PBS "To The Contrary"
Interview
PBS' "TO THE CONTRARY"
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MS. ERBE: So, Congresswoman Norton, how does it affect lower and middle income women -- average women after all -- if there are fewer women in state legislatures and in Congress?
DEL. NORTON: I'll tell you, Bonnie, harried women today need virtual proxies with a vested interest in helping their issues, women and family issues, compete on crowded legislative agendas.
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MS. ERBE: Well, tell me what issue, what laws are three out there now that but for the slowly growing presence of women in Congress and state legislatures -- would there be Family and Medical Leave now, for example, which was signed by President Clinton?
DEL. NORTON: How do they say it in New Jersey? Forget about it. (Laughter.) Oh, my goodness. The Bipartisan Women's Caucus has been key to virtually every important family and children and women's issue in the entire time -- must be three decades old -- that we've had it. It's not because. And you've missed the point if you think men don't have a great affinity for these issues. Don't believe in them as much as we do, but if you've got a list if a dozen issue you've got to make some choices. And if you're woman who's been there and done that, you're more likely to make those choices.
Moreover, there's every reason for women and men to say, you know what? It doesn't look right, to be the United States of America and have only 16 women in the Senate and to have only 70 women of 430 -- of 440 in the House. If you believe that this is America and we want more and more people to participate, that ought to be reason enough to want more women in the legislatures.
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DEL. NORTON: In fact, how many men do you think run for Congress when they are in their 50s and 60s? The men -- the young men are just that: young men. The society is no more structured for women to run for Congress and for state legislatures than it is structured for women to go into the workplace and take the kinds of jobs that men have. Because you know what? This is a man's job.
I won't even take the House and Senate. That would be difficult for anyone. You have to come all the way some distance, unless you're Eleanor and you live in Washington. All the rest of you have to travel. That would be difficult for women under most circumstances. But what bothers me about this is the state legislatures. They meet only part of the year. They're far more accessible. That is a dangerous signal. If there are not women in those state legislatures, which are closer to middle and lower income women than we are, then I think the whole country and especially the American family is in trouble.
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MS. WOOD: What's the -- (inaudible) -- cross in Congress?
DEL. NORTON: Well -- I mean, you've said nothing's keeping women from running. Nothing's keeping traditional women from running.
MS. CROUSE: No, but the kind of help that you're saying we need is mostly coming from the leftist women's groups and they do not want to promote women who would oppose their agenda.
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DEL. NORTON: Here is where conservative and more progressive women should come together. I think that's very bad news. I think it's a bad news because I don't live in a society like the Russian province that had a day --
MS. ERBE: Chernobyl?
DEL. NORTON: No, that had a day when everybody was supposed to --
MS. SOSA: Conception day.
DEL. NORTON: Conception day, because the birthrate was so low. And our birthrate is going to be under, too. I remember --
MS. ERBE: Except that out population is increasing rapidly --
DEL. NORTON: Yes, but I understand that.
MS. ERBE: Wait, wait, wait -- rapidly nonetheless due to massive legal and illegal immigration.
DEL. NORTON: Yes, that is causing a huge controversy in our country. We're very glad to have our immigrants, but I don't think -- and America, by the way, has always expanded because of immigrants and we will continue to need them. But the fact is that I think that we should not be discouraged -- we should be discouraged that people who might be natural parents are having to make a financial calculation and that our society is frankly -- even with all the immigrants, and they are very young -- getting older and older. It won't be long before we look like Japan and before we look like Europe. I would like to encourage young people.
Now, I think that pro-life people would like to say they'd like to see more young people have children. It seems to me that those of us who want women to have the choice to go to work and those of us who want women to have the choice to have more children ought to get together and say, you know, we probably need to provide something for women who go to work because that's an evitable part of this. And why should we fight over that. I don't think we are that far apart.
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MS. ERBE: But let me ask you this: are lower-income women making the calculation "I can't afford kids" or they're just going ahead and having kids regardless whether they can afford them or not and is that a good thing?
DEL. NORTON: We've had now for several decades a decline. The more women get educated the fewer children they're going to have. That's how -- (inaudible) -- going to be.
MS. ERBE: Wait. But the more educated -- but the more educated they are, the less likely they are to be low income.
DEL. NORTON: Yes, but the interesting thing is to see how few children low-income women have today, and they definitely have fewer children because they can't afford it. And by the way that has always been the first way that people began to pull them elves up: instead of having a great number of children, they had fewer and fewer children. However, we would like --
MS. ERBE: Well, it's for -- wait, wait, wait, Eleanor, because I've studied this issue. It's actually they get educated and then they have one or two kids instead of not being educated and having many, many children. Because -- so that they can --
DEL. NORTON: And someone mentioned that -- Bonnie, the access to birth control and abortion, even in low-income black communities where people used to have many children, they will have one child and try not to have another one. If they have another one they're very close to a middle-income people -- I think the important thing here about your two cars and your -- is that we're talking about the -- a middle class woman: she's out there working in the first place, because the salaries have been -- relative to the cost of living -- stagnant, because her husband --
MS. CROUSE: And taxes were too high. (Laughter.)
(Cross talk.)
DEL. NORTON: A husband can't bring home enough money for the entire family. The other thing is here are the Republicans who promoted the consumer society and then they're saying, wait a minute, pull back on everything. The consumerism that keeps the economy going is not really what you want to do. (Laughter.) You've got double messages going here, sister. (Laughter.)
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DEL. NORTON: We were going to have a hearing -- my subcommittee, the subcommittee I chair has jurisdiction over -- yes -- FEMA. And we were going to have an anniversary hearing next week, when the hurricane occurred. We had to put it off, but we're still going to have this hearing. It was going to be about just this subject. We're looking into all bits and pieces. It's going to be about repopulation. That means you have to look at the economy. You have to look at truly the big picture. One of the parts of the picture that just isn't there yet. Now, here your in-laws or your relative's in-laws were home owners and they were middle class people. Think about who New Orleans was.
MS. ERBE: The Ninth Ward.
DEL. NORTON: Well, no. I'm thinking about who a city is. Cities often have large numbers of renters. Twenty percent of the rental housing is back. Even people who own housing look at what it takes to have a life there and they decide, even with a home, I'm going to live and move some place else.
Now, the people who can't come back, the people who want to come back, the people who would come back to make a city what it is -- a city of homeowners, of renters, of people of some means, of people of little means. If you don't have a rental housing market and basis, you don't have a city anymore.
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MS. ERBE: Well, (is it ?) a bad idea to try to rebuild the areas of the city that were disproportionately African-American that were flooded when the levees broke and could flood again, theoretically -- likely to flood again if there are more hurricanes the size of Katrina and Rita.
MS. CROUSE: I think we need some good leadership to look at all of those ramifications and decide whether to rebuild.
DEL. NORTON: Well, they're not going to build -- nobody -- you've got to have insurance in order to build a house. That's going to be determined by the market. The market isn't going to give you insurance to go to the Ninth Ward if, in fact, it looks like it's going to flood. It's going to be a smaller New Orleans, but it's going to come back.
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