them which in his office and they are us. you'll also hear some talk. i want to report the number of people who are assigned to kennedy. i promise you i will not go anywhere. >> presidential recording, find it on c-span mobile app or rev or you get your podcast. >> over the past year, the u.s. capitol police inspector general's office has put out a number of reports on the january 6 attack on the capital. inspector general will testify before the house administration committee on thursday. watch live at 3 p.m. eastern on c-span. online as c-span.org, or watch full coverage on c-span now.

host: we are joined by debbie walsh who is the director for american women and politics at eagle institute. here this morning on this susan b. anthony day to talk about that and more broadly to talk about where women are in u.s. politics today. welcome to "washington journal". guest: thank you for having me. susan b. anthony, of course she is on the susan b. anthony dollar. host: what makes her a great historic figure in american history? guest: she was a pioneer for the right of a woman to secure the right to vote. she went to jail in order to do that. she was arrested when she tried to vote. she really lead that bottle for many years. obviously, never lived to see that moment happened when women

secure the right to vote. i think one of the most important things is how women abuse that vote. since the time of the passage since the 19th commandment. we have seen that women have really made a difference in the outcome of elections. so, she started, part of a movement and a leader of a movement that has led to the mobilization of voters, women voters around this country who have made a difference in the outcome of winning an election. host: you says she was part of a movement. she was born on this day in 1820 she was part of a lead towards full suffrage for women over the 19th amendment. she died before that came true. her words before that were there were never be complete equality until women themselves elect

lawmakers. what do you think that susan b. anthony with think about the state of women's involvement of politics like america? guest: the first thing i just want to add, it is important to know that with the passage of the 19th amendment, not every woman in this country ensures the right to vote. black women, particular black women in the south, took until the civil rights act of 1965 to get full access to the ballot. native american women. before that, it was a and internet voting rights act. also, it wasn't until after the 60's and that there was a requirement for pallets to be printed in multiple languages. so, again, not every woman has the kind of open access to the vote, as a result of the 19th amendment.

i think it is always important to note those differences. i would say that susan b. anthony would probably be proud of the impact that women voters have had over these election cycles starting in 1980's. saw the men looking differently than men. something we call a gender gap. it has made a difference in presidential races. editorial races, u.s. senate races. it is -- has historically benefited democratic candidates. we know that women have now consistently pin voting differently. now, women voters are a boat that is courted by both parties. that is the party -- power of the women's vote. i think she would probably be disappointed not to see women serving in office. i think that the fact that we

are in 2022, there have been huge shifts and changes you like historic moments, such as the election of kamala harris, the first woman vice president. nancy, once again is the speaker of the house. we have yet to elect a woman, president of the united states. we are less than a third of all of the members of congress. we still are stuck with a certain level woman as a governors. women -- only nine women serve as chief executive across the country. that is a record that was sent many years ago we have yet to break. host: in 22 and 1, 20 7% of women in congress, the woman elected in office today 119 lawmakers.

twitter hundred -- 2300. what are some of the reasons behind the numbers of women that aren't in politics. do you think it has a lot to do with fundraising? does that have to do with early access to elected positions by women? guest: there is a multitude of reasons and they are interconnected. one of them would be the fact that there aren't that many women in office. therefore, women do not see other people that look like them necessarily in those positions. the access to running may not be the same for them. they are not running as a candidate. you know, one of the basic most simple pieces of politics is that if you're a candidate you can't possibly win. we need to see more and more women running. we need to see the parties, both

parties recruiting and supporting women in winnable districts. that is one of the hurdles. we know from the research that we have gone at the center from american women and politics, that in fact, women are less likely to get recruited to run for office than men. they are more likely than their male counterparts to need to be recruited in order to run. the parties outside of his role for woman candidates. that is something we have seen over the years. i think the fundraising issue israel. we know that women raise comparable amounts of money to mail candidates in comparable races. we know that it may be harder for them. it may take them 10 phone calls to raise $1000 as opposed to one phone call. women come from less money circles, less money at networks when they run from office.

