THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 22, 1994 TAG: 9408220056
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
After electing its first woman to Congress two years ago, North Carolina will likely at least double that number this year, but the number of women in the General Assembly is expected to decline.
U.S. Rep. Eva Clayton will likely be joined in Congress by former Charlotte Mayor Sue Myrick, a Republican, who survived a bruising primary election thanks largely to money raised by fellow Am-Way distributors.
Myrick is running in the 9th Congressional District, traditionally a GOP stronghold, and is expected to defeat her Democratic opponent, Rory Blake.
But a third woman, Maggie Palmer Lauterer, faces a tougher challenge. Lauterer, an Asheville Democrat, is not expected to defeat U.S. Rep. Charles H. Taylor, a Republican from Brevard, in the 11th Congressional District.
With 48 women candidates for the state legislature this year, North Carolina is down slightly from 1992, when 51 women ran in the November election, according to the Center for the American Woman and Politics at Rutgers University.
In the state Senate, women are running for 11 seats. Of these, six are incumbents seeking re-election, four are vying in districts with at least one open seat and one is running against an incumbent, according to the state Board of Elections.
In the state House, women are running in 37 races. Of these, 21 are incumbents, seven are vying in districts with at least one open seat and 10 are running against incumbents.
Currently, eight women serve in the Senate and 23 in the House.
Statewide and nationally, it's too early to tell if women will be able to hold onto the record number elected to political office in 1992 - dubbed ``The Year of the Woman.''
``The number of women running probably won't set records this year, but I'm delighted to see that we still have a lot of activity,'' said Lucy Baruch, director of information services for the Center for American Woman and Politics. ``The question is are we going to be able to hang onto the gains we made in 1992.
``Every year since we've been in business, we've seen a record number of women running,'' she said. ``But we still have a long way to go before parity is reached because at no level of government do women represent more than one-fifth of the elected officials.''
KEYWORDS: NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY WOMEN
by CNB