Nevada’s ‘last glass ceiling’

Saturday, July 22, 2006 | 7:47 a.m.

Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt has long been a friend of Southern Nevada's business and political establishment. All the more surprising then, when she lashed out at some of those allies this week, saying she had been subjected to subtle sexism that has stymied her campaign for governor.

Hunt, a former chairwoman of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, lags behind her Republican opponents, U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons and state Sen. Bob Beers. She conceded that she has struggled to raise money and political support from Southern Nevada's political establishment - the Strip, developers and the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce.

The candidacy of Hunt, who has also been a singer, restaurant owner and county commissioner, has never taken off, and she hasn't convinced key players that she would make a good candidate or a good governor.

The question is whether Hunt - or any woman - could persuade those players. Nevada has never elected a woman governor or U.S. senator.

"To put a woman in that CEO position is that last glass ceiling," said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

Women now occupy eight governor's mansions around the country. State Sen. Dina Titus, who's running for governor as a Democrat, points to Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as her models of Democratic women who have won in Republican states.

Nevada has elected a number of women to statewide posts, including Hunt. And one-third of the members of the Nevada Legislature are women, which makes the state fourth nationally in the ratio of women to men in statehouses. Nevada has been in the top 10 since 1995. The next speaker of the Assembly will be Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, a first for Nevada.

Still, political scientists and Nevada observers say women in Nevada may face a thicker glass ceiling because of the state's small, male-dominated political environment and a history of frontier sexism.

Having women in the Legislature doesn't mean the state will elect a woman governor, Walsh said, because the job of legislator actually fits certain gender stereotypes. For instance, she said, women legislators can work on "women's issues," such as education or children's health. Another stereotype: Women "work well with others."

While facing a numerical minority, women legislators also face subtle and overt sexism, said women from different chambers and different parties.

Sen. Sandra Tiffany, R-Henderson, said men she has worked with in Carson City are uncomfortable with strong women who have their own vision: "Hey, you have nice legs, let me open the door for you, then once you sit down they think you have no brain in your head."

She noted that men make up the majority of senior executives in the state's dominant casino industry.

Women incumbents raise less money than their male counterparts, just as women make less money in the average workplace, said Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas: "Are women treated differently in politics than men? Yes."

Giunchigliani cited former Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and former Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones as two once-viable candidates for governor perhaps hindered by gender discrimination. (Neither returned phone calls from the Sun.)

Titus distanced herself from Hunt and her comments, saying she is certain that she will be elected. Still, she frequently says on the campaign trail that "the same good ol' boys aren't whispering in my ear because I'm not one of the good ol' boys."

For too long, she says, that unnamed but unmistakable group of "good ol' boys" has been making decisions on the golf course and in smoke-filled rooms, and not always with Nevada's best interests at heart. Implicit in this scene-setting is that her Democratic opponent, Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, is one of those boys playing golf, if not smoking a cigar.

Titus teaches a women in politics class at UNLV. She noted that media descriptions of women in political life are often laced with biased language. A man is tough. A woman is shrill. A man climbed his way to the top. A woman scratched and clawed.

Then there are the condescending descriptions of a woman's accessories or shoes.

Titus and other women running for governor face a bigger challenge in states with "gatekeepers," Walsh said. By gatekeepers, she's referring to powerful institutional players, such as party or business leaders, that must give their approval before a woman gets the opportunity to go to the voters.

Nevada, which had a tiny population not long ago, is known as a state with gatekeepers - a fairly closed group of influential political consultants, lobbyists and players with ties to campaign money and connections. Most of them are men.

Cara Roberts, a spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, which could be considered one of those important gatekeepers, said she doesn't believe gender discrimination is obstructing a woman from being governor.

The chamber endorsed Gibbons because the board felt his track record and positions best represented the interests of its members, Roberts said. She noted that 62.5 percent of the chamber's managers are women, including Chief Executive Kara Kelley.

Michael Green, a Nevada historian at the Community College of Southern Nevada, said the state has a history of sexism that may linger.

"A woman who gambled was not respectable, so you wouldn't see them running the place," Green said. "They were showgirls, waitresses, entertainers, as Lorraine Hunt was. Then there was mining, which was dominated by men."

As a city of plentiful strip clubs, eye-opening waitress uniforms and tacitly accepted prostitution, Las Vegas is not exactly known as a haven for feminism.

Furthermore, the state has a significant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints population, Green noted: "In the LDS world, gender matters."

Hunt may be facing something else, however, Green said: "I think the good ol' boy network saw Gibbons as the likelier vote-getter, and quite probably the person they could more easily manipulate.

"I think she is learning late in life that in politics, friendships last as long as you are useful."

Hunt, clearly frustrated, doesn't see it that way.

"They just don't see me as a CEO."