Opinion: Female representation matters. Colorado’s legislature proves that.
By Karen Tumulty Karen Tumulty Columnist covering national politics Email Bio Follow Columnist April 12 DENVER
Only once before and only briefly has any legislature in the country experienced a female majority in even one of its chambers. It happened in New Hampshire, where women held 13 out of 24 seats in the state Senate during the 2009-2010 session. Kathleen Collins “KC” Becker, who got her start on the Boulder City Council, is the third woman in a row to serve as House speaker. “We very diligently recruit women, and train women to run, and hire women as campaign managers,” she said in an interview in her offices just off the chamber. “And so, all of this is intentional. It didn’t just happen that way.”
So what difference does it make when women gain power? On the day I visited the Colorado capitol, a Senate committee passed legislation to create an insurance fund that would offer 12 weeks of paid leave to care for a newborn or deal with family emergencies — the latest version of a measure that has failed at least four times in the past.
Just a coincidence? Maybe. But polling has shown women in the United States are significantly more likely than men to say that climate change is a serious problem, that it will affect them personally and that major lifestyle changes are needed to combat it.
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