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attorney for Dade County. She was elected to the office of state attorney

in November 1978, where she served until 1993.

As state attorney, Reno was responsible for an annual budget of $30

million and 940 employees. Her office prosecuted cases involving homi-

cide, child abuse, rape, drug trafficking, and white-collar crimes. She

helped reform the juvenile justice system and pursued parents who were

delinquent on their child support payments. She also established a special

court for drug offenses. During her tenure, she dealt with race riots, waves

of immigrants, political corruption, and police brutality.

Reno’s priorities as U.S. attorney general include reducing crime and

violence by incarcerating serious, repeat offenders and finding alternative

forms of punishment for first-time offenders. By focusing on prevention

and early intervention, she hopes to keep children away from gangs,

drugs, and violence. Other priorities include protecting the environment

and making integrity, excellence, and professionalism the hallmarks of the

Department of Justice.

Shortly after becoming attorney general and head of the U.S. De-

partment of Justice, Reno was faced with several crises: she was responsi-

ble for the investigation of the terrorist bombing of the New York World

Trade Center; allegations were made that the director of the Federal Bu-

reau of Investigation (FBI) had been involved in misconduct; and the Bu-

reau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms was engaged in a standoff with the

Branch Davidians, a religious group in Waco, Texas. After two months,

Reno authorized the FBI to use nonlethal tear gas to end the siege, but a

fire erupted that killed eighty-five people. Reno took full responsibility for

the tragedy. A Department of Justice inquiry challenged some of the state-

ments she had made regarding the reasons for using the tear gas and crit-

icized her for not being more directly involved in the siege.

Reno has traveled across the country, speaking to bar associations, el-

ementary school students, and rehabilitation clinics and visiting police

stations to inspect crime-fighting programs.

See also Cabinets, Women in Presidential

References Congressional Quarterly, Cabinets and Counselors: The President and

the Executive Branch (1997); New York Times, 12 February 1993, 15 May 1994;

www.usdoj.gov/bios/jreno.html.

Reproductive Rights

Reproductive rights are based upon the premise that human dignity and

equality grant each person the right and the responsibility to make repro-

ductive decisions for herself or himself. Information about human sexu-

ality and reproduction is fundamental to making those decisions, as is ac-

cess to the services necessary to act upon the decisions. Among the areas

Reproductive Rights 569

encompassed by reproductive rights are good personal health practices,

fertility, family planning, pregnancy, fetal development, childbirth, con-

traception, and abortion. Reproductive rights include fertility services for

infertile couples, prenatal care that enhances the health of mother and fe-

tus, delivery and postnatal procedures that contribute to the health of

mother and baby, safe abortion procedures, freedom from forced sterili-

zation, and many other reproductive options.

In the United States, a range of obstacles inhibit women’s exercise of

their reproductive rights. Financial barriers prevent many poor and low-

income women, especially women of color, from having adequate health

insurance. Even women who have health insurance may find that their in-

surance company discriminates against them by refusing to cover birth

control prescriptions while covering prescriptions for male erectile dys-

function like Viagra. Medicaid, the government health insurance program

for poor people, does not cover most abortions, further limiting low-in-

come women’s options. Economic considerations are also a barrier to

women having regular gynecological exams and mammograms. Inade-

quate or nonexistent prenatal care contributes to infant mortality rates be-

ing nearly twice as high for Native American and African American infants

as they are for white infants. Another economic factor that limits the full

exercise of reproductive rights appears in welfare programs. For example,

some states cap benefits to families that have additional children while re-

ceiving welfare, a policy known as a “family cap.” Forced sterilizations,

forced use of contraceptives, and unneeded surgical procedures during

childbirth (Cesarean section deliveries) are violations of reproductive

health rights that are imposed upon women of color and low-income

women more frequently than upon wealthier white women. The uneven

distribution of health care providers across the country also limits repro-

ductive rights. Twenty-six percent of the counties in the United States do

not have a hospital or clinic that provides prenatal care, and more than

half of the counties do not have an abortion provider. Inner-city health fa-

cilities may be understaffed and often have inadequate funding.

