Not One of the Boys
Before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Warren, or Hillary Clinton, there was New York’s Bella Abzug. With a fiery rhetorical style forged in the 1960s antiwar movement, Abzug vigorously promoted gender parity, economic justice, and the need to “bring Congress back to the people.”In Battling Bella: The Protest Politics of Bella Abzug Leandra Ruth Zarnow highlights how, as 1960s radicalism moved protest into electoral politics, Abzug drew fire from establishment politicians across the political spectrum — but also inspired a generation of women.
The opening of the ninety-second congress was an “unusual day,” instead of the typically “staid affair,” thanks to Bella Abzug. A flyer promoting her inauguration promised, “Bella Won’t Be One of the Boys.” She did not disappoint. She sat in the front row of the House chambers to ensure a captive audience. She forcefully read a resolution to “set the date for completing the safe and systematic withdrawal of all American armed forces from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos . . . no later than July 4, 1971.” She later joined an expectant crowd of 500 gathered on the Capitol steps, huddling in the frigid air and chanting, “2, 4, 6, 8 — Bella, Set the Date!” All quieted when Representative Shirley Chisholm stepped forward to administer Abzug’s oath, accompanied by nine others, including Representatives Robert Drinan, Ronald Dellums, Ed Koch, and William F. Ryan. Earnest and exalted, Abzug recited, “I pledge to devote my time, my energy and my abilities — in and out of Congress — to help end the war in Indochina, to work for new priorities to heal the domestic wounds of war and to use our country’s wealth for life, not death.”4 As she spoke, homemade signs swayed in the background, one reading, “Give ’Em Hell Bella!”
Abzug blazed into Congress ready to “push and push and push,” but what she found was that “the system” she challenged pushed back. She came to Washington to achieve results, not merely to be a voice for a cause. During her first months in Congress, she faced the sobering reality that “the House of Representatives is a very awesome thing.” She idealistically had thought that legislative action might bring about progressive reforms more quickly and more completely than the courts. Once ensconced in the process of lawmaking, however, she faced “layer after layer of complications and procedure which make it a long time to get a bill through or to be heard.”
Abzug adapted to this work more readily than to the workplace. An institutional reformer, she invested in the lawmaking process, staying late, reading bills meticulously, showing up for committee meetings and votes, and scheming with allies. Although she complained about the many rules governing federal lawmaking, as a lawyer she delighted in procedural intricacies and enlisted attorneys she knew to aid her hunt for maneuvers. Mining arcane, forgotten rules, she recovered a few that helped her circumvent seniority and thus southern Democrats and Cold War liberals in power. As a result, she was able to get the two issues she worked on most — ending the Vietnam War and sex discrimination — up for debate and into bills. What she refused to abide by was the tradition set by former House Speaker Sam Rayburn, who said, “If you want to get along, go along.” She determined not to be “cowed by the atmosphere,” seeking to resist the temptation of complacent incumbency and unprincipled compromise.8 Most centrally, she sought to expose how Congress operated as a patriarchal institution designed to preserve what she called male “power and potency.”
Abzug could push more than she would have been able to otherwise because she arrived in Congress amid “a new procedural era” with structural reforms under way since the mid-1960s. Most contested was what Representative Michael Harrington (D-MA) called the “pernicious seniority system.” The Democratic Study Group (DSG), a liberal congressional network created in 1959, had long criticized House committee chairs’ concentrated power and “virtual monopoly of the most visible communication channels.” The 1970 Legislative Reorganization Act established recorded roll call votes, made committee activities public, and gave committee members more influence in setting the policy agenda. That year, Representative Julia Butler Hansen (D-WA) was also tasked with overseeing a committee to review the chair appointment process and committee organization. At the opening of the Ninety-Second Session, the House Democratic Caucus reviewed the Hansen Report findings and, with Democratic leaders’ support, determined how to “loosen the seniority knot.” House Democrats sanctioned a sweeping expansion of subcommittee power — a reform from which Abzug would soon benefit. Reforms additionally included limiting chair leadership to one subcommittee, increasing subcommittee staff and autonomy to develop legislation, and allowing ten members to contest a chair appointment recommended by the Committee on Committees and demand a vote. Thus, Abzug’s agitating for structural reform was not singular but rather part of a collective internal campaign for greater democratization that led to concrete congressional reorganization. But she also broke from the pack, highlighting how even male reformers had blind spots when it came to gender equity among members of Congress. In this area, she adamantly refused to be “one of the boys.”
