Heather White retired from the military in 2022, the same year Roe v. Wade was overturned.
When she voted in the midterm election, she joked to her mom: “Well, I can put my name on the ballot since I’m retired now.”
It wasn’t long before the joke became reality.
White, 42, of Evans, ran as a Democrat in the race for State House District 131. She didn’t win but earned 35% of the vote in a reliably Republican stronghold.
It would have been easier for the mother of four to relax into retirement and raise her children, all of whom are under the age of 10. But her children were the reason she entered the race.
“Having children was a very strong driver for me to run,” White said when we spoke by phone this week. “But I couldn’t do a lot of things I would have done if I didn’t have kids.”
Despite having a relatively high number of female state legislators compared to other states in the region — 35% — some women with political aspirations still find themselves in a catch-22.
Democratic women were spurred to run for office after Roe’s reversal. Many of them are moms who want to create a better world for their children. But having children can also make it harder to overcome the barriers to entry in a political system that never intended to include them.
White’s husband is an intensive care burn unit nurse. Her children are ages 10, 8 and 6-year-old twins. If she hadn’t retired, she probably could not have run for office.
“I was able to do most (campaign) work when the kids were in school,” she said. “You can use campaign funds for a babysitter but if you don’t have that much, you can’t use it all for that. It comes down to money.”
White said she received a flood of cash in the final 30 days of her campaign, but it was in the early months that she really needed it. And if she had won a seat, any extra family income would have been used for child care.
The barriers to entry for women in politics extend beyond the campaign trail.
If they win a seat in the legislature there are more challenges to overcome: poor pay (only four states pay livable wages), no benefits (only Colorado has paid leave), lots of travel with per diems for meals and hotel expenses but not child care, limited opportunity for hybrid work, and Capitol buildings with little to no infrastructure that caters to the needs of women and working moms.
“A lot of the way it is structured does deter folks of different backgrounds from getting into it,” said Debra Shigley, who challenged Jan Jones in House District 47 and came away with 38% of the vote. “What are the benefits and how feasible is it to do this job and be a public servant as a practical matter?”
Shigley, a mom of five in Milton, who has worked as an attorney, a journalist, and an entrepreneur, said some people get to the General Assembly and resort to a career change to accommodate the pace of life as an elected official.
Running for office taught her the art of extreme triage. “How moms with small kids run is a bit different from how others do it,” she said. “You will not be able to be all-encompassing schedule-wise.”
Shigley too hadn’t considered running for public office until the reversal of Roe. That moment ignited in her a deep desire to impact the world her children will inherit. “As we see policies that impact our own lived experience … it is bound to inspire more women to jump into the fray.”
More women in the fray, means more women with children in the fray, which could be the silver lining that helps reduce the structural barriers for women with children as well as other women who are caregivers.
Cathy Kott, a self-described “raging feminist” said the fall of Roe smacked her in the face. As a nurse, she sees firsthand some of the challenges women have experienced and she felt removing their choice would make some bad situations even worse.
She asked her daughter why she wasn’t taking more of an activist role. Her daughter turned the question back on her. Kott decided to run for House District 6 where there hasn’t been a Democrat to vote for in 20 years.
Kott has a flexible work schedule that allows her to care for her 82-year-old mother whose memory issues prevent her from being left alone. So Kott turned her living room into an office and ran her campaign from home. She also managed to knock on more than 5,000 doors and raise about $25,000 in campaign funds.
A combination of social security payments and campaign funds allowed Kott to hire sitters to care for her mother when she had to travel. “I found out somewhere down the road that we were allowed to use campaign funds for sitters. If I was overnight in Atlanta, I would pay for her to have a sitter out of campaign funds,” she said.
Kott knew if she won the seat, it would be a hardship. She was hatching a plan that involved enlisting a cousin to care for her mother for three months or patching together a schedule with her son and her mom’s caregiver. She knew there was no way she would be able to commute daily from Cohutta when the legislature was in session.
Georgia ranks 22nd in the country for the number of women lawmakers (mostly Democrats) in the state legislature. That’s not bad but it could be better.
It’s important to celebrate the women who have managed to earn and hold seats in the Georgia Assembly. But jumping over hurdles to get there isn’t the same as removing those hurdles from the race.
Read more on the Real Life blog (www.ajc.com/opinion/real-life-blog/) and find Nedra on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AJCRealLifeColumn) and X (@nrhoneajc) or email her at nedra.rhone@ajc.com.
