Del. Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, center left, greets U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, D-4th, on Wednesday during a ceremony for the unveiling of Filler-Corn’s portrait as the former speaker of the House. Filler-Corn, speaker from 2020-22, made history as the first woman and first Jewish speaker in Virginia. Daniel Sangjib Min, TIMES-DISPATCH
“It only took about 400 years,” said former Virginia first lady Anne Holton as she stood in Virginia’s House of Delegates chamber ahead of the unveiling of the official portrait of the state’s first woman speaker of the House.
Holton, the daughter of former Republican governor Linwood Holton, wife of former Gov. and current U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and a former state secretary of education, was among a packed and audibly joyous room on Wednesday to celebrate Del. Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, who served as speaker from 2020 to 22.
One hundred years after Helen Timmons Henderson of Buchanan County and Sarah Lee Fain of Norfolk were elected to the House in 1923, becoming the first women elected to Virginia’s legislature, women continue their long rise toward parity in the General Assembly.
Before former state Sen. Jennifer McClellan was sworn into her seat in Congress on March 7, women accounted for 48 of the 140 seats in the General Assembly, or 34%. And with about 30% of representation nationwide in state and federal government being composed of women, politics is getting that much closer to the “normal.”
Filler-Corn, dressed in shades of blue, representative of her political party, in both the painting and her attire Wednesday, later spoke of how she doesn’t believe she’ll be the last “first” to serve as speaker or other prominent political roles.
“My portrait is the first, but it won’t be the last and it’s not about me, it’s about our efforts together,” she said in an interview.
Filler-Corn, who is not running for reelection this fall, celebrated the other firsts that came before her and the ones she helped make happen as well — such as appointing Dels. Jeion Ward, D-Hampton; Charniele Herring, D-Alexandria; and Delores McQuinn, D-Richmond, as the first Black women to helm various House committees. (Sen. Yvonne Miller, D-Norfolk, was the first Black woman to lead a Senate panel.)
reflected on accomplishments the legislature made, especially in recent years and amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
During her tenure presiding over the House, she and fellow Democrats have celebrated expanding voting access, ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment and passing the Virginia Clean Economy Act — which places the state on a path to reducing carbon emissions and improving environmental quality.
Filler-Corn, a delegate since 2010, was removed as leader of the party’s House Democratic caucus in April 2022. She is now considering a run for governor in 2025.
‘We should not be a curiosity’
A few hours north in Washington, another first occurred a few weeks prior as McClellan, D-4th, became the first Black woman to represent Virginia in Congress — and bolstered women representation from the state. Virginia now has a record four women out of its 11-seat delegation. (There are three Jennifers — McClellan and Reps. Jen Kiggans, R-2nd, and Jennifer Wexton, D-10th.)
“It blows my mind that we’re still having firsts in 2023,” McClellan said
She added that it feels “amazing” to have grown up reading history books, knowing women and people of color rarely held prominent positions, and to know that people like her might someday be in history lessons.
Every woman interviewed for this story expressed gratitude to be an influential public figure, but noted that they long for more women to be a normal part of politics.
“As women, we should not be a curiosity, or, ‘we’re going to pigeon-hole this person into this one thing because she’s a woman,’” said Del. Danica Roem, D-Prince William. “It should be normal.”
It hasn’t always been the case. There was a time women weren’t allowed to participate.
More than a hundred years removed from the women’s suffrage movement — in which women advocated for the right to vote — the right comes with several asterisks.
Women of color had to wait decades longer to be able to exercise their civic rights and duty. Now, women of all demographics are not only voting as constituents but also voting on laws as legislators around the nation.
“My mom didn’t vote until after the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” McClellan said of 90-year-old Lois Dedeaux McClellan, who joined her in Washington for her swearing-in.
“My dad and my grandfather paid poll taxes to vote. My great-grandfather in Alabama had to take a literacy test and find three white men to vouch for him to be able to register to vote.”
Though her father, educator James F. McClellan Jr., died in 2014, McClellan’s mother was able to vote to elect her daughter to Congress.
‘Madam President’
Meanwhile, in the very chambers McClellan recently departed, presides another Black woman — a “Madam President.”
Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a Republican, made history in November 2021 as Virginia’s second woman — and first Black woman — elected to statewide office.
Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears pounds the gavel for her first session presiding over the Virginia Senate at the state Capitol in Richmond on Jan. 17, 2022. BOB BROWN, Times-Dispatch
“It helps others to see that we will not allow whatever society constructs to keep us back, we’re going to move forward,” Earle-Sears said. “But I think it’s more about ‘let’s get to the business at hand.’ ”
Lieutenant governors, like vice presidents, preside over Senate chambers — she is president of the Senate — and can cast tie-breaking votes on most issues. They also may assume the role of governor if needed.
Earle-Sears said she has to always have an open ear to constituents, legislators and her colleagues in the executive branch.
“I have to be ready,” she said of the potential to ascend to Virginia’s top elected seat.
