Women, Politics, Term Limits

I've always been a fan of mandatory retirement for elected officials as long as the retirement came after a significant period of time. I think 24 or 30 years is probably long enough for any politician to hold a job. Most limits on an elected official's term in office, however, are much shorter than that. The Washington Post on Monday had an interesting article that looked at states with term limits for state legislators and the number of women in the legislature.

Essentially what the article found was that states with term limits had fewer women in office while states without term limits had more women in office. Furthermore, states with term limits have seen the number of women in office decline since term-limits went into effect. According to the article:

Term limits are in effect in 15 states, in every region of the country. Created in the belief that they would make statehouses less hidebound and more representative, the rules remain a topic of considerable controversy, much of it about what effect the turnover has on legislative effectiveness.

In six states, term limits have been repealed by the legislature or killed by the courts.

Since 1995, the year before the first limits were imposed for state legislatures, the percentage of women in the legislatures has grown from 20.6 percent to 23.5 percent, an increase of 200 seats nationwide -- on average, four per state.

The overall increase in states with term limits, however, has been smaller than in states without. The number of women in the Michigan legislature, from the year before term limits were enacted to now, dropped from 34 to 29. Missouri went from 45 to 38, Ohio from 28 to 23 and Arizona from 32 to 31. In Florida, women held 38 seats in 2000 and 38 today.

A few states registered gains, notably California, where the number of female legislators climbed from 25 in 1995 to 34 today. Yet even in Sacramento, women occupy just 28 percent of statehouse seats.

What's questionable, however, is whether or not the term limits caused the decline or whether it is simply an interesting coincidence.

What I think is clear is that there has to be a strategy of promoting the candidacies of women if you want to increase their numbers in elective office. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota has been working on such a strategy for decades and the work has paid off.

My college friend, Margaret Anderson Kelliher was quoted in the Washington Post article about the strategy.

In Minnesota, a state without term limits, women have increased their numbers in the legislature from 50 to 70 since 1995, including a jump of 10 last year. House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher (D) credits two factors: the growing number of electable female candidates and the prominence of issues such as education and health care.

"There are more and more women who are serving on local school boards, running for city councils and winning, and creating a pipeline," Kelliher said. "The scholarly literature says it takes on average three times that a woman is asked to run for office for her to do it. My sense is we're maybe down to two times."

Like everything else in politics, success depends on hard work done over the long term. While term limits may serve to prematurely cut off promising political careers I'm not sure they should be blamed for a lack of women in elective office. Term limits simply make having a good pipeline very important.

Altria Arrogance

The Texas Council on Family Violence is having a fundraising champagne reception on May 9th in Austin.

The event will be "A tribute to Ann Richards." Event tickets are $50 while those wishing to join the tribute circle may do so for $100. Altria is one of the 11 sponsors of the event. So for those keeping score, Altria can now claim --

We addicted her
We employed her
We killed her
We honor her

Quantel Won!

Thanks to everyone who voted! Quantel just won a trip to the national finals of a slam dunk competition. You can see his dunk in the post below.

We need your vote

My cousin's significant other recently won the University of Nebraska-Omaha slam dunk competition. You can see his dunk below. What we really need, however, is for you to vote for him. Visit this page and vote in the upper right-hand corner for University of Nebraska-Omaha. Thanks!

Stupid Stupid Stupid

I went to Wolf Camera yesterday to pick up some picture's I'd taken with my old school, 35 mm film camera.

The guy at Wolf explained to me that their machine that develops pictures is down and that they had called my home phone to tell me and that they'd call me again when my pictures were developed.

I got home, looked at the phone and noticed the voice mail notice light was NOT blinking. Then I looked at the caller ID. I hadn't gotten a phone call all day.

So the guy at Wolf had lied. And what a stupid lie it was. The lie initially made me feel really good about Wolf Camera. I was impressed with their ability to provide quality customer service. But when I realized that they had never called, it made me feel horrible about their company.

What a stupid lie.

UPDATE: I just spoke with the store manager on the phone. It ends up that the employee (the photo technician who doesn't normally do customer service) who was given the task of making the calls didn't make them but told the other employees that she had completed all of them. As a result, Wolf Camera lied to a bunch of people yesterday because their customer service team believed that people had really been called.

So here's my take. This was a case of bad management. Give customer relations jobs to people who are good at dealing with other people and who enjoy that kind of work. I know the sales staff was probably busy selling cameras and dealing with in-store customers. I also know that Wolf had a photo technician sitting around with nothing to do after the machine went down. But asking her to make customer calls was a mistake. It was a job she was not able to perform. Good managers put their employees in a position to succeed. I don't think Wolf Camera did that.