so, that is part of the issue. we have also found over the years that women tend to wait to run for office. they tend to wait until their children are grown. then have a lot more freedom. -- men have a lot more freedom when their kids are younger. they're entering politics earlier in their careers and they have a longer trajectory in politics. that helps when you start to look at those higher levels of office. finally, the motivation to run for women and men is different. from our research when we asked men and women at the legislatures, what was the reason that they ran for office in the first place. men are more likely to tell is is that they were interested in politics, a career in politics. the woman tell us because there was a public policy problem, something they wanted to solve in their state or their community. we think about that as men run

to be somebody, women run to do something. if you are thinking about a problem in your community, you may not think politics isn't necessarily the best place to go to fix something. i think particularly these days when we see the kind of partisan gridlock, particular washington, d.c., maybe discouraging for people to think about. there is something wrong out there and i have to fix it. i am not going to go the route of government and politics, i am going to go the route of a nonprofit organization, do volunteer work. kind of a workaround, not through it. all of these things together combined to create some of that challenge. now, i will say that the 2018 election started to change some of this. there was a bit of a paradox shift. we are watching now to see if that continues. we saw a lot of a woman who ran despite the discouragement they

face from the party to run from office. we saw woman younger -- running younger. we saw woman with their children. they were not afraid of the pushback, sometimes women with young children has had in the past for running with young children. they say why are you out there running for office, you should be home with your kids. we saw woman be successful. we are hoping that there is a bit of a paradigm shift. some of these challenges that women face when they think about running for office are being removed over time. host: we will talk about those issues and more with our viewers and issues that listeners. -- listeners. we welcome debbie walsh. the lines are for republicans. (202) 748-8001. you can send us a text at (202)

748-8003. you mentioned research that your center does, how is that recent used and what else does the center purpose? guest: we are celebrating our 50th anniversary this year. we have been the force of the members can trends for woman who serve in office, run for office, and for women voters. our mission is you have a greater understanding of a woman's relationship to american politics, to empower more women to be engaged in politics and to make sure that there is a diversity among the women who are serving and engaging in the political world. we are very clear of with our understanding that women are not monolithic. we want to make sure that there is diversity in the representation that women have. we also conduct research looking

at questions like, what are woman's routes to elective office? how are they different than their male colleagues? what kind of impact women have when they serve? it is important to count, right? it is important to note where we are, the status. if you can identify the problem and start to some that problem if you can't really quantify what that problem is. the numbers are critically important. we want to know what difference does it make to have them they are. we have been doing that research for decades. focusing largely on the state legislative level but also on a congressional level and seeing the waves of which women braise at different issues as they serve in my office. also, the ways in which they get there. much of the research that we do it is accurate research, we always want to make sure that our research is assessable to the public.

the activist community is working to elect more women. it is really our data that shows that we received a flatlining in woman running from office running into the mid to eight 90's appeared there was a connected flatlining and a destination among candidates. it really pointed to this issue, they need to recruit. that issue, recruitment has been taken out by many of the organizations on both side of the isles who are doing work to try to identify more women candidates, because without those candidates we can't. host: how does that evolve over time? which party do you think is doing a good job recruiting women? guest: when you look at the numbers of office holders, you mentioned the women who are serving in congress.

there are 145 at women who are serving in congress. that is a record number. of those 145, 106 are democrats and 30 nine art republicans. the democratic party has done a better job of electing women to office. women are marked likely to be democrats. it is a fact. that is some help. the party itself hasn't done a lot of work on the democratic side to recruit and support. i have to say that after the 2018 election, where we saw a record number of women getting elected to congress and the house, there were 36 woman elected. of those 36 new women, only one was a republican. in a response to that, there was a real reaction by republican women around the country to do more. i think they thought this

success on the democratic side. they do not like the narrative about the republican party not being hospital to women. there were real efforts in 2020 to go out and recruit and support more republican women who were running. some of the organization has been around for quite a while, like organizations like -- appeared there were quite a lot of other paths that have started as a result of 2018. i think what we saw in 2018 was a national decline in the number of a women serving in congress. they lost 10 in 2020 elections. they made up for that loss. in fact, there are a number record of republican women serving in the house. it takes that kind of intentionality and a certain effort to make that kind of change.

that needs to continue on both sides of the aisle appeared but the republican party clearly given the numbers need to be more active anymore. host: here's a comment from kenneth in ohio. susan b. anthony would be furious that we still have not passed the e.r.a. debbie walsh? guest: it is a bit shocking that in this moment women are still not mentioned in the constitution. it is a hurdle that we have not seemed to be able to surmount. our center is in the state of new jersey, the home of alice paul. the alice paul amendment we found that she never got to see that path either. host: let's go to callers. we will hear from jim in hawaii. good morning.

caller: thanks for taking my call. i would like to ask your guest. deborah, i had it with the establishment, republicans and democrats. i am a independent now, my wife is a independent. let me explain to you why. we think that especially in the last election, we looked at the candidates and we saw a lot of good candidates on the democratic side. both of us. we thought that she was meant to make a good president. by golly, they go behind closed doors at the end and down there in south carolina and made the deal behind closed doors. hey joe, we are going to give you this slot. but these are certain things that you have to do for us. one of them i think was to put harris on the ticket. now, harris had dropped out of the primary.