“I’m second in command,” added the former U.S. Marine, who served a single term in the House from 2002 to 2004 and lost a bid for Congress in 2004. She later served on the state Board of Education.
Just like their male counterparts, several of the women officials have balanced parenthood with their careers and public service. They were sometimes held to different standards than the men around them, however.
“When I got pregnant, people started asking me, ‘Oh, are you gonna retire?’ I’m like, ‘why? No. Why would I do that?’ ” McClellan said. She noted that a male colleague was an expectant parent at the same time and similar questions were rarely asked of him.
The challenge, McClellan said, “has just been managing societal stereotypes that assume the mother has one role, and the father has another, and really pushing back on those.”
Renewed purpose.
McClellan noted that any working parent has to contend with a balancing act.
For Del. Emily Brewer, R-Suffolk, recently birthing a child has also renewed her sense of purpose because she is part of a legislative body that will affect her daughter in the future.
Del. Emily Brewer, R-Suffolk, speaks during the Virginia March for Life rally in Richmond on Feb. 1. EVA RUSSO, TIMES-DISPATCH
Brewer also advocates for other methods to starting a family. As a child of adoption, she said she was proud that legislation to help enhance the process in Virginia was the first bill she carried when elected. The work is ongoing.
“It’s not something that can change overnight because you have to put new policies and practices in place, because these are real children’s lives,” Brewer said. “And so once we change the law, we have to see what’s working and then make edits or changes or enhancements as we incrementally progress towards, you know, more positive environments.”
An issue she and many of her Democratic colleagues diverge on is abortion access. With the overturn of federal protections, each state can decide how much access or how little access to the procedure people have.
While McClellan, in her last legislative session in the Senate, pushed for a constitutional amendment to protect abortion access, Brewer was a keynote speaker at Virginia’s annual March For Life rally.
McClellan has spoken about facing complications with one of her pregnancies and talking through her options with her doctor in case abortion was needed. The matter will likely be a key issue this fall with all 140 House and Senate seats up for election.
Brewer, who is seeking a state Senate seat in District 17, based in Suffolk, is among a dozen delegates who are looking to jump to the other chamber.
Brewer was the youngest woman member of the Republican Caucus when she was elected in 2017 at 33 years old. A small-business owner in a rural portion of Virginia, she has experienced the limitations of broadband access and has worked in a bipartisan manner to expand access around the state. Connecting with others on issues has been a highlight of serving, she said.
“We have to have some regional strength and then also we get to other parts of the state and some of their concerns and challenges,” Brewer said. “That’s honestly one of my favorite parts.”
Roem noted the various intersections all people have in their identities. One of those includes her status as the first openly trans state legislator in the nation.
Her first campaign in 2017 focused on regional infrastructure and transportation issues in her district, but her opponent dismissed her identity as a trans woman and refused to refer to her by her gender identity.
Del. Danica Roem, D-Prince William, recognizes the significance of holding elected space as a trans woman and believes more identities should be prominent in government representation. The Virginian-Pilot
She recalled being asked right after her first election what she thought it meant to have made history.
“This means that a trans woman is going to go on and fix Route 28,” she remembers saying at the time.
Roem worked to bring funding to route enhancements and has spent the past six years passing bills aimed at such issues as expanding Medicaid and requiring public schools to post online portals for parents in need to apply for free or reduced meals for their children.
While Roem recognizes the significance of holding elected space as a trans woman, she, like her colleagues also interviewed for this story, agrees more identities should be prominent in government representation.
“LGBTQ candidates should be normal,” she said.
At a time when a number of bills aimed at LGBTQ youth — such as requiring parent notification if a student uses different pronouns or bathrooms or barring students from joining athletic teams of their identity — have surfaced in Virginia’s legislature, Roem is glad many of her colleagues voted to defeat the bills.
In the meantime, through her role as executive director of Emerge Virginia, the organization is helping foster new cohorts of Democratic women candidates. Several women in local, state or federal offices are graduates from a program that trains them in strategies to run campaigns.
Among the 38 women in the House, 26 are Democrats and 12 Republicans. With McClellan’s resignation, Democrats hold six Senate seats and Republicans hold three.
In December 2021, the state Supreme Court imposed new legislative boundaries that have rocked the legislature and led to a wave of retirements. It’s unclear what the legislature will look like after the November elections.
While the organization she works for supports Democratic candidates, Roem notes the GOP women delegates who are leaving the chamber. (Of the 12 Republican women in the House, three are retiring and two are leaving to seek Senate seats. Another, Del. Marie March, R-Floyd, is in a tough nomination fight with Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick.)
“They might only have a small handful who are actually left in office after this year,” said Roem, who is also running for a state Senate seat.
“When you see that, you go, ‘that’s bad for the General Assembly’ because even if we have very different points of view, women legislators tend to work differently. We tend to be more collaborative and we tend to, you know, not be as vitriolic toward each other.”