Free symposium on women in politics to be Jan. 30 at SMU

The John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies at SMU will host a “Women in Politics” symposium on Jan. 30 at the Meadows Museum on campus.

Charles and Jane Harrell Pierce are presenting the event.

Former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison will deliver the keynote address during lunch, discussing the role and presence of women in the U.S. political arena.

The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required at blog.smu.edu/towercenter/events.

“The participation of women in American politics continues to evolve, and through our involvement, significant policy changes that affect all Americans have occurred,” Hutchison said. “We must continue to encourage women to participate in public service so that America in its entirety is accurately represented in the U.S. Congress.”

According to the Center for American Women and Politics, a record number of women will serve in the 113th Congress. Sixteen Democrats and four Republicans will serve in the Senate, up from 17 in the last Congress, and 78 women (58 Democrats and 20 Republicans) will serve in the House, up from 73 in the last Congress. Hutchison was one of two Republican women (Olympia Snowe of Maine was the other) who did not run for re-election in November.

The symposium will explore the landscape for female candidates for elective office in the United States, especially in state legislatures and Congress. The panels will discuss why progress in recruiting and electing women has been sluggish and differences between the national parties in efforts to recruit and elect women.

SMU political science professor Dennis Simon and Baldwin Wallace University political scientist Barbara Palmer will be featured panelists, discussing the findings in their 2012 book, Women and Congressional Elections: A Century of Change.

“This symposium is designed to gather both scholars and practitioners for a broad-ranging discussion about women as candidates and officeholders in the U.S. Congress,” Simon said.

“We plan to explore two issues. The first is the growing disparity between the number of Democratic and Republican women elected to Congress and the state legislatures. Our second concern involves the impediments that women face in running for office and how the media cover their campaigns.”

In 1993, Texans elected Hutchison in a special election, making her the only woman elected to represent Texas in the Senate. One year later, she was re-elected to a full six-year term.

When she left the Senate at the end of the 112th Congress, Hutchison was the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and the Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice and Science. She was also chairwoman of the Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee and served on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.