In good hands: A few strong women leading Maine into future

By Victoria Wallack

For the first time in Maine’s history, women could hold the top spots in both the House and Senate next year, depending on which party wins the majority in November. Democratic Majority Leader Sen. Libby Mitchell and Republican Minority Leader Sen. Carol Weston both have their eye on the president’s prize in the Senate, where the two parties currently are just one vote apart. In the House, Majority Leader Rep. Hannah Pingree is the heir apparent to the speaker’s chair, if Democrats hold onto their current and substantial majority there.

Those three women, along with outgoing Senate President Beth Edmonds, already make up a strong quartet of female voices, who get things done by trying to get people to work together behind the scenes. If it’s true, as they say, that men make war, these women of the Legislature forge compromise without looking weak in the eyes of their male counterparts, who far outnumber them. There are currently 12 women and 23 men in the Senate and 46 women and 105 men in the House.

All four took time in the frenetic last week of the legislative session in April to talk about their leadership styles and offer advice on how women can effectively rule.

Madame President

Beth Edmonds of Freeport, a library director by trade, isn’t the first woman president of the Senate. That barrier was broken by her immediate predecessor in the job, Beverly Daggett, Edmonds, 57, rose to the role quickly, however, having served only two terms before winning the highest spot in the legislative hierarchy.

While other people encouraged her to make the initial run for Senate, the decision to run for leadership was hers, even though she knew she would be more liberal than the people she was going to lead.

“How do you stand firm to your own principles, and still bring people together?” the former chairman of Maine NOW and the Maine Choice Coalition asked herself. “I’m much more definitive now,” she said, after four years as president.

“The tendency for women is to want to bring people together, be collaborative. I also think you need a complementary skill, which is when to say, ’no,’ or ’stop, or ’we’re going to do this, regardless.’”

Edmonds, who is leaving the Senate this year because of term limits, also understands that sometimes women can be their own worst enemy.

“I think some people don’t take women seriously that is true for both men and women. There’s internalized sexism where women believe the sexism about each other or themselves. And, sometimes that’s actually a more devastating feeling, because we expect women to back us.”

Leading GOP charge

Carol Weston of Montville, the head of the Republicans in the Senate, would like to see her party in the majority next year and it would mean capturing just one more seat. She is under no illusion that will be easy.

The Senate has been divided 18 Democrats to 17 Republicans for the last three terms, but Weston says she’s determined. “I’m very focused on the campaign and getting a majority,” she said. “For men or women the focus you put toward your work is more important than anything else.”

“I’m not a multi-tasker, honestly,” Weston admits. “I put together a list of things I have to do, and I do it one by one.”

Weston, 58 and a mother of two, got pulled into politics when the representative for her district decided not to run for re-election and suggested she go for it.

“The first thing I put on my list was to win,” she said.

After serving two terms in the House, she moved to the Senate and was elected her party’s leader last year.

“Women look at the position differently and earn it somewhat differently,” she said. “We do it by serving. We feel we must serve, facilitate, bring other people up. Men tend to think that leadership is the decisive action, demonstrating decision making. We do the work behind the scenes, we orchestrate.”

Asked about her plans for elected office beyond the Senate, Weston said she would only run if there were a need, and doesn’t want to take on jobs she can’t accomplish. “I tell my husband, ’Don’t let me get one rung up too high on any ladder. Don’t let me be an example of the Peter Principle.’ It’s really interesting how people’s egos can cloud their judgment.”

Making history Twice

Elizabeth Mitchell of Vassalboro was the first and only female Speaker of the House in Maine a point she likes to illustrate by showing people the photo gallery of speakers outside the House chamber where she is the only woman in a virtual sea of men.

She’s rooting for Pingree to become the second female Speaker, but could make history again if she’s elected Senate president next year and becomes the first woman to have held both positions. Elected to the House just a week before her third child was born, the 67-year-old mother of four says higher office is probably out of the question after a Senate presidency. On the other hand, Mitchell just got her law degree two years ago, so she’s hardly running out of steam. She sees herself as a mentor to other female legislators. Her advice is know your stuff, stand your ground and don’t scream.

“If they get too emotional or if their method is screaming, those are the thing that women are shunted aside for,” she said. “The job is to be persuasive and to build a coalition. You get your power from having enough people who will vote with you.”

She also believes women have to get over the belief that they are not deserving.