Vilsack Says Her Gender and Life Experience Would Bring Diversity to Congress at Ames High Forum

Christie Vilsack told a group of about 400 Ames High School students that she lost her mother at a young age due to the lack of reproductive health care available at that time.

Vilsack, who wore pink to participate in the school's breast cancer awareness week, told students during a 90 minute forum and Q&A Friday, that her small town upbringing and her gender are among the different lenses she would bring with her if elected to Congress Nov. 6.

Vilsack touched on her mother's death when asked about her views on issues such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and Planned Parenthood.

“On Planned Parenthood there are a lot of issues connected to that,” she said.

“I really feel like my mother would have lived long enough to meet her grandchildren, my children, had she had access to women's reproductive services in the small town where we lived at that time,” Vilsack said.

Vilsack said she was a high school sophomore when she learned that her mother had breast cancer. Her father told her that her mother would live about two more years, which turned out to be true.

Vilsack's mother died just two weeks before Vilsack graduated from high school in 1968. It wasn't until 1965 that married couples could legally access birth control.

“It hasn't been that long ago,” Vilsack said.

People need to be able to plan their families, she said. Planned Parenthood and other clinics provide those and other reproductive health services.

That viewpoint is something Vilsack would bring to Congress if she becomes the first woman in Iowa elected to a higher office.

“A female lens certainly in our delegation, which has never had one, is certainly important, but it's also important to have more women in Congress,” Vilsack said.

However she has found that sometimes people, like her opponent Steve King, R-Kiron, don't take her campaign seriously simply because she is a woman.

“My opponent did not take me seriously to begin with and it really required me to raise a lot of money to get his attention. He also has taken my name away from me. … My opponent refers to me as 'The Lady.' I am offended by that to a certain extent. I have a name,” she said when asked about the challenges she faces as a woman in politics.

Iowa is one of only two states in the nation that hasn't elected a female to the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate or the Governor's office, despite the fact that it has been very forward thinking in other areas.

The first female attorney admitted to the bar in the United States came from Vilsack's own hometown. In 1869 being a white male was one of the qualifications to practice law, but Belle Babb Mansfield didn't have to fight. She just asked.

Mount Pleasant lacked a law school, so she asked the men if she could study law at their desks like her older brother had been allowed to do and they said yes, Vilsack said. When her brother was examined for admittance into the bar she asked if they would examine her to be admitted to the bar and they agreed, Vilsack said. Iowa law didn't say women couldn't be lawyers so Mansfield's request was granted.

“Oftentimes it's the people who are enfranchised, the people in power, who open the door a little bit to those of us who are not,” Vilsack said.

Not All Ames High School students come from a background of privilege but at least some of them can vote. And Vilsack asked for theirs.

“I would be honored if you helped me make history and certainly voted for someone who can get into a room and compromise, but also if you could help me become the first woman to ever be elected to a higher office in Iowa, Thanks.”