McMorris Rodgers, Walters, Stefanik & Comstock Discuss the Need to Get More Women Involved in Politics and the GOP

WASHINGTON, DC – House Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-5) was joined this past Friday morning by three women from the Republican Class of 2014 at a Ripon Society breakfast discussion that focused not only on the important role that women play in our economy, but the need to get more women involved in politics at all levels in the United States.

“Women in all fields are reaching new heights in America,” McMorris Rodgers stated.  “There is no country in the world that offers more opportunities for women than the United States.  Our mission on Capitol Hill is to make sure we continue to be a country which offers that freedom and opportunity.  The largest economic driver of the last 50 years has been the entrance of women into the workforce.  Seventy five percent of women today are in the workforce.  Sixty percent of women with children under the age of six are in the workforce.  They are contributing a lot.”

As Chair of the GOP Conference, McMorris Rodgers is the fourth highest-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives and the highest ranking woman in Congress.  First elected in 2004, she serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee and is a member of the Republican Women’s Policy Committee, as well.  She was joined at the discussion by three Republican women who were elected to the House last fall – U.S. Reps. Barbara Comstock (VA-10), Elise Stefanik (NY-21), and Mimi Walters (CA-45), who, in her remarks, talked about the approach that women bring to politics, and thanked McMorris Rodgers for the help she provided when Walters was running for Congress last year.

“We need to get more Republican women elected,” Walters stated.  “A lot of us are Moms, so we’re used to breaking up the family fights among kids.  By nature, we are more solutions-oriented and we are good at negotiating because we have to negotiate with our children.  I think the more Republican women we get elected, the less problems we’re going to have like we’re seeing today.  As a Member of Congress, I feel it’s my duty to help mentor younger women.  When I was running, Cathy was wonderful to us.  I think the Republican Party is doing a great job trying to recruit more women.  We have some fantastic women candidates out there, and I think you will continue to see us grow in numbers.”

Stefanik echoed Walter’s comments, and discussed the importance of tailoring the GOP message around women and their jobs.

“Every issue affects women,” the New York lawmaker declared.  “We ought to be talking about that – not just in terms of how a small subset of issues affects women, but in terms of how all issues affect women.  For example, one thing I have noticed visiting medical device manufacturers in my District is that the vast majority of the workforce are women.  I wasn’t sure if this was an anomaly or just happened to be the companies in my District.  It actually is an industry-wide statistic – over 50 percent of employees in the medical device industry are women.  So I started talking about this issue in a new way, saying ‘If you care about making sure that women have economic opportunity, then we need to repeal the medical device tax.  What was interesting to me is that is a new perspective on an issue we’ve been talking about for a very long time.  I think it’s a lesson we can take as Republicans to apply all of our beliefs and talk about how they affect women.”

Stefanik also discussed the importance of reaching women who may be out of work or are facing other challenges at home.

“If you look at my specific demographic,” she observed, “women who are age 18 to 30 – or now in my case, 31 – have double digit unemployment and an historic number of women in that demographic are now on food stamps.  Eighty percent of health care decisions are made by women, whether they’re taking care of their kids or taking care of their elderly parents.  There’s huge opportunity for the Republican Party to focus on how we can message our policies and principles to women.  Women are not a coalition group; we are the majority of voters.  The more women we have in Congress to bring that perspective to the Republican Party, the more effective we will be in getting our message across.”

Comstock agreed, and talked about her own experience running for office and why she suggests that women run for office at the state or local level first.

“I had a very positive experience in the Statehouse,” stated the Virginia Republican, who served for five years in the Commonwealth’s House of Delegates prior to her election to Congress in 2014.  “I really try to encourage women to run for any kind of local or state office first.  Start smaller – it’s a little bit more manageable.  If you have young kids, you can fit it into your life.  Since I was in a swing area, running for the Statehouse was one of the tougher things I had ever done.  But it was a way to actually see government working well – which in Virginia, it actually does.  We had a supermajority in the House, and instead of fighting when we had the biggest majority, we actually got things done.”

The Ripon Society is a public policy organization that was founded in 1962 and takes its name from the town where the Republican Party was born in 1854 – Ripon, Wisconsin. One of the main goals of The Ripon Society is to promote the ideas and principles that have made America great and contributed to the GOP’s success. These ideas include keeping our nation secure, keeping taxes low and having a federal government that is smaller, smarter and more accountable to the people.