The saga of women in local politics is a dizzying tale of gains
and losses, breakthroughs and setbacks, triumphs and
heartbreaks. For every step or two forward, there’s a step or
more backward. It’s a tango more confounding than the dance
steps diagrammed on Broadway. The story here begins in the 1850s
when women alternately were allowed and then barred from voting.
Initially they took part in school district elections, in
keeping with the belief that women had a “sphere” that included
hearth, home and children. Throughout the 19th Century, the
territorial government and then the State Legislature took
multiple votes on woman’s suffrage. Once a House committee
denied the right by a vote of five to seven. Another time the
outcome was 15 to 11. Much opposition came from the liquor and
beer lobby which feared that women, if allowed to vote, would
impose prohibition. Granted the vote for a time in the 1880s,
women lost again when a gambler, indicted by a grand jury that
included women, took his case to the territ