See also Abortion

References www.crlp.org.

Republican Party, Women in the

Women’s relationship with the Republican Party has ranged from trying

to find their place in it to strong party allegiance to their growing dissat-

isfaction with it in the 1990s, as evidenced by the gender gap. For many

women, the National Federation of Republican Women, an auxiliary, has

provided an avenue for them to develop their skills and make their con-

570 Republican Party, Women in the

tributions. Other women have worked to created places for themselves

and other women in the party itself.

At the 1876 Republican National Convention, a Massachusetts

woman became the first woman to address a convention committee when

she made a presentation to the Resolutions Committee on woman suf-

frage. Women were first officially seated at the 1892 convention, when two

women from Wyoming were alternate delegates. Also at that convention,

for the first time a woman addressed an entire convention, saying that

women were there to help the party and were there to stay. The first

woman delegate to a Republican National Convention was also a

Wyoming woman, who was seated in 1900.

The Republican Party reluctantly endorsed woman suffrage at its

1916 national convention, but it endorsed state amendments only, not the

federal amendment that suffrage leaders sought. As states granted women

suffrage rights, the party sought to gain their support and their votes by

establishing the Women’s Division of the Republican National Committee

(RNC) in 1919. After women gained suffrage rights nationwide in 1920,

the party created the position of associate member, one for each state, to

give women a voice but not a vote in the party’s decisionmaking body.

Republican Party, Women in the 571

Republican women

gathered for a tribute

from the Republican

National Committee

(left to right):

Republican National

Committee cochair

Evelyn McPhail,

Elizabeth Dole,

Maureen Reagan,

and Representative

Barbara Vucanovich

(R-NV), 1996 (Asso-

ciated Press AP)

Delegates to the 1924 Republican National Convention discarded the clas-

sification of associate members and created the office of national com-

mitteewoman, parallel to the existing national committeeman, again one

for each state.

The years between 1932 and 1952 were difficult for the party. De-

mocrats held the presidency, and they gained significant attention for the

number of women appointed to posts in the party and in government. In

addition, Democratic women had the tremendous benefit of Eleanor

Roosevelt’s advocacy for their inclusion in party leadership. Republican

women, however, had formed local women’s clubs for decades, and al-

though many of them existed only through an election cycle and then dis-

banded, some of them had become semipermanent by the 1930s. To im-

pose discipline on them, develop members’ skills, and organize their

efforts, RNC assistant chairperson Marion Martin brought the clubs to-

gether under an umbrella organization, the National Federation of Re-

publican Women, in 1937. The clubs proved to be a significant resource

during elections, but for most women, the clubs did not advance their sta-

tus or power in the party machinery.

In 1940, the Republican National Convention endorsed the Equal

Rights Amendment, the first major party to include the amendment in its

platform. That year, women gained equal representation on all RNC com-

mittees. Equal representation on the convention committees took signifi-

cantly longer, but the process started in 1944 when women gained equal

representation on the resolutions committee.

The 1952 presidential campaign was the party’s first organized effort

to mobilize American women’s vote, a strategy developed Ivy Baker Priest

for Dwight D. Eisenhower. The 1952 campaign was also the first time that

the gender gap appeared, with a greater proportion of female than male

voters supporting Republican Eisenhower. The next gender gap would not

appear until the 1980s. President Eisenhower appointed Oveta Culp Hobby

secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1953, the

first Republican woman to serve in a Republican president’s cabinet.