she was doing so poorly that she dropped out of the primary altogether. we thought, well, for sure, ok. this is exactly how the establishment, republican and democrat on both sides, make these deals and come up with these candidates. we have a lady here in our state that we think will go places if somebody would just get behind there her and we just don't see it happening. we are independent now and we just don't think the primaries are fair. you know what i mean? the way they do these primaries and come up with candidates. i think the reason why harris was picked was because of the color of her skin. i hate to say that, but i think the democrat party is doing everything they can -- they just

pick the people they want and a lot of it has to do with not so much gender but skin color. that's a shame. that's a shame. host: we will hear from our guest. guest: i think that it's -- the challenge of being a registered independent is that you remove yourself from the primary process and in many places, the primary is where the election is decided because it's either a very safe democratic area or safe republican area. redistricting has made most districts noncompetitive. for many parties -- for both parties, that's the challenge and part of the sacrifice. in south carolina, the voters decided to would be the winner of the south carolina primary.

i think it was a free and fair election. and i think there has been a tradition on both sides of the aisle when a candidate is picking a running mate, to look for all kinds of balance between who the nominee, the presidential nominee is and who his and someday at one point her running mate would be. and i think joe biden made a pledge in that final debate that he had with bernie sanders that he would take a woman as his running mate. and then i think he looked at the field and looked at both geography, i think he looked at where his possible running mate would be along the ideological sectors, so he picked someone

from california, a large state, someone with a lot of name recognition. he picked someone who would be seen as i think more progressive than he was. he is seen very much as a moderate democrat and he wanted to appeal to that progressive base of the party. i think picking a woman was -- that he thought he was reaching out to women voters, although we know that the gender gap is not about the gender of the candidate. it is about the party. and i think he was looking for racial and ethnic diversity because of the richness that that diversity brings. having a voice of someone who has different experiences than joe biden has, i think he saw as an important asset to his administration. so i think that goes into the

decision-making whenever a presidential candidate on either party is choosing their running mate. host: rosetta is calling from danville, virginia, good morning, democrats line. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air. go ahead. caller: good morning. this is about the gentleman that came on just before i did talking about color of skin. i am a black woman but i've never been prejudiced but the fact is the black race is always well behind. if they would stop all of this color and all of this democrat and republican and run america like it's supposed to run, we would get along much better than we are. we should go buy some biblical ways, not republican, not democrat.

thank you for taking my call. host: there is a story this morning about the president's pick -- pledge to pick an african-american woman as the supreme court justice. that decision has not been made, but the washington post talking about the activists who defended vice president harris are mobilizing about the supreme court pick, several groups actively working to support that nominee when she is announced by the president. and defend her on social media. has the growth of these various political groups, not necessarily supporting candidates, has that diverted attention away from supporting candidates in particular, as groups get involved in more social issues like this? guest: no, i think what you are seeing on this front is out of -- sadly, knowing that when women and particularly women of

color are selected for these kinds of positions, whether really high level positions like vice president or now supreme court justice, they may face a different kind of, or more severe backlash, pushback. that is both sexist and racist. and trying to get ahead of that so that those -- finally the woman who joe biden selects for this position is -- there is a group of folks who are going to be responding to the kind of attacks but she may face. look, we heard almost instantly this kind of really racist pushback when the assumption was, he's just going to pick a black woman and somehow a presumption she won't be

qualified, and this is just seen as some kind of "affirmative action" move. how insulting to think that there are no black women who would be qualified and the only way you could pick someone who is a black woman is to somehow compromise the standards. well there are plenty of highly qualified -- while there are plenty of highly qualified black women who could serve on the supreme court, it doesn't bring them up when a white man gets picked. i think there needs to be, sadly, still, this kind of mobilization to support women when they are put front and center for the high level positions. we certainly saw this happen when kamala harris was selected and sadly, even the idea of selecting a black woman to the supreme court raised up this

ugly question of, but she won't be qualified. host: debbie walsh is director of the american -- center for american women and politics at rutgers university. who votes more regularly or frequently, men or women? guest: women outvote men and consistently have in the last elections. about 10 million more women have voted than men so that women's vote is a powerful vote and again, because that vote has consistently been different, a more democratic vote, it has been an important force in elections, particularly close elections. so that's why this vote, we see more and more being courted by candidates where republican candidates are trying to chip away at that advantage democrats have an democrat event -- democrat candidates are trying to shore up that support that

