Dec 14, 2006 9:33 pm US/Eastern
Women Elected To State Office Make History
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
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For the first time, two women from Pittsburgh will be sworn into the State House.
KDKA
For the first time in Pennsylvania history, two women from Pittsburgh will be sworn into the State Legislature next month.
Lisa Bennington, 30, and Chelsa Wagner, 29, will be among the 27 women who are part of the 203-member State House.
"Women are going to approach things differently and just as you need ethnic diversity, you need the gender diversity," said Wagner.
But KDKA's Jon Delano reports the state has one of the worst records in the country when it comes to gender diversity.
"We've been holding pretty steady near the bottom of the pile, at 46th in the nation. But we did make a little bit of a gain. We moved up one place, leapfrogging over Mississippi, from 47th to 46th in the nation," said Chatham College Professor Alison Lowe.
Lowe says the state government would benefit with more women.
"Women make a difference in a variety of ways. They are more likely than there partisan counterparts to work across partisan lines," she explained.
"I definitely would like to work towards starting a bi-partisan women's caucus," said Bennington.
Given the one-vote democratic edge in the House, if women legislators worked together, they could control the agenda.
"If you get together as a group, you have more bargaining power," Wagner said.
Bennington and Wagner have some advice for women considering a run for office – go for it.
"Both Lisa and I heard at different times, wait your turn," said Wagner. "We'd be waiting our turn for probably another twenty years if we listened to that."
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
UNCUT: Lisa Bennington and Chelsa Wagner
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