Madam President, Revised Edition by Clift Eleanor;Brazaitis Tom;

Author:Clift, Eleanor;Brazaitis, Tom;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 4523783
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

SEVEN

Go West, Young Woman

Betsy Bayless graduated from college with a Phi Beta Kappa key, degrees in Latin American studies and Spanish, and an interest in international banking. “My problem,” she says, “was that it was 1966, and I found that a woman could not enter the professional world, at least not very easily, and certainly not in Arizona.” Bayless finally did get a job in international banking—as a file clerk—and soon figured out that if she stayed she would always be a file clerk. “Being an achiever, it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to continue achieving,” she says. She went back to school for a master’s degree in public administration at Arizona State University. An internship led to her taking a job with the state govenment at minimum wage. As better jobs opened up Bayless applied, and a supervisor would say, “Well, we don’t know whether a woman can do that job or not, but we’ll at least give you a chance.”

Bayless turned every opportunity to her advantage eventually becoming Arizona’s secretary of state, the second-ranking position in state government. She was elected in November 1998 as one of the “Fab Five” women who held the top five jobs in the Arizona government. Governor Jane D. Hull, Attorney General Janet Napolitano, Treasurer Carol Springer, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Graham Keegan round out the all-female statehouse team. Arizona is a conservative Republican state, and Napolitano is the lone Democrat among the five women. They were sworn in by another prominent Arizonan, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court. O’Connor praised the “independent and wise voters” who put the state’s government in the hands of women.

By the spring of 2002, the vicissitudes of politics had splintered the Fab Five. Prevented from running for reelection by term limits, Hull served out her final months as governor. Bayless and Springer announced they would run for the Republican nomination to succeed Hull. The two women faced a formidable foe in former Congressman Matt Salmon, a conservative Republican, who was considered the front-runner. On the Democratic side, Napolitano sought the nomination against former State Senator Alfredo Gutierrez. Keegan was the first to split from the all-women’s team. She resigned as state superintendent of public instruction in May 2001 to become CEO of the Education Leaders Council, a Washington education think tank that she helped found. Hull appointed a male Republican to replace her.

History has not yet rendered judgment on the Fab Five’s performance in office, but that didn’t prevent the Phoenix New Times, an alternative newspaper, from editorializing that “fab has turned to flab over the past few years, as these five have proven that women can be just as mediocre as men when it comes to governing.” Hull’s most lasting accomplishment has been her own face-lift, the paper said. It chided Napolitano and Bayless for “spending most of their time in office eyeing Hull’s spot,” said Springer “failed to notice that Arizona’s alternative fuel

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