On the farm with the Grandparents

As a child I would spend a couple of weeks every summer with my grandparents. One week with Grandpa and Grandma H and one week with Grandpa and Grandma L. The weeks would happen back to back and, one might think they would be fairly similar. My grandparents both lived on farms in Eastern South Dakota that weren't all that far apart. They were roughly the same age. Grandma H and Grandpa L were in the same class in school!

With the Hs, my memories are much more focused indoors. Singing along with "Big, Bad, LeRoy Brown," using a tape recorder to do my own play-by-play to football games on TV. I remember being in the house on a hot summer day. There was no central air. Grandma had all the windows and doors open as she tried to coax a breeze through the screens using old box fans. She and I were doing something when she asked me if I could spell the word quarter. "Q-U-A-R-T-E-R" I quickly rattled off. Grandma expressed amazement that someone my age could spell that word, especially with a q-u in it. I told her I couldn't imagine not being able to spell it – after all you can't spell Quarterback if you can't spell quarter!

Outdoor memories at the H's involve riding horses and bailing hay, doing chores, playing with my Uncle Mark, Aunt Cindy and Aunt Margo. Not a bad life.

With the L's, the memories are different but that's probably mostly due to my relationship with my cousins on that side of the family.

One of my earliest memories with the Ls is watching a horse race on TV at Grandpa and Grandma's house. We had a ticket from Hy-Vee, I think, that listed the number of a horse and if that horse won the race then we could cash our ticket in for $100. Our horse started slow but closed fast as they came down the stretch. In the end it was a photo finish. I was excited as I could be. My horse lost by a nose.

I remember going fishing at the river and catching a bullhead, taking it home and cleaning it and finding out it was pregnant. Grandpa showed me the fish eggs and I was fascinated.

I remember playing with Pete, Sean and Chris with home made rubber-band guns Grandpa had made out of clothes pins, wood and the cut up inner tube from a tire.

I remember coffee cans filled with feed for pigs. And I remember the time grandpa asked me if I wanted to do chores with him. I said yes and raced out the door as he got his boots on. "Don't go in with the hogs until I get there," he said. "Okay," was my reply.

I, of course, went down and got my coffee can, filled it with feed, climbed the fence and jumped into the middle of a bunch of hungry hogs. I held the coffee can full of feed above my head. The pigs, being unable to jump decided to take me down.

Now grandpa was a master at working with dogs. His dogs were well trained and protective. Grandpa was still up at the house. His dog, I don't remember which one, jumped the fence and bit pig ankles, moving them out of the way until she got to me. Then she stood right over the top of me, refused to let me up and let go with a torrent of high pitched barks signaling danger until Grandpa came to get me out of there.

Now I was grateful to the dog for saving me but scared as could be about what might happen when Grandpa got me out from underneath the dog. I think that's the most trouble I ever got in with a grandparent.

I remember setting off fireworks, bailing hay, separating lambs from their tails, painting buildings, learning to drive tractors, football games, baseball games, country music, Christmas mornings, ping-pong, dominos, Coca-cola, rodeo on tv, baseball and football in the yard, bottle-feeding calves and lambs, coin collections and visits to the casino.

Either way you cut it you can't beat those memories. It was a good way for a kid to spend some time in the summer.

Another Baseball post

I'm getting into baseball a little bit. I have no idea why. I haven't been a baseball fan in years. I've actually watched parts of two games already this season. I hope this wears off soon.

With that, Go Rockies! Go Twins!

Mayor Bloomberg hits a foul ball

I have a lot of respect for NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg. There is no mayor in the country who has been as strong on public health as Bloomberg. Today, however, he hit a foul ball.

The mayor vetoed a bill that would have outlawed the use of aluminum baseball bats in all NYC high school games. The bill was passed because it is believed that balls hit off aluminum bats may be more dangerous to players in the field, especially pitchers. Kids are able to swing an aluminum bat faster than a wood bat and there is a bigger "trampoline" effect for the ball coming off an aluminum bat. As a result, the ball comes off the bat at a much higher rate of speed.

Opponents of the bill say the data just isn't there to support the idea that more kids get hurt when aluminum bats are used. I say, so what?

Here's the thing. Smart Little League, high school and college teams that use aluminum bats in games practice with wood bats. Why? Because you learn to be a much better hitter with wood bats. With an aluminum bat you can hit the ball in on the handle and still get a relatively good hit. With a wood bat you really need to focus and concentrate on getting the "sweet spot" of the bat on the ball. Make kids use a wood bat as they learn the game and you'll create better hitters.

So I say, let's make baseball a better game and if we make it a safer game at the same time then that's a nice bonus.