VA: Amid Women's History Month, legislators reflect on parity in politics
“It only took about 400 years,” said former Virginia first lady Anne Holton as she stood in Virginia’s House of Delegates chamber ahead of the unveiling of the official portrait of the state’s first woman speaker of the House.
Holton, the daughter of former Republican governor Linwood Holton, wife of former Gov. and current U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and a former state secretary of education, was among a packed and audibly joyous room on Wednesday to celebrate Del. Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, who served as speaker from 2020 to 22.
One hundred years after Helen Timmons Henderson of Buchanan County and Sarah Lee Fain of Norfolk were elected to the House in 1923, becoming the first women elected to Virginia’s legislature, women continue their long rise toward parity in the General Assembly.
Before former state Sen. Jennifer McClellan was sworn into her seat in Congress on March 7, women accounted for 48 of the 140 seats in the General Assembly, or 34%. And with about 30% of representation nationwide in state and federal government being composed of women, politics is getting that much closer to the “normal.”
https://richmond.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/amid-womens-history-month-legislators-reflect-on-parity-in-politics/article_69f6a504-c523-11ed-8271-2fc1ca683ee7.html
