Where are the young women and mothers in Alabama state politics?

Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Pleasant Grove, speaks in the Alabama Senate on May 2, 2024 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)

Merika Coleman joined the Alabama Legislature in 2002 as the 28-year-old mother of two school-age children.

Her kids became the district kids, she said. She took them to events all throughout the area in her district.

“I had community meetings, they went to those community meetings with me, so I said, I wanted to be that major female role model to them,” said Coleman, a Democrat from Pleasant Grove who now serves in the Senate.

But as of 2022, Alabama was the only state without mothers of children under 18 in the state legislature, according to the Vote Mama Foundation.

“That really saddens me when you said that, when I listened to that,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, we got to do something about that.'”

Coleman, whose children are now adults, said that she felt that her role as a mother of young kids gave her a different perspective in the House.

“Then when I became a single mother of these kids, again, that was a whole other dynamic that I could add to the legislative discussion,” she said.

Women have historically been underrepresented in the Alabama Legislature. Though two women – Reps. Marilyn Lands, D-Huntsville and Jeana Ross, R-Guntersville – joined the Legislature in special elections this spring, only 22 of the House’s 105 seats (21%) are occupied by women. Coleman is one of only four women (11.4%) in the 35-member Alabama Senate. According to the Center for American Women and Politics , Alabama ranked 46th for female representation.

Jean Sinzdak, associate director of CAWP, said in a phone interview that increasing women in state legislatures requires intentional effort and support.

“We need to be really intentional about finding more women, more people of color, more like members of other underrepresented groups, and saying, ‘You know, we will support you in running for office,’ but it definitely needs to be intentional,” she said. “If progress is not, unfortunately, going to happen on its own, it needs to be really, there needs to be serious effort put into it.”

Coleman said, looking back, it was “absolutely crazy” to run for office when she did.

“I know that I was able to make some difference by having the kids, and then my kids, my family, my family benefited from this as well,” she said.

She said that she had support from her then-employer. A community activist named Sarah Price donated money to help Coleman pay the filing fee.

“$500 when you have two kids in daycare, and my husband, at the time, my kid’s father had just started a construction cleaning business, we didn’t have any money,” she said.

As an elected official, Coleman said that she has resources available to her– but there aren’t as many for women earlier in the process.

“So we’ve got to find something to the pipeline, to identify these young women, to get them the training, but also, help them find the resources to run the campaign,” she said.

Coleman said that she was working to get Emerge Alabama started again. Emerge is a national organization that aims to assist women in getting elected. Sinzdak had pointed to groups like Emerge, which Alabama currently lacks, as beneficial to assisting women becoming elected.

“That’s people who seek us out,” Coleman said. “The gap is where what I’ve mentioned is actually identifying women and saying, ‘Hey, I think you would be amazing. You’re amazing at organizing the PTO in your school, or the PTA in your school. Have you ever thought for running for office?’”

Both Coleman and Sinzdak pointed to Alabama not having many women in the state legislature to begin with. Sinzdak said that incumbency tends to be one of the most determining factors and that red states tend to have less women overall than blue states.

“It can be daunting for a lot of people who are not already part of the political process to think about jumping in, and especially in places where gender roles in southern states, particularly we see gender roles can be sort of more confining, right and so those kinds of things, think about changing the culture and also putting attention on the issue,” she said.

She said that women win at the same rate as men, but they don’t run at the same rates as men. She said that more women often serve as role models, so there’s a pattern to increasing women.

A spokesperson for House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, did not return repeated requests for comment. Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Reed, R-Jasper, did not provide any examples of work to recruit more young women and mothers to the State Senate, but said in a statement that the Legislature addressed issues important to women and that he hopes women continue to serve.

“ In the 2024 legislative session alone, the Alabama Senate championed legislative items like Working for Alabama, the CHOOSE Act, the Parents’ Right to Know bill, protection of IVF services, and many others,” he wrote. “All of these types of issues directly affect young women and moms, and I think it is incumbent upon us to make certain that every effort is made for them to be included in our policy discussions and decisions.”

‘Paying the bills’

Younger men in the state legislature interviewed for this story did not point to specific recruiting that led to their joining.

Rep. Brock Colvin, R-Albertville, said that he wasn’t recruited, but he had connections after interning in the state senate.

“I wouldn’t say they were encouraging me, but they definitely were there to offer me advice, or ask if I ever wanted to run, anything like that,” he said. Nobody ever pointed at me and said, ‘You need to run,’ I don’t think, but I think they saw I was interested and was there for as a resource for me, and I say forming those relationships, I mean, some of the people I interned for still serve down there.”

Rep. Neil Rafferty, D-Birmingham, said that he ran after the seat opened up. He said he was working in public health and a friend asked him if he was interested in running 10 days before the line.

“As a political neophyte at that point I knew plenty about policy, but as far as campaigns, elections and how to win them, had really very little experience,” he said. “What I did have was a whole wealth and had a breadth and depth of network of people who came out  wanting to support me in any way they could when they found out that I when I made my announcement.”

Many of their colleagues are retired or partners in law firms.

“Some of us are fortunate enough to be married to somebody who is able to actually pay the bills while we’re being able to be a public servant,” Rafferty said.

Colvin said that his work in the state legislature is a deciding factor in aspects of his personal life.

“I’m getting married next month,” he said. “I don’t have any kids, but I think you know, definitely, if I was to think about having kids, I think you have to ask yourself, you know, ‘Is it worth running again?’”

Rep. Matt Simpson, R-Daphne, who has two kids (16 and 11), said that being a lawmaker and a parent is a difficult juggling act.

“There are times that I will miss Republican meetings or things like that because my daughter will have a baton competition,” he said.

He said that someone else could do his job in Montgomery but no one else could do his job for his kids, and credited his ability to do both to his wife.

“She carries so much weight when I’m out of town in Montgomery,” he said.

Coleman said she used to tell her male colleagues that they needed to thank their wives, and that she used to say “I need a wife” when she was a working parent in the state legislature.

“Especially when my kids were really young, it was more so when they were very active in school, active with ballet, soccer, football, basketball, playing the instruments and all the things that they did,” she said. “I’m the mom and so I’m running to those things. in addition to that when I get home, the wife has not cooked and cleaned for me so I had to all of that stuff as well.”

She said she used to tell her colleagues that they needed to thank their wives.

Tennessee State Senator London Lamar, D-Memphis, had a child while in office. She said that she started the session with a five-month-old– an age where her child needed a lot of attention.

For all the difficulties, Lamar said that it’s important for young women and mothers to be in office, specifically pointing to men in office making decisions about reproductive rights.

Tennessee, like Alabama, has a part-time legislature, so she said her birth lined up with the off-time, but she said it would be important for women who give birth during session to have support systems in place. She said that there needs to be more mothers in office so that more support systems for mothers and children can be put in place.

“I know it’s hard, I’m not sitting here saying we need more women, neglecting the fact that this is hard, like my life is really, really hard right now, but it’s necessary because we have an obligation to our children and our daughters and our sons to serve to create a better life for them, and then I hope they take on that mantle of leadership as well and continue to make lives better for those coming after them,” she said. “So I look at motherhood as more than just my own personal one, something I wanted for myself, that I truly enjoy, but motherhood for me is also about ensuring that not only my child, but all of our children in our communities are going to thrive.”

This story was updated Tuesday to clarify quotes from Sinzdak.

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