2020 marks 100 years since women in the United States earned the right to vote. The fight for the 19th Amendment followed more than 70 years of struggle that included everything from marches and protests to beatings, hunger strikes and force feeding.
Today, some advocates worry that history has been lost. To mark the ratification of the 19th Amendment, public and private organizations are teaming up to organize events to commemorate the centennial all year long and across the state.
West Virginia Women’s Commission, the state Secretary of State’s office, and the state Division of Culture and History are working with private groups and organizations to host a series of events including plays, an opera and film showings including the Ken Burns documentary “Not For Ourselves Alone” and the feature film “Iron Jawed Angels.”
West Virginia played an important role in ensuring women had the right to vote, according to Renate Pore, the project director for the Kanawha Valley National Organization for Women Centennial Celebration.
“When Congress passed the national amendment to the constitution it had to be ratified by 36 states and West Virginia became the 34th state to ratify it,” she said.
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Rita Ray, a past president of the Kanawha Valley chapter of the National Organization for Women, said it is important to remember the struggle women faced and fight they endured to obtain the right to vote, especially at a time when voter participation is low.
“I do not remember learning about the suffrage movement when I was in public school or in college, and I took a lot of history classes,” she said. “It’s a good lesson knowing about this struggle, how important it is for everyone to take advantage of their right to vote, and also to resist any efforts to curtail that and take away and restrict the access to the vote.”
Listen to Renate Pore discuss the history of ratifying the 19th Amendment in West Virginia and the unusual steps the governor and the state senate had to take to make it happen.
The West Virginia Women’s Commission is honoring eight women next week with the Legacy of Women Awards.
The commission said Christine Weiss Daugherty is being given the Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson Award for lifetime achievement.
Others being honored are Michelle R. Easton, Patricia A. Petty-Wilson, Janis Gunel, Mara C. Boggs, Christine Campbell, Anne Patterson and Renee Danielle Montgomery.
Commission Executive Director Julie Palas said the women being honored have been generous with their time and talent and have been role models for others.
The event is being held on March 29 at West Virginia State University in Institute.
Senators have approved a bill that was the subject of intense debate in the House earlier in the session—getting rid of the state’s Women’s Commission– and once again, the chamber’s female members took a stand supporting the measure.
House Bill 2646 was approved by members of the House in early March on a 58 to 41 vote. Its sponsors included more than half a dozen female Republican members of the chamber who argued the Women’s Commission duplicates the efforts of many other state agencies and its work training women to run for political office was unnecessary.
Those same arguments were repeated in the Senate Thursday, also from female Republican members, including Sen. Patricia Rucker.
“I believe the Women’s Commission is long past the time that it’s needed and I’m grateful to say that I got here without their help and actually until I got here I never even knew that the commission existed,” Rucker said. “I can say that in the Eastern Panhandle they’ve been pretty much nonexistent.”
Created in the 1970s, the commission is a small bi-partisan program housed in the Department of Health and Human Resources. Ending the program would save the state about $150,000 a year.
Credit Will Price / West Virginia Legislative Photography
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West Virginia Legislative Photography
Sen. Sue Cline on the Senate floor Thursday.
“The women’s candidate trainings are performed by parties and private organizations that I fully support and hope to see continue, not only for women, but for any individual hoping to seek public office,” Sen. Sue Cline said.
“I’m not convinced that providing candidate training for anyone regardless of gender is something the state should be paying for.”
Of the 34 members of the West Virginia Senate, three are women, even though the gender makes up 51 percent of the state’s population. Still, Cline said their services in terms of political activity are not necessary.
“Men don’t need a commission to help them run for office or host candidate trainings so why do women need that,” Cline said.
No member of the Senate spoke against the bill, but in the House several Democratic members argued the disparity in female representation in public office is reason enough to continue to fund the program.
Senators approved the bill on a 24 to 10 vote.
The bill to end the Women’s Commission on June 30 of this year heads back to the House before it will go to the governor for a signature.
On The Legislature Today, Sen. Ryan Ferns and Del. Daryl Cowles react the governor’s new plans to balance the 2018 budget.
Justice’s proposal includes increased taxes on soda and cigarettes, along with a smaller hike to the consumer sales tax, but is contingent on lawmakers finding additional cuts.
Both Majority Leaders believe the plan still places the burden too squarely on the backs of West Virginians and they want to see a reduction in the size of government.
Members of the House voted to advance a bill that cuts the West Virginia Women’s Commission $150,000 budget. A group of Republican women backed the bill.
