Union research lays strong foundation for Lawless’ political campaign

Schenectady, NY - She’s spent years researching how gender affects a person’s decision to run for office. Now Jennifer L. Lawless ’97 is living the decision.

She says it’s time for Rhode Island to send a woman to Washington – and she should be that woman.

Congresswoman Lawless.

“It has a certain ring to it,” says candidate Lawless, who is being aided in her campaign in the 2006 Democratic primary race for Rhode Island’s 2nd congressional district seat by Union Political Science Professor Richard Fox.

Lawless, 30, a professor of political science and public policy at Brown University, is considered an expert on women and political ambition. She says her research, much of it conducted with Fox, inspired her to run.

Lawless and Fox are co-authors of numerous papers and studies, including one highly publicized study of more than 4,000 people that concluded that fewer women than men run for elected office because they lack confidence, not ability.

Their book, “It Takes a Candidate: Why Women Don’t Run for Office,” is due out this summer by Cambridge University Press.

Lawless, who is running on the platform, “A Wave of Change for the Ocean State” (www.lawlessforcongress.com), is working hard to unseat the popular, three-term incumbent, Rep. Jim Langevin, a Democratic Party favorite. Her priorities are education, health care, jobs and reproductive choice.

“It’s time for a new face, new ideas, and new leadership in Congress,” she says, noting that her state ranks 35th out of the 50 states in legislative female representation. “We don’t have a single female statewide officeholder, nor have we had a woman in our congressional delegation in 15 years.”

“It’s harder to get the job than do the job,” observes Fox, one of the senior policy advisors for the grassroots campaign, which has attracted many Brown students and faculty members as volunteers.

“Jen is taking an enormous risk running under circumstances that are difficult to win,” says Fox, who has studied political campaigns extensively. “She’s thinking very big. She wants to energize the Democratic Party. If anyone can pull this off, she can.”

“At Union, I realized what political science is and the importance of women in politics,” says Lawless, whose class on women and politics with Fox her sophomore year was a major career catalyst.

She spent spring of her junior year in Washington, D.C., interning with Barbara Kennelly, a congresswoman from Connecticut and the first woman in American history to serve on the House Intelligence Committee. There Lawless answered constituent mail, attended hearings and did research on women in politics. The following fall, as a senior, Lawless researched women candidates and gender socialization on a term abroad in Kenya.

After a brief stint in law school and several years helping women in the South Bronx transition from welfare to work, Lawless pursued postgraduate degrees. She did her doctoral dissertation on “Women and Elections: Do They Run? Do They Win? Does it Matter?”

The answer to that last question is a resounding yes.

“Having more diversity among candidates, whether it’s women, minorities or any other traditionally underrepresented group, opens and enhances the political process and makes it more inclusive,” Lawless says. “Qualified women candidates can run, and they can win, and they should definitely enter the process.”

This article appeared on June 25, 2005, on the Union College website.