ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 9, 1996 TAG: 9612090109
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE SIX DEMOCRATS and three Republicans probably won't agree on much. But past undertakings by women senators have demonstrated they can have a big impact.
For the first time, the Senate will have nine elected women members when the 105th Congress begins in January. They intend to join forces on some issues, but the six Democrats and three Republicans are likely to use their bloc-voting power sparingly.
Yet several women senators said issues important to women are likely to get a careful hearing in the Senate because women voted for Democrats by a lopsided margin in November, not just because there are more women senators.
``The big sensitizing factor out there was the gender gap in this last election, because it was huge,'' said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. ``We now know that the women of America essentially elected this president. So clearly, issues which concern women deeply are critical issues - education, the environment, safe streets.''
Fellow California Democrat Sen. Barbara Boxer said: ``I've heard Republicans talk about, `Where have we gone wrong?' They've got a real problem with [the gender gap], and they've got to search to see what they can do, which is a big opportunity for the women in the Senate.''
The gap hit some Senate races as well as the presidential race. Exit polls show that Georgia Democrat Max Cleland's win benefited from a 30 percent larger preference by women than men. In addition, women voters outnumbered men, 51 percent to 49 percent.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., dean of the women's contingent come January, said the nine women senators will ``come together on issues where we think we can agree'' but without forming a formal women's caucus.
``The women of the Senate are enormously entrepreneurial, and we prefer to work in a far more flexible way,'' she said.
But she and the senior Republican woman senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, already are seeking opportunities to cooperate.
``When we come back after the first of the year, and we look at the agenda that will be before us, we'll have a welcome for the women and we'll be talking about where we can collaborate,'' Mikulski said.
They likely would not vote often as a bloc, in large part because they belong to parties with conflicting agendas, subject to pressures of party discipline on critical issues. They also differ on regional questions and personal issues such as abortion.
But when they do stand together - even though they are no more than nine out of 100 senators - past joint undertakings by women senators have demonstrated they will have a powerful impact.
``We bring different perspectives and different credibilities to the table,'' Hutchison said. ``We have used that power sparingly but forcefully,'' and will continue to limit such efforts to rare, but important, issues in the future.
One example of that power was their unanimous denunciation of a government report urging women not to start periodic mammograms for breast cancer checks at age 40. ``It was so universal among us that that was immediately dropped,'' Hutchison said.
In 1994, the Senate's then seven women senators joined forces against top-level pension benefits for Adm. Frank Kelso II, forced to retire as chief of naval operations because of the Navy's 1991 Tailhook sex scandal.
They eventually lost, but ``people were surprised they got 43 votes,'' said Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women.
Ireland urged some perspective, however, for those expecting the nine women senators to have a huge impact next year.
``It's only been since 1993 that they even had a women's bathroom near the Senate,'' she said. ``Now it's within a bladder's distance from the floor. Before that, they had to go to a different floor and use a public bathroom.''
LENGTH: Medium: 74 linesby CNB