Today was civil rights lobbying day at the statehouse, a lobbying event that included organizations like the NAACP, West Virginia Free and Fairness West Virginia– all groups that work to end discrimination in the state. The groups are backing several pieces of legislation this year, but one bill in particular, one that’s been tried and has failed in the past, is receiving bipartisan support.
Delegates are beginning to consider bills that would cut some state agencies, no matter how big or how small they are. Members of one committee Friday looked at a bill that would put an end to an agency that receives about $150,000 in annual funding.
House Bill 2646 would get rid of the West Virginia Women’s Commission. It’s a small state agency with just two employees, one of whom works part-time. The House Government Organization Committee considered the bill Friday morning – where its sponsors defended the proposal.
The West Virginia Women’s Commission was created by the state Legislature in 1977. It’s a bi-partisan organization under the state Department of Health and Human Resources with a mission to promote women through advocacy, research, and education. Over the past few years, one of the commission’s main focuses has been to encourage women to run for legislative office, boards, or commissions through recruiting and training events.
Chair of the Women’s Commission Stacy North says she feels if the agency is shutdown, it would be detrimental to West Virginia.
“Image-wise, I think it’d be horrible,” North said, “I mean, it’s neglecting a huge segment of the population. It’s making it look like we don’t care. So, that would be a horrific move.”
The House Government Organization Committee discussed the bill at length Friday morning. Vice-Chair Delegate Lynne Arvon of Raleigh County noted the Commission has done good things for some women, but she feels the group’s mission is one that can be found through other organizations.
“I see a lot of overlapping responsibility here, and to me what we’re trying to do, this year particularly with the budget we have, even though their budget’s between $150,000 to $200,000 each year, some people just think that’s just a drop in the bucket, maybe, but every drop in the bucket adds up,” Arvon explained, “and I’m looking at ways we can start eliminating duplicative services. I don’t believe the Women’s Commission should be a government funded commission.”
That didn’t seem to satisfy the minority party in committee, however. Democratic members of the committee disagreed with Arvon, including Delegate Mike Caputo of Marion County.
“They’re the go-to group for women to hopefully find avenues to get where they need to be, and more importantly, they’re a non-partisan group,” Caputo said, “This group has been very clear about their non-partisanship, about what they do for the state of West Virginia, and I find it very odd that the bill was partisan; every sponsor on the bill is from the majority party, so we’re not seeing any bi-partisan effort here in whether this is a good idea or not.”
The House bill has a total of 8 sponsors, all of whom are Republican women. Even so, Democratic Delegate Michael Ferro of Marshall County says he worries about the public’s perception of the action.
“In the eyes of the general public, it is gonna look like, as my colleague from Marion said, that 23 men are taking a personal front against women. That might not be the case; that might not be the intent of the sponsors, but I guarantee that, that’s the perception that’s gonna be out there,” Ferro explained.
The bill’s lead sponsor, Delegate Kayla Kessinger of Fayette County, says the Commission is unnecessary, and she says the work the commission does, particularly around election recruitment, is something women in the state are capable of doing on their own.
“I think every woman that is currently serving and has served in West Virginia has won based on her merits, her character, and voters willingness to believe in them,” she said.
Kessinger says she understands the concerns, but she still fully believes in the proposal.
“But the fact of the matter is, women are completely capable of becoming significant and achieving their dreams and goals on their own without government assistance,” Kessinger noted, “and I think that is what truly empowers women is the ability to accomplish their dreams, their goals without relying on the government.”
Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer is one of just two democratic women in the House of Delegates. She opposes the bill.
“Women in West Virginia are not doing as well in comparison to the rest of the country or in comparison to the world,” Fleischauer explained, “I mean, United States women lag behind when it comes to the number of women in elected office, than it comes to women on corporate boards, than it comes to women graduates – I mean we’re far behind in many countries when it comes to graduation from college, and we need to do better.”
House Bill 2646 was voted out of committee and will be sent to the full chamber for a vote that’s likely to come next week. Female representation in the West Virginia Legislature is at its lowest rate since 1984. After the 2016 election, just 18 members of the House of Delegates and Senate are women.
A West Virginia women’s group is asking Gov.-elect Jim Justice for gender equity on the state’s boards and commissions.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that Justice’s incoming administration will work with a state legislature made up of 116 men and 18 women, or about 13 percent. That marks the lowest percentage of women in the Legislature since 1984.
However, the West Virginia Women’s Commission says if Justice appoints 50 percent women to the boards and commissions the governor is responsible for filling, he will take a step toward solving that problem and ensuring those appointments better reflect their constituents.
Gov. Earl Tomblin’s spokeswoman Jessica Tice says Tomblin made 1,904 appointments, including 566 women to boards and commission as of Dec. 1. That’s almost 30 percent.
