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Nov

17

From the female leadership pipeline: Pingree now ME House Majority Leader


I was going to title this something like, “Something’s in the Hair” because of Capri Cafaro becoming Minority Leader in the Ohio State Senate.  But I decided against it.  Way too loaded.

If Hannah Pingree looks young to you, it’s because she is – 32 years old.  But she’s already the third female house majority leader for Maine, which, as you probably know, has two Republican female U.S. Senators.  And that state next door? New Hampshire?  It’s got that majority female state senate.

I’ve often said that even though I’ve lived in Ohio for 20 years and I love it here, when people ask me where I’m from, I still think of myself as being from New England. It doesn’t surprise me at all, how it is that I feel the news these days about New England politics.

I hope to have more on Pingree later today, but not surprisingly, her mother, Chellie, was just elected to her first term as a house rep in the U.S. Congress. She was the second female House Majority Leader, in the 1990s.  On a personal note, Chellie Pingree is the author of – Shannon, are you reading? you too, Toddie – five knitting books and was the owner of a yarn shop that turned into a larger small business, all before entering politics. Having a mother in politics certainly helps show that it “can be done” and how it can be done.

Here’s a bit about Hannah’s trajectory:

Prior to serving in the Maine Legislature, she was a fundraiser for the U.S. Senate campaign of Chellie Pingree, her mom. She also worked for two years in New York City as the political director and “Election 2000” producer for iVillage.com, the largest political internet site for women. In addition to serving in the Legislature, professionally, Hannah runs a capital campaign to build a new public school facility on North Haven.

Hannah is an honors graduate of North Haven Community School, Brown University and was a 1998-99 Fellow for Leadership in Public Affairs for the Coro Foundation in New York City. In the Legislature she represents 11 islands and coastal towns. She grew up on the island of North Haven.

Consistent with Hannah’s path is one of the pieces of information that regularly gets amplified by groups that seek to help women into and through the political leadership pipeline: men have a younger average starting age and incumbency then takes over.  Hannah Pingree is an example of why the groups that focus on the pipeline make a concerted effort to recruit and support women under 35: to get that age at which they start lower and improve the chances of being able to take advantage of incumbency.

Also note that Hannah went to Brown University, where Jennifer Lawless teaches.  Lawless wrote the book, It Takes A Candidate: Why Women Don’t Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2005).  Lawless put her money and time where her pen and academic research was and ran for Congress in 2006 in Rhode Island 2nd CD’s Democratic primary against incumbent, Jim Langevin (who, by the way, was first elected to political office when he was – you betcha – only 24; Lawless was 30 when she ran against him; here’s an interesting post-mortem she wrote more than a year after her experience).

Not so coincidentially, Chellie, Hannah’s mother, was first elected to the Maine statehouse at the age of 37, five years older than her daughter is now, and her daughter is on her third term (meaning she was 28 when she was first elected).  Again, it’s taking some time, but we just have to keep going.

Hattip, my wonderful mentor Cynthia Samuels at Don’t Gel Too Soon.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:57 am November 17th, 2008 in Campaigning, Democrats, Elections, Gender, Government, Parenting, Politics, Women, leadership 

Comments

One Response to “From the female leadership pipeline: Pingree now ME House Majority Leader”

  1. 1 BRM on November 17th, 2008 1:55 pm

    I am at least as impressed by the knitting books and yarn shop as by the politics! Knitters are such smart people.

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