Women’s status and power in the party, however, changed little be-

tween 1924 and the late 1960s. Margaret Chase Smith ran for the party’s

presidential nomination in 1964, and the next year Elly Peterson of Michi-

gan was the first woman to chair a state party in either major party, but

most women continued to be excluded from positions of power and sta-

tus in the Republican Party. Partly to increase the number of women del-

egates to the 1972 national convention, a group of women convinced the

party to establish the Delegates and Organization Committee (DOC) to

review the party’s rules and make recommendations. Chaired by Rose-

mary Ginn of Missouri, the DOC could only make suggestions to states

572 Republican Party, Women in the

about selecting delegates to the 1972 Republican National Convention,

but the committee called on each state to “endeavor to have equal repre-

sentation of men and women in its delegation.” Seventeen percent of the

1968 convention delegates had been women, but by 1972 almost 30 per-

cent of the delegates were women.

One of the groups that had worked with Ginn and her committee

was the newly formed National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC), an

organization that sought to increase women’s power in the political par-

ties and to encourage and help women gain election or appointment to

public offices. The NWPC established an office at the 1972 Republican

National Convention to organize delegates to support the Equal Rights

Amendment and reproductive rights. NWPC executive director Doris

Meissner invited women delegates to daily meetings to explain the cau-

cus’s purpose, goals, and strategies. The convention strengthened the

party’s statement supporting the ERA, passed two rules calling on state

parties to increase their efforts to broaden the diversity of their delega-

tions to the 1976 convention, and ignored reproductive rights.

In 1974, at the recommendation of President Gerald Ford, the RNC

elected Mary Louise Smith as chair. The first woman to hold the position

in the Republican Party, Smith became chair during one of the party’s

most difficult times, only a few weeks after President Richard Nixon re-

signed in the midst of the Watergate scandal. Throughout the more than

two years Smith chaired the party, her primary focus centered on rebuild-

ing the party, which at times could claim the allegiance of as few as 17 per-

cent of Americans.

The Republican Women’s Task Force (RWTF) of the National

Women’s Political Caucus led the campaign to keep the Equal Rights

Amendment in the party’s 1976 platform. President Ford and RNC chair-

person Mary Louise Smith both strongly supported the amendment, and

Smith was a strong advocate for abortion rights. By 1976, however, Re-

publican leader Phyllis Schlafly had organized Stop ERA, and Ronald Rea-

gan was challenging Ford for the party’s nomination. Ford’s intercession

kept the amendment in the platform. Instead of feminists adding a repro-

ductive rights plank to the platform, the party added an antiabortion

plank to the platform, despite valiant efforts by Representative Millicent

Fenwick of New Jersey to keep it out.

At the 1980 convention, former RNC chairperson Smith repre-

sented feminists at the platform hearings, and she met with likely presi-

dential nominee Ronald Reagan to discuss abortion rights and the ERA.

The convention expressed strong prolife sentiments and removed the

ERA from the platform. Moderate Republicans, both women and men,

found themselves increasingly distanced from the party, whereas conser-

Republican Party, Women in the 573

vative Republicans on the religious right were nurturing their con-

stituencies into dominance in the party. Party cochair, moderate Mary

Dent Crisp, was pushed out of the party in 1980 because of her prochoice

views. The fissures that had appeared between feminists and the party in

1976 became chasms by 1984. In addition, women, regardless of their

views on abortion and the ERA, increasingly receded into the back-

ground, with the exception of Schlafly, who did not have an office in the

party but did have power.

The party’s conservative views served it well in many ways. After

Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election to the presidency and his reelection in

1984, his vice president, George Bush, succeeded him in 1988. The gender

gap that had first appeared in the 1980 race between Jimmy Carter and

Reagan expanded throughout the 1980s: women voters increasingly fa-

vored the Democratic Party and its candidates more than men did, and

men increasingly favored the Republican Party and its candidates. In the

1992 presidential contest between President Bush and Democratic nomi-

nee Bill Clinton, women provided Clinton with the winning margin of

votes, as they did again in 1996. Republican women have tried to convince

the party to address the gender gap by developing programs that will at-

tract women voters. At the end of the twentieth century, however, the Re-

publican Party continued to lose women voters’ support.

