Governor Gregoire Delivers the First Lecture in the Laurie Loveland Lecture Series at North Dakota State University

Governor Gregoire Delivers the First Lecture in the Laurie Loveland Lecture Series at North Dakota State University

Invisible No More: The Growing Influence of Women in Politics

Thank you, Dr. Ann Burnett, for inviting me here and introducing me today. I'd also like to thank Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp for being a great friend and an outstanding Attorney General for this state.

And I want to acknowledge Laurie's sister, Cleo Cantlon, and brother-in-law, Ed Cantlon, who are both here today.

Good morning, it's great to be here for the inaugural Laurie J. Loveland Symposium.

I am especially pleased to be here because Laurie was a cherished friend.

I got to know Laurie in 1998 when Attorney General Heitkamp introduced us. Together, we negotiated the national tobacco settlement.

On most days, it was just Laurie and me in a room full of men - some of the most expensive lawyers in the nation.

For all of us, it was a long, tough, process. The negotiations went on for months.

But it was especially hard for Laurie. I was able to go home most weekends to see my family and recharge. Laurie, who was on loan from the North Dakota Attorney General's Office, had to stay in New York to draft formal settlement language from any agreements made the week before.

At one point, late in the process, I checked in to see how she was doing. I'll bet you must be getting a little homesick, I said.

"I am so homesick, I missed the first blizzard of the year in North Dakota," she replied.

But the hard work was worth it.

We achieved the largest financial settlement in the history of the world - $206 billion for the states in the first 25 years alone.

In Washington, we are using some of the money for a comprehensive, sustained anti-smoking campaign, and the results are remarkable:

* In 2000 when we first received the settlement funds, Washington had the 20th lowest smoking rate in the nation. Today we're down to 5th.
* Smoking by young people in our state has dropped by about half since 2000.
* We've seen declines in smoking among pregnant women.
* And a toll-free tobacco quit line started with the settlement money has helped nearly 100,000 people in the last five years.

The settlement also changed the corporate culture of big tobacco. It prohibited marketing to kids - a novel idea since the sale of their product to kids is illegal.

We also got tobacco companies to pay $1 billion into a foundation dedicated to prevent kids from smoking.

Let me make an aside here, because I think it directly connects to one of my views about women in politics.

I was the Washington Attorney General at the time - the first woman AG in state history. My decision to sue tobacco companies was a difficult one, since I knew I would get little or no legal help from the Legislature, and I would be taking on probably one of the most imposing legal machines in the nation.

I remember well the final straw for me.

We were having a discussion about the use of cartoon characters - Joe Camel in particular.

Joe Camel was an extremely successful advertising gimmick. He was as recognized as Mickey Mouse.

Now you don't think for a minute that Joe Camel was used to attract 20 or 30-year-olds to Camel cigarettes do you?

Camel had a huge edge in the youth tobacco market.

So I challenged the Camel lawyers to stop using the character to attract kids who were too young to legally buy cigarettes.

Their response? As long as the competition is competing for this market, we have a right to compete too.

That did it for me. My main reason for fighting tobacco companies was to stop the marketing to kids.

I watched too many of my daughters' friends get addicted to tobacco and I was determined to do what I could to reduce youth smoking.

As women, Laurie, Heidi and I brought different views, different issues, and different styles to the male-dominated bargaining table.

I am proud of our success, and it underscores my message to you today - we need more women in government today, because without them we can't achieve the full potential of this country.

Too many important voices and too many important issues are not heard.

I am fortunate coming from Washington, where we have made great progress in electing women.

We are the first state in the country to have a female governor and two female U.S. Senators.

And in 1999, we set a record nationally when women held 41 percent of the seats in our state Legislature.

Today, many of the top leadership positions in the Legislature are held by women.

On our Capital Campus it is not unusual to see bumper stickers that say: A woman's place is in the House… and in the Senate.

In Washington, like other states, I think more women are running for office because they believe their issues and concerns are not being addressed.

