Written by Thomas Magstadt   

Power in Washington: Is There A Woman in the House?

Reflecting recently on the unsettling fact that Washington, D.C., is now the richest metropolitan area in the country, I found myself trying to imagine what would have to happen there – on Capitol Hill and in the White House, to be more precise – for things to get better in the 99.99% of the nation that exists outside of Washington. Sadly, electing Obama was not the answer.

A new book, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President, by journalist Ron Suskind, details the rivalries among Obama’s top economic advisers. And it depicts the White House as a "genuinely hostile workplace to women".

Which brings me to the main point of this piece: the gender imbalance in our public life. Of the 535 seats in the 112th Congress, women currently hold 90, or less than 17%. Seventeen is also the number of women who hold US Senate seats – 17 out of 100, that is. Why?

Think about it (if you're drawing a blank, see your doctor: you might be terminally white or male or, more likely, both). Then think about the recent performance of our male-dominated Congress, the one variously described as "dysfunctional", "corrupt", and "the broken branch".

The problem is not that we have far too few women in politics (true) but that we have far too few true leaders in office, far too few qualified candidates running, far too many office-holders who place re-election above duty, honor, or principle, and far too few voters who don’t have a clue how to tell the difference.

Like a growing number of voters who helped Obama win the White House, I regret voting for the man but who knew there was a body double waiting in the wings? In retrospect, we probably elected the wrong Obama president. Michelle would almost certainly have been a better choice.

At least one woman, Hillary Clinton, is still a player in Washington but her power to reshape our foreign policy is severely constrained by three endless wars being fought simultaneously – Iraq, Afghanistan, and the "war on terror" that a decade after 9/11 continues unabated here at home. A recent Bloomberg poll points to Secretary of State Clinton as the country's most popular political figure. Nearly 2/3 of the people hold a favorable view of her and 1/3 believe the country would be better off if she had won. Count me in.

At least Hillary has managed to avoid the fate of many other women who have dared to venture into the perilous precincts of Washington politics. Women like Brooksley Born and Elizabeth Warren, two brilliant, accomplished, and courageous public servants driven from office by a phalanx of mainly white, male empty suits who are (were) not fit to hold high office but nonetheless can (and do) decide the fate of the country – and of federal regulators who don't play by the rules. Both women failed to heed the post-9/11 lesson Bush era heads of regulatory agencies were all-too-quick to learn: in today's Washington, where corporate lobbies almost always get what they want, the unwritten rules require regulators not to regulate.

Neither Brooksley Born nor Elizabeth Warren were willing to play by these rules. Both were outstanding public servants who are no longer serving the public. And let's be clear: they didn't quit; they were fired. For refusing not to do the job they were hired to do.

Many readers will know the background. Brooksley Born was the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [CFTC] from 1996-1999. She became alarmed by the explosive growth of the highly secretive multitrillion-dollar over-the-counter derivatives market which operated without any government oversight. According to a Frontline story that aired in October 2009 (online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/interviews/born.html#ixzz1YKExC017 ), her efforts to regulate derivatives "ran into fierce resistance from then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and then-Deputy Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who prevailed upon Congress to stop Born and limit future regulation." Greenspan, Rubin, and Summers won that unequal fight, of course, Brooksley Born lost her job, and a decade later when Lehman-Brothers failed and Wall Street melted down, many Americans lost their homes, jobs, and life savings.

Or take the more recent case of Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law Professor, who in the wake of the 2008-2011 financial crisis, became the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to monitor the big bank bailout (Troubled Assets Relief Program). Warren championed and later guided the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which was established by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed into law by President Barack Obama in July 2010.

Time magazine called three women – Warren, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, and SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro – the "New Sheriffs of Wall Street" in a May 24, 2010, cover story. Obama subsequently put Warren in charge of creating the new CFPB and recommending a director. She was the obvious choice and wanted the job, but guess what – Obama chose a man named Richard Cordray. If that name doesn't ring a bell, don't feel bad: at the time of his appointment, Cordray had had no virtually no prior experience in Washington except as a Senate intern some three decades earlier.

On September 14, 2011, Warren announced that she would be running for the United States Senate in Massachusetts, contesting a seat currently held by Republican Scott Brown. Maybe she will win – it is, after all, Massachusetts, the state that gave us Paul Revere, Clara Barton, John and Abigail Adams, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Tip O'Neill, and the Kennedys. And if she wins, maybe she will speak truth to power, become a role model, and provide the kind of courageous leadership we rarely see displayed among the 445 men who are mainly responsible for creating the partisan political paralysis that now holds Washington – and with it the fate of the nation and the world – in its grip.

Imagine that.