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She has proposed bills to permit banks to act as stockbrokers and to

allow stockbrokers to offer banking services. Another measure would end

the distinction between banks and savings and loans. Roukema supports

a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and reductions in

spending. Her other policy priorities include reproductive rights, child

support enforcement, education and student loans, pension reform, job

training, and famine relief.

Born in West Orange, New Jersey, Roukema received her bachelor of

arts degree from Montclair State College in 1951, did graduate work in

secondary school guidance there, and also studied urban and regional

planning at the graduate level at Rutgers University. She taught American

history and government in secondary school.

Roukema served on the Ridgewood Board of Education from 1970 to

1973. In 1970, she cofounded the Ridgewood Senior Citizens Housing

Corporation. She became active in the Ridgewood Republican Club in the

1970s, serving as its president in 1977.

See also Abortion; Child Support Enforcement; Congress, Women in; Family

Roukema, Margaret Scafati 589

Representative Marge

Roukema (R-NJ)

greeted Federal

Reserve Board chair

Alan Greenspan

during a House

Banking Committee

hearing on financial

overhaul, 1999

(Associated Press AP)

and Medical Leave Act of 1993; Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity

Reconciliation Act of 1996

References Congressional Quarterly, Politics in America 1994 (1993), Politics in

America: The 100th Congress (1987).

Roy, Vesta M. (b. 1925)

Republican Vesta M. Roy was acting governor of New Hampshire from

December 1982 to January 1983. On 1 December 1982, Roy was elected

Senate president in an organizational meeting of the legislature. Shortly

thereafter, incumbent governor Hugh Gallen was hospitalized and be-

came incapacitated. Under New Hampshire’s constitution, the Senate

president serves as acting governor when the governor is unable to carry

out his or her duties. In January 1983, John Sununu, who had been elected

governor in the November general elections, was inaugurated, and Roy re-

turned to her seat in the state Senate.

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Vesta Roy graduated from Wayne State

University. She served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War

II and was named Leading Air Woman.

Roy was the first woman commissioner for Rockingham County, New

Hampshire. She served in the state House of Representatives from 1973 to

1974 and in the state Senate from 1975 to 1984. She served as the assistant

Senate whip and the assistant Senate majority leader. Her legislative prior-

ities included reorganizing the executive department, balancing the state

budget, and opposing off-track betting and the nuclear weapons freeze.

See also Governors, Women; State Legislatures, Women in

References Raimo, ed., Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United

States 1978–1983 (1985).

Roybal-Allard, Lucille (b. 1941)

Democrat Lucille Roybal-Allard of California entered the U.S. House of

Representatives on 3 January 1993. She is the first Mexican American

woman elected to Congress. The daughter of Edward Roybal, who served

in Congress for thirty years, Roybal-Allard began folding, stuffing, and

stamping campaign materials when she was a child. Later, she helped with

voter registration for her father’s campaigns. When her father retired from

Congress, Roybal-Allard won his seat. While in Congress, Roybal-Allard

has worked to help low- and moderate-income families buy homes and to

protect federal funds for bilingual education, a reflection of the large

Spanish-speaking immigrant population in her district. Her priorities in-

clude economic and environmental issues, sexual assault, domestic vio-

lence, and protection for children and consumers. She believes that one of

590 Roy, Vesta M.

the most critical issues facing Latinos is a fair and accurate census in the

year 2000.

At first reluctant to enter politics, Roybal-Allard was drawn into her

first candidacy by frustrations with the barriers created by policymakers.

She served in the California Assembly from 1987 to 1992. During her

years in the assembly, she worked to stop the construction of a prison in

East Los Angeles and helped organize Mothers of East Los Angeles to help.

She also fought the construction of a toxic waste incinerator and was

again supported by Mothers of East Los Angeles.

Born in Los Angeles, Lucille Roybal-Allard received her bachelor of

arts degree from California State University in 1965.

See also Congress, Women in; State Legislatures, Women in

References Congressional Quarterly, Politics in America 1994 (1993);

www.house.gov/royball-allard/biography.htm.

RU-486 (Mifepristone)

RU-486 (mifepristone) is a nonsurgical abortion pharmaceutical devel-

oped by a French company in 1980. Used in Great Britain, France, and

Sweden, it was banned for personal use in the United States in 1989 at the

urging of prolife groups and prolife members of Congress. Studies of it

proceeded in the United States, however, and researchers concluded that

it was a safe and effective emergency contraceptive and also useful as a

method for early abortions. Scientists also encouraged further research

on RU-486 as a possible treatment for endometriosis, some types of

breast cancer, uterine fibroids, and other medical conditions. In 1995, the

RU-486 (Mifepristone) 591

Representative Lucille

Roybal-Allard (D-CA)

talked with Represen-

tatives Christopher

Cox (R-CA) and

Bobby Scott (D-VA)

at a press conference

about Chinese

possession of classified

U.S. nuclear

information, 1999

(Associated Press AP)

pharmaceutical company that developed RU-486 donated the U.S. patent

rights for the drug to the Population Council, which began clinical trials. In

1996, the Food and Drug Administration gave limited approval for the use

of RU-486, but in 1997 the drug manufacturer ended its relationship with

the Population Council, and the search for a new manufacturer began.