can make the difference. those are voters you can count on and turn out. particularly, the most democratic of all the voters out there are black women. host: you mentioned this in a previous comment, the gender gap. when did that start to appear? guest: 1980 in the ronald reagan-jimmy carter race. that gender gap benefited the democratic candidate, jimmy carter. it wasn't enough to make a difference in the outcome. that was an overwhelming election and ronald reagan won but that had an impact on the thinking of the 1984 election. we first saw the geddert -- gender gap in 1980 and activists and democrats were looking at how to defeat ronald reagan, and walter mondale was the nominee. many women in organized women's

organizations went to walter mondale and said, this is key to winning the election and beating ronald reagan, putting a woman on the ticket, and that would get you -- it would mobilize and energize the women's vote and that would be enough to put walter mondale over the top. resulted in the selection of geraldine ferraro as his running mate. it didn't work out as we anticipated because people vote for the top of the ticket, not the vice president. it did energize women and women were very mobilize around that election. it didn't make a difference in the outcome. host: how long did it take the republican party to react to the gains the democratic party was seeing with the gender gap? guest: they really started focusing on the gender gap almost immediately in trying to figure out ways in which they

could chip away at that advantage. you certainly saw, most clearly, when george w. bush ran. there was a whole campaign about the w stands for women and working to mobilize women voters. the challenge is, the reason that they are supporting democratic candidates has to do really with issues on the party. women tend to feel more economically vulnerable. they make less money than men. they have less money saved for retirement. they feel more employment is secure for men and they see the government as a social safety net. they see themselves possibly needing that whether it is social security, medicare, medicaid, food assistance, unemployment, family medical leave, these are more associated with the democratic party

supporting that social safety net. that's what is driving it. that becomes part of the real challenge for the republican party, is where they are on the perception in many of those issues. host: fairfield, connecticut, joe on the independent line. caller: i'm here. host: you're on the air. caller: the problem to me, politics is what i call the houdini factor. you don't really get is what is presented d -- don't really get what is presented to you. there is a group of honest politicians which is an oxymoron, but i feel politics, people do what they need to do to get elected. that's the reason we had harris in there as a vice president, because if he gets that particular vote, biden never has accomplished anything in all the

times he's been accomplish -- in politics that would help this country. trump was not any better. i know that work with them or for them work towards what they can get out of it, the pelosis. politics has come to the point that this country is people are going to go to revolution, not in my lifetime, but i think it's going to happen. politicians are just interested in what is in it for me, can i get elected, never mind what's best for the country. my observation for 76 years -- at least when i was involved at 18 -- that's what i see happening more and more. host: we will hear from our guest. guest: by and large, people that serve in office are there because they care about their communities, districts, states. they do so to tremendous

sacrifice to their families and frankly financially. when he think about the people who serve in the country, they don't make a lot of money. often times they have to leave their homes to be in the state capital. there is very little compensation and it must have an impact on their careers but they have a belief in public service. what sadly has happened in the past number of years is that that kind of connection between and among people who serve in office and their relationships across the aisle and the kind of partisan gridlock and that sense of everybody has to be dug in, and not a willingness to find a middle ground, and an understanding that there needs to be some compromise. and not everybody gets

everything they want but in order to get something that is good, you have to figure out ways in which you can give up this to get that. that's become i think the real challenge. there is kind of a winner take all mentality that has taken over. one of the things we have found in our research, and i think it still is true even in the midst of the partisan gridlock is that women who serve in office are more likely to be able to do the across the aisle work. it extends to why they get there. i mentioned before, when we asked men and women about serving, women tell us they are there to solve a problem. you will try to figure out the ways to reach across the aisle. when you look at that group that came together around the infrastructure, the women who were in that group

disproportionately, were a larger proportion were women that actually serve in the united states senate. we know that women are working across the aisle. there's been much past -- much talk in the past when there have been shutdowns that it is women in the senate who work across the aisle to solve the shutdown. there is hope, and i think women are part of that hope, but i think the system has become such that this kind of inability to find middle ground, to compromise, to allow for there to be difference without demonization of that difference, has become a real problem and a kind of a notion that we must defeat the other side at all costs, regardless of the policy outcome. host: next up is jonathan in philadelphia, democrats line.

