GOP Women Skipped Speaker’s Race as Male Colleagues Jumped In

It seemed like just about every other House Republican showed interest in the speaker’s job this month, but among the 14 actual contenders, not one of the chamber’s 33 GOP women entered the race.

Not even Elise Stefanik, the New Yorker who serves as chair of the House Republican Conference, the highest ranking woman in the House GOP, who has made it a priority to raise money for her peers running for Congress. Stefanik’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Women committee chairs also declined to put their names into the mix.

“It’s something that moved very fast,” said House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger (R- Texas). “There weren’t that many of us that were in a position to do something like that.”

Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) departs a GOP conference meeting on Oct. 13. No women sought the speaker’s job that was won by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.)

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

Of all the contenders, one, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, was Black. The winner, of course, was Mike Johnson, a white man from Louisiana. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is still the only woman to serve as speaker.

Many Republican women said they were not concerned about speaker candidates’ gender and supported Johnson. But it leaves open questions about women’s ability to rise up the the ranks in their party.

Kelly Dittmar, director of research for the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said there’s an issue about women’s clout within the House GOP conference, given that white males still dominate it.

“Some of those gendered norms and dynamics certainly continue to influence the interactions and relationships within our political institutions, including in Congress,” Dittmar said.

Dittmar said that, according to her research, Republicans in Congress, and their voters, focus less than Democrats on representation by gender.

“If you don’t make it a priority, with the low numbers you already have a small pool, and then if you don’t make a targeted effort to increase that pool and elevate the power of the people in that pool, you end up in a situation where no women put their names forward,” she said. “It’s not seen as a problem in need of a solution.”

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Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), who has previously said she plans not to seek re-election to spend more time with her high school-aged children, said women have competing demands for their time.

“It’s much harder for a lot of us to get to positions of leadership,” she said. “We’re doing politics, you have family and everything else.”

“It’s very difficult for a Republican or Democrat woman to be in politics, but I think for Republicans since you don’t have media on your side, it’s even harder to do that,” Spartz added. “We need to bring more women into politics in general, because I think this would bring some different perspectives.”

She said she’s supportive of encouraging more women to run for office but said they need to be valued for their policy views, not just as a token.

“A lot of people like to put women for a picture op,” she said.

Reps. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.) and Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) said they were happy with the outcome of the speaker saga and said they were not focused on the contenders’ gender. Hageman said Republicans put forward a good slate of candidates.

Some House GOP women joked that they were too smart to jump into such a divisive fray.

“We recognize that this is really a no win situation,” said Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) shortly before Republicans picked Johnson. “At the end of the day, like, we can’t get there and this is an exercise in futility, in my opinion. So why would any of the women want to put ourselves out there only to fail?”

Bice is considering running for Johnson’s old job as vice chair of the conference.

“You know what, I would love to see more women running for office in general,” said Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.). “We’ll get there.”