See also Abortion

References www.naral.org.

Ruffin, Josephine St. Pierre (1842–1924)

Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was active in women’s clubs and the suffrage

movement. In 1894, she founded the Woman’s Era Club, the first black

women’s civic organization in Boston. She served as president of the group

and edited its monthly periodical, Woman’s Era, which was the first paper

published by African American women. She organized the first national

conference of Colored Women in 1895. At the meeting, the National Fed-

eration of Afro-American Women was formed, uniting twenty clubs in ten

states. In 1896, the organization merged with the Colored Women’s League

and became the National Association of Colored Women.

Ruffin worked throughout her life to create bridges between black and

white women, but her efforts were repeatedly rebuffed. The most notorious

occurrence was in 1900, when the General Federation of Women’s Clubs re-

fused to permit her to represent the Woman’s Era Club at its convention.

Ruffin, who also represented white women’s groups, was told that she could

attend as a delegate for the white groups but not for the dominantly black

Woman’s Era Club. She refused, and the General Federation of Women’s

Clubs maintained its segregationist position for several more decades.

Born free in Boston, Massachusetts, African American Josephine

Ruffin went to school in Salem because her parents did not want her in

Boston’s segregated school system. After Boston schools were integrated in

1855, she attended school there until 1858. She married George Lewis

Ruffin when she was sixteen years old and moved to England with him in

1858. The couple returned to Boston during the Civil War. Josephine Ruf-

fin became active in the black rights, woman suffrage, and other social

movements. In 1879, Josephine Ruffin helped establish the Boston Kansas

Relief Association to help southern African Americans settling in Kansas.

See also General Federation of Women’s Clubs; National Association of

Colored Women; Suffrage

References Hardy, American Women Civil Rights Activists (1993).

592 Ruffin, Josephine St. Pierre

Rust v. Sullivan (1991)

In 1988, the secretary of health and human services issued regulations that

prohibited federally funded (Title X) family planning centers from coun-

seling clients about abortion, making abortion referrals, or advocating

abortion as a family planning method. The regulation, known as the “gag

rule” by its opponents, required that abortion services and family plan-

ning services have separate facilities, personnel, and accounting records.

The regulations were challenged on the basis that they violated the First

Amendment right of a woman to receive unimpeded information from

her physician and her constitutional right to choose abortion.

In Rust v. Sullivan, the U.S. Supreme Court found the regulations

permissible. The Court said that they did not violate First Amendment

rights because the government can make value judgments, favor child-

birth over abortion, and fund one procedure and not the other. In addi-

tion, the regulations did not prohibit counselors or providers from dis-

cussing abortion; instead the requirement stated that there had to be a

separation between counseling provided through Title X funds and coun-

seling that discussed abortion. The Court also said that a woman’s Fifth

Amendment rights were not violated because the government does not

have a constitutional duty to subsidize an activity simply because it is pro-

tected by the Constitution.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton issued an executive order that ended

enforcement of the regulations.

See also Abortion

References Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173 (1991).

Rust v. Sullivan 593

Saiki, Patricia Fukuda (b. 1930)

Republican Patricia Saiki of Hawaii served in the U.S. House of Represen-

tatives from 3 January 1987 to 3 January 1991. In Congress, Saiki cospon-

sored a bill to compensate Japanese Americans interned during World

War II. She also helped add land to the Kilauea National Wildlife Refuge.

Saiki unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1990. President George

Bush appointed Saiki head of the U.S. Small Business Administration in

1991, where she served until late in 1992. She unsuccessfully ran for gov-

ernor of Hawaii in 1994.

Born in Hilo, Hawaii, Saiki received her bachelor of arts degree from

the University of Hawaii in 1952 and became a junior and senior high school

teacher. A delegate to Hawaii’s 1968 Constitutional Convention, she also

won a seat in the Hawaii House of Representatives that year. In the House,

Saiki helped establish Hawaii’s community college system and its emergency

medical services system. She served in the House until 1974, the year she en-

tered the state Senate. An unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor in

1982, she chaired the Republican Party of Hawaii from 1983 to 1985.

See also Congress, Women in; State Legislatures, Women in

References Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives, Women in

Congress, 1917–1990 (1991); Zia and Gall, eds., Notable Asian Americans (1995).

St. George, Katharine Delano Price Collier (1894–1983)

Republican Katharine St. George of New York served in the U.S. House

of Representatives from 3 January 1947 to 3 January 1965. She entered

595

politics as a member of the Tuxedo Park, New York, town board from

1926 to 1949 and was a member of the Tuxedo Park Board of Education

from 1926 to 1946. She held offices in the Orange County Republican

Party from 1942 to 1948.