jonathan, make sure you mute your volume on your television. go ahead with your question or comment. caller: sorry about that. on the topic of women in politics, i love the rise in it, love the rise of women in politics. host: lost him. we will go to donna in wisconsin, independent line. caller: good morning. i just have a question. is it ok now that biden has done this, that we can put an ad in the paper and pick the color of the person, or we no longer have to allow everybody to apply for a job, we can just pick the color or sex we want? that's the way we are going now. i thought it was you couldn't pick people on their sex or color or anything else but we are. everyone is applauding that. this is the third time he's done

this. i know it's to get votes, i understand that, but it shouldn't be allowed. we are not allowed to do that. should i put an ad in the paper and say only asian or latin need apply? is that ok? host: debbie walsh, any comment? guest: i think what president biden is trying to do, and i think when -- what people in politics are trying to do is make sure that there is a diversity of voices that the supreme court in its entire history has never had the voice of a black woman serving. that is a real loss. it's a loss for the court. it's a loss for the country. it takes a concerted effort to make this kind of change. and there is new sacrifice in doing this in the sense of getting a qualified person to

sit on the court. he will not pick somebody who is not qualified and there are many black women who are qualified to serve on the supreme court. but it will be a win for this nation to have more diversity on its courts, to have more diversity in its elected officials. it will be a government that is more representative. it will be a government that understands the needs and concerns of the entire population. it's not enough to just have white males being the representatives for all of us when the population is far more diverse. it is a loss for our nation and a loss for the policies that come out for all of us. if those decisions, the

decisions of policymakers, decisions of the court, are made by just one group, we need that diversity and we've seen that in our research. it enriches the making of policy, changes the way government works. we need to have that diversity. it happens because people make conscious decisions to make that happen. host: you are celebrating your 50th year at the center so that takes us back to around 1972, the year of the watergate break-in, not a great time for the of american politics and the numbers of women in congress in 1971 according to your figures was just 2%. do you think women are inspired by moments like that in terms of, we've got to do something to fix the system so i'm going to try to get elected to my local board, state legislature, congress? guest: i think there are these pivotal moments where we have

seen real growth in the numbers of women. when we were founded 50 years ago in 1971, there were so few women that the response to the founding of the center was, what are you going to study? there's no subject to study. clearly, things have changed. sometimes it is a slow, steady change. sometimes it is a stagnation. there are these informative moments. you had 1984 when geraldine ferraro was on the ticket and that iron -- energized women and we saw more women running. we saw in 1992 post the anita hill-clarence thomas hearings for the supreme court and we saw women mobilize because they really saw for the first time how few women were serving in the united states senate. there were no women on that senate judiciary committee when anita hill went to testify. it was kind of a wake up moment.

after the 2016 election, you saw kind of a wake up moment. hillary clinton lost. a lot of women felt she was probably the most qualified person who had ever run for president and regardless of whether you supported her or didn't, she certainly qualified -- she certainly was qualified. i think that mobilized women. they got mad and we saw a record numbers of women running. as a result of those records all on the democratic side, we saw a republican women say, wait a minute, we don't want to be left behind. it matters to have more women in our party too. we saw a record number of republican women getting elected to congress. so i think there are these moments that inspire and engage and the challenge always is to keep the momentum going in those moments when there isn't some sort of a big historic moment

that sets it off. how do you maintain the momentum? because i think the road to political parity, both in numbers and in power, is absolutely a marathon and not a sprint. so we have to be in it for the long haul which is why we are proud of having been here 50 years and we hope at least another 50 as we watch into the future how this story unfolds. host: we have the house coming in momentarily. let's see if we can get one quick call. marian in rock hill, south carolina. caller: i was calling because i felt that when former president trump appointed a woman to the supreme court, nothing was said. but now that president biden is identifying his candidate as

possibly being an african-american woman, there's a lot being said. we should focus on the fact that he's going to appoint someone that's qualified. we've been deprived and really kept out of the race for so long that we are playing catch up. it should be diversity and equality in every aspect in this country. and for people to get upset because they are appointing an african-american to the supreme court, they should be focused on quality and qualified people being appointed. host: debbie walsh, about a minute left. any final thoughts? guest: i just want to say i couldn't agree more with the caller. that is why leading back to your earlier question, this is why you need to have the optimism -- activism of groups on the outside to defend appointments like this because we know there will be pushback and an

assumption that if you say you want to put a black woman on the court that somehow you have to compromise requalification to do that and that's just ridiculous. i think it's important to be there to dissent these -- defend the pick and say that, pushback against that kind of rhetoric. host: debbie walsh is the director of the center for american women and politics at rutgers university. >> over the past year the inspector general's office has put out a number of reports on the january sixth attack on the u.s. capitol. michael bolton will testify before the house administration committee on thursday. watch at 3 p.m. eastern on c-span. or online at c-span.org o r watchful coverage on c-span now.

-- watch full coverage on c-span now. >> president biden addresses the state of the union address live tuesday, march one at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org or the c-span now video app. ♪ >> president biden this afternoon called for diplomacy to resolve tensions between russia and ukraine and said nato is not a threat to russia.