Many women are working effectively in advocacy roles, but they are beginning to ask why they shouldn't be in the policy making role.

Indeed, I understand that in South Dakota, the decision by a male-dominated Legislature to ban abortions - a move which was later rejected by voters - has fired up many South Dakota women to run for elective office.

I personally followed a similar track. I was always committed to public service, and started as a clerk typist, then became a caseworker investigating child abuse and neglect for the state.

In January of 2006, a Yale University professor released a paper that compared male congressional voting records on issues important to the National Organization for Women.

Not surprisingly, the research found that congressmen with at least two daughters showed significantly higher support for issues such as reproductive rights and women's safety.

In Washington and elsewhere, the emergence of women has brought more focus and progress on issues that are important to women.

For example, the rising number of women legislators has yielded important progress on issues like:

* Domestic violence, providing increased funding for services and shelters and taking such important steps as offering unemployment insurance for DV victims who lose their jobs due to the abuse they're facing.
* Enacting family leave legislation so that workers can take time off to care for newborn children or sick or elderly family members.
* Increasing access to health insurance for children and families.
* Cancer research, including funding to prevent and ultimately eradicate breast cancer.
* Investing in early learning so children can thrive by the time they start school.
* Strengthening our education system to prepare our kids for the global economy.
* Promoting equal pay for equal work.
* Supporting women and minority-owned businesses.

I really believe women bring an important new style to politics. At the risk of generalizing, women are more apt to seek common goals and solutions and women don't view policy as a competition with a winner and a loser.

Fortunately, it looks like women don't have to prove anymore that they are strong enough, or tough enough to run.

Pioneers like Dianne Feinstein who ran for office on campaign themes including "toughness doesn't always come in a pinstripe suit" in 1971 and "tough and caring" in 1990 are now fully integrated into the political landscape.

In fact:

* In the House of Representatives, women hold 71 of the 435 seats, including the most important one of all, Speaker of the House.
* In the Senate, women hold 16 of the 100 seats and are gaining seniority.
* Nine women are governors.

And many more women are on their way up the political ladder:

* Women hold 76 of 315 (24.1 percent) statewide elective offices.
* 23.5 percent of state legislative seats are held by women
* 17.3 percent of the nation's mayors are women.

As women become more visible in these positions of leadership, they are increasingly able to emphasize their other credentials - in some cases being a parent or grandparent.

Senator Patty Murray of my home state has built a strong reputation as a shrewd politician who entered politics after being dismissed as "a mom in tennis shoes." She has carried that dismissive comment made by a politician she was advocating before as a badge of honor.

Meanwhile, Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is viewed by sixty-four percent of men and seventy-four percent of women as having strong qualities of leadership. Seventy percent of men aged 18 to 44 currently view Senator Clinton as a strong leader.

And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's aggressive start to her term at the helm of Congress has shown that women can be decisive, strong and caring leaders.

Clearly, women are invisible no more in the halls of Congress, in state capitols, and in city halls across America. But we still have a long way to go. Women now represent more than half of all voters, but less than one-quarter of our elected officials nationwide.

And that's why I urge young women to get involved in the political process. Of course, at a minimum everyone should vote. People fought hard and even died to guarantee the right to vote for so many of our citizens. It is our civic responsibility to exercise that right.

But there is so much more all of us can do to influence the political process. Find an issue that you care about - and I mean this for the men here, too - and work to address that issue. Whether it is protecting the environment, or advocating for a stronger education system, or helping to alleviate poverty in your community or abroad, there are an endless number of opportunities and an endless number of needs.

In time, I hope you'll develop a sense of satisfaction and a sense of civic responsibility. Things don't change without people taking action. So, it's your responsibility to be active in your community and your country.

To paraphrase the slogan of one of the tobacco brands Laurie Loveland and I fought against, "We've come a long way, (baby)." But the involvement of the next generation of women leaders will bring us fully into the mainstream of our political landscape.

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