See also Abortion; Adkins, Bertha Sheppard; Democratic Party, Women in the;

Equal Rights Amendment; Fenwick, Millicent Hammond; National Federation

of Republican Women; National Women’s Political Caucus; Schlafly, Phyllis

Stewart; Smith, Margaret Madeline Chase; Smith, Mary Louise; Stop ERA

References Feit, “Organizing for Political Power: The National Women’s Political

Caucus” (1979); Freeman, “Feminism vs. Family Values: Women at the 1992

Democratic and Republican Conventions” (1995), “Who You Know vs. Who

You Represent: Feminist Influence in the Democratic and Republican Parties”

(1987); “NFRW: Fifty Years of Leadership, 1938–1988” (1987).

Republicans for Choice

Founded in 1989 by Republican activist Ann E. W. Stone, Republicans for

Choice (RFC) seeks to build a prochoice movement within the Republi-

can Party, remove the party’s antichoice platform plank, and elect pro-

choice Republicans. RFC contends that historically the Republican Party

has been prochoice, and that in the 1990s, more than 70 percent of the

party membership is prochoice. RFC opposes a constitutional amend-

ment prohibiting abortions, arguing that opposing governmental inter-

ference in private lives is a tenet of the Republican Party.

See also Abortion; Republican Party, Women in the

References www.rfc-pac.org.

574 Republicans for Choice

Richards, Ann Willis (b. 1933)

Democrat Ann W. Richards was governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995 and

was treasurer of Texas from 1983 to 1991. She gave a keynote address to

the 1988 Democratic National Convention, during which she said that

Vice President George Bush was “born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

The speech and its humor gained her national celebrity.

Richards became active in politics in the 1950s, working on local and

statewide campaigns and for civil rights and economic justice issues. She

worked in John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign, and in 1962 she

helped form the groups North Dallas Democratic Women and the Dallas

Committee for Peaceful Integration. Richards responded to Sarah Wed-

dington’s pleas for help in her 1972 campaign for a seat in the Texas House

of Representatives and later managed Weddington’s legislative office for a

session. She also helped other women win legislative races.

In 1976, Richards ran for and won a seat on the Travis County Com-

missioners Court, where she helped create the state’s first juvenile proba-

tion system. She explained that at the time,“Texas was not noticeably hos-

pitable to the notion that a woman could handle that kind of

responsibility.” She served until 1982.

In 1983, Richards became treasurer of Texas and was reelected to a

second four-year term in 1986. As treasurer, Richards modernized the of-

fice’s procedures and initiated innovations in banking and investment that

earned unprecedented returns for the state. She helped formulate plans to

Richards, Ann Willis 575

Governor Ann

Richards (D-TX)

was sworn in as the

governor of Texas,

1991 (Courtesy:

Texas State Library

and Archives

Commission)

provide water and sewers to impoverished areas of the state and guided

the state through a fiscal crisis. Richards, who had gone through an alco-

holism treatment program in 1980, obtained health insurance coverage

for substance abuse treatment for state employees.

In 1989, Richards published her autobiography, Straight from the

Heart: My Life in Politics and Other Places. She also entered Texas’s race for

governor that year. During her campaign for governor, Richards pledged

that there would be no new taxes, called for a “new Texas,” and asked vot-

ers to help her “take back the government.”

Elected governor of Texas in 1990, Richards stressed education, pub-

lic safety, economic development, and efficiency during her administra-

tion. As governor, Richards increased the amount of prison space, reduced

the number of violent offenders released from prison, and introduced a

new substance abuse program in the prisons. She also attracted new and

expanded manufacturing facilities to the state. After losing her bid for re-

election in 1994, she joined a law firm as a senior adviser.

Born in Lakeview, Texas, Richards earned her bachelor of arts degree

from Baylor University in 1954 and attended the University of Texas at

Austin, where she earned her teaching certificate. Richards taught social

studies and history from 1955 to 1956.