As a member of Congress, St. George sought to negotiate a compro-

mise that would permit passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1950

but failed. In 1959, she proposed making the equal pay for comparable

work bill, which had stalled over definitions of comparable work, into an

equal pay for equal work measure. In 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay

Act. St. George also attempted to expand the provisions of the Veterans

Administration law to include Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps personnel.

She lost her attempt for a tenth term in Congress.

Born in Bridgenorth, England, she moved to the United States with

her parents when she was two years old. When she was eleven years old,

she returned to Europe; received her education in England, France, and

Germany; and moved back to the United States in 1914.

See also Congress, Women in; Equal Pay Act of 1963; Equal Rights Amendment;

Military, Women in the

References Freeman, “From Protection to Equal Opportunity: The Revolution

in Women’s Legal Status” (1990); Office of the Historian, U.S. House of

Representatives, Women in Congress, 1917–1990 (1991).

Sanchez, Loretta (b. 1960)

Democrat Loretta Sanchez of California entered the U.S. House of Repre-

sentatives on 3 January 1997. After an unsuccessful campaign for the Ana-

heim City Council in 1994, Sanchez was not favored to win the primary

election or the general election for Congress in 1996. When she defeated

incumbent Republican Robert Dornan by only 984 votes in the general

election, Dornan challenged the election results, charging that the election

was rigged using votes by Hispanic noncitizens. The House of Represen-

tatives investigated the issue for thirteen months before concluding that

748 votes were illegally cast by noncitizens, but that was not enough to

negate Sanchez’s victory. When the House voted to end the investigation

in February 1998, Democrats accused Republicans of trying to intimidate

Hispanic voters. Sanchez added: “Racism is as real and persistent today as

it was 100 years ago.”

Sanchez opposes flat tax plans and reductions in the student loan

program. She wants to improve public schools but rejects the use of pri-

vate school vouchers to do so. She supports affirmative action programs,

gay rights, reproductive rights, and gun control.

Born in Lynwood, California, Sanchez earned her bachelor of arts de-

gree from Chapman University in 1982 and her master’s degree in business

596 Sanchez, Loretta

administration from American University in 1984. She was a financial ad-

viser and strategic management consultant before entering Congress.

See also Abortion; Affirmative Action; Congress, Women in; Lesbian Rights;

Reproductive Rights

References Congressional Quarterly, ed., Politics in America 1998 (1997);

“House Ends Investigation of Sanchez’s Election” (1998).

Sanger, Margaret Louise Higgins (1879–1966)

Margaret Sanger was a leader in the effort to make the distribution of

birth control information legal by removing it from the list of obscene

materials prohibited by the Comstock law of 1873. Sanger told audi-

ences that she began her crusade after nursing Sadie Sachs, a tenement

mother who died after attempting a self-induced abortion. Although the

story may be a myth that Sanger created, it encapsulated her frustration

that knowledge of birth control methods existed but was denied to

women.

Because so little birth control information was available in the United

States, Sanger went to Scotland and France in 1913 to study the methods

used in those countries. When she returned to the United States in 1914,

Sanger started publishing The Woman Rebel, a magazine with the slogan

“No gods; no masters.” Although she did not publish information on con-

traceptive methods in The Woman Rebel, the U.S. government indicted her

Sanger, Margaret Louise Higgins 597

Representative Loretta

Sanchez (D-CA), sec-

ond from right, got

support from other

Democratic congress-

women (left to right):

Representative Ellen

Tauscher (D-CA),

Representative Karen

McCarthy (D-MO),

Representative

Carolyn Maloney

(D-NY), Sanchez, and

Representative Debbie

Stabenow (D-MI),

during her contested

election, 1997 (Associ-

ated Press AP)

in 1914 for sending birth control information through the mails. To test

the Comstock law, she refused to plead guilty but then decided that she

had not been given enough time to prepare her case and left the country

the day before she was to go to trial. She went to Europe, visited Holland’s

birth control clinics, the first in the world, and returned to the United

States in 1915. The indictment against her was dropped in 1916, and the

case did not go to trial.

Before she left the country, Sanger had written and printed “Family

Limitation,” a pamphlet describing birth control methods, but she did not

distribute it. In Sanger’s absence, her husband William Sanger mistakenly

gave a copy to Anthony Comstock, author of the Comstock law. William

Sanger was arrested and convicted of distributing obscene material and

was sentenced to a jail term.

In 1916, Sanger, one of her sisters, and a friend opened a birth con-

trol clinic in Brooklyn, New York. Nine days after it opened, authorities

closed the clinic, and Sanger and her sister were given thirty-day prison

terms. Upon appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals decided in their favor in

1918, and the dissemination of birth control became legal in that juris-

diction. The women, however, had already served their time in prison.

598 Sanger, Margaret Louise Higgins

Margaret Sanger,

founder of the

organization that

became the Planned

Parenthood

Federation of

America, talked with

a crowd of supporters

during her trial for

distributing illegal

birth control

information through

the U.S. mail, 1914

(Library of Congress)