama team has not exactly been crystal clear with the information. We’re doing the best we can.
Violet,
I understand, but then you might want to pick one consistent source for information. If you don’t consider change.gov reliable, go with WaPo or whatever source you think does the best job of accurately documenting what positions are deemed “Cabinet-level.” An ad-hoc cobbling together of media with change.gov information necessarily will lead to inconsistencies like Amy’s asserting that Drug Czar isn’t Cabinet-level, while your own website says it is.
PG, you appear to be taking issue with a single comment made by Amy a little while ago on the basis of a report we’d heard.
You need a new hobby. You’re not being helpful, you’re simply fussing for attention.
Are we truly debating over whether it is officially four or five women and whether it is Bush or Obama who is winning the race to the bottom when it comes to gender parity? Geesh.
PG is a mole. S/he has been exposed on TGW by zee earlier today. I guess PG is looking for new ground.
Well, yes, PG is following people around to various websites with the explicit purpose of detracting from Obama’s shortcomings by trying to bash the Clintons, but I do think the topic is worth pinpointing because we need to have the facts straight, even to the point that there are discrepancies in how the Obama team themselves view the Cabinet positions. I like knowing that much.
It was something I was going to ask the tireless founders here. Obama is appointing team members and experts as well Cabinet members, and I would like The New Agenda to add all of them to the “Cabinet watch” whether they are official cabinet members or not.
The photo ops on TV show Obama appointing women to other than Cabinet posts and then Obama voters get the impression “he’s appointing so many women!”
Case in point, the Energy and Environmental team….three more women.
http://www.iht.com/articles/20.....sition.php
Is there any way to enlarge on this? Include all such teams in the “watch” so we can know the true proportion of women appointed?
Thanks.
@KendallJ on December 18th, 2008 9:52 pm
PG is a mole. S/he has been exposed on TGW by zee earlier today. I guess PG is looking for new ground.
Heh. I think you mean ‘concern troll.’
Thanks KendallJ and Zee for the heads-up, and for not engaging with this individual. It saves us much time and energy.
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