Former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg often declared, “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made.” I’m guessing she’d agree that it helps if many of those places are already powerful decision-making roles. Last week’s midterm election victories have finally made that possible in Massachusetts. A state whose puzzling record of not electing women to statewide office is officially a thing of the past.
In an awe-inspiring near-clean sweep, Democratic women won five out of six of the state’s top constitutional jobs: Maura Healey as governor-elect, Kim Driscoll as lieutenant governor-elect, Diana DiZoglio as state auditor-elect and Andrea Campbell as attorney general-elect — and the first Black woman to win statewide. Healey made history as the first openly lesbian governor. And, on election night, she and Driscoll became the first two women in the country to simultaneously win governor and lieutenant governor, just ahead of the newly elected Republican team of Arkansas Governor-elect Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Lieutenant Governor-elect Leslie Rutledge.
Massachusetts is now the second state in New England to experience an electoral pink conversion. In 2012, two women in New Hampshire — Ann McLane Kuster (just reelected last week) and Carol Shea-Porter — won the open Congressional seats. They joined the two women already elected to the Senate — Kelly Ayotte and Jeanne Shaheen — creating New Hampshire’s all-female delegation. That was in addition to the victory of then Governor-elect Maggie Hassan, and the two women who were speaker of the House and chief justice of the state Supreme Court. Women were in place to make decisions at the highest levels.
The path to Massachusetts’ Election Day wins is long, winding and littered with the losses of strong female candidates who couldn’t, in the end, secure the votes or party support, from Tanisha Sullivan’s failed attempt in September’s primary to unseat incumbent Secretary of State William Galvin to acting Gov. Jane Swift’s withdrawal from the 2002 governor’s race. Commenting on the predicted historic female sweep, Swift told the Christian Science Monitor this past September that she wished she hadn’t had to endure an incessant focus on her gender, saying, “I can’t wait for the day … when the women serving in office can talk about the issues … not why they think differently because they have a uterus.”
Like New Hampshire 10 years ago, Massachusetts' five constitutional office winners will serve alongside women in the state Legislature — some newly elected — and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who is marking one year in office.
On Election Day, a voter told GBH Morning Edition co-anchor Paris Alston she looked forward to “women in power, supporting each other.” Since there is solid evidence that women leaders approach problem-solving more collaboratively, it’s likely that will happen. There will also be tremendous pressure on this historic group of women leaders to meet the high expectations and deliver on their campaign promises.
But, right now, it’s important to pause and acknowledge those who hammered thousands of cracks at that proverbial glass ceiling until it gave way making this historic election possible. In the words of pathbreaking Grammy-winning performer Lizzo, “It’s about damn time.”
