PINK Magazine reports from WAND/WiLL conference in October 2007
March 2008

Jessica Seigel reports the fads and fables of contemporary life as a regular contributor to the New York Times and National Public Radio. Her articles have also appeared in the Los Angeles Times. She was an invited guest at the D.C. event, chronicled below, where she led a commentary-writing workshop.

WASHINGTON – The news is electric – piping straight from D.C.'s new seat of feminine power. To hear the latest, state legislators from across the nation huddle around Debbie Halvorson, the Illinois Senate majority leader just returned from her meeting with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

For Halvorson it was a summons to higher power. Pelosi has just asked the three-term Democratic state senator to run for a congressional seat long held by a Republican soon to retire, throwing the race open and Illinois further into the national 2008 election spotlight.

The new old girls club is in flagrante politico as more than 100 progressive women representatives converge here for the biennial conference of the Women Legislators' Lobby and Women's Action for New Directions.

So? Will she run?

"It's a dilemma," says Halvorson, who put herself and two kids through college (at the same time) on a $65,000 state senate salary. Hers is a classic career decision: stay a big fish in her state pond or jump into national waters? She mulls.

Meanwhile, the audience hears rousing words from newly sworn Congresswoman Laura Richardson, D-Calif., who rose from the Long Beach City council to the California state Assembly to the U.S. House in less than a year. "I beat 16 other candidates because I worked harder than all of them,” she says at the kickoff luncheon. Then there's Jane Fonda, who hands off her fuzzy white lapdog, Tulea, before taking the podium to tell of finding her political voice after age 30, her inner one after 60.

Now the actress is single again, making her part of the new demographic majority – women "on their own" – that could decide major 2008 elections, political analyst Page Gardner tells the crowd. She says that's why Hillary Clinton's you're-not-invisible presidential ad campaign especially targets solo gals, who support public funding for health, family and education more than marrieds. (That's why conservative yapper Ann Coulter is fantasizing about rescinding women's right to vote).

Ready to run yet? Indeed. A few days later, Halvorson announces, inspired by the mentoring and support. "I realized that the issues are much bigger than keeping me in Illinois," she explains. "I realized it's about changing things on the federal level."