Essential Estrogen

At a campaign stop in Dubuque tonight for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, it was an audience member who had the most memorable line:

Clinton: When you travel abroad people ask you: 'What's happened to America?"

Male Voice from the audience: "BUSH!"

Although Sen. Clinton attempted to recover with a witty comeback ("This school has some smart students"), it was obvious the best and most direct line of the night came from the audience and not from Clinton herself.

On the whole, the stop at the University of Dubuque was over-shadowed by earlier activities in Alabama commemorating the the 42nd anniversary of "Bloody Sunday." Still, roughly 1,100 people came out to hear the Senator on the stump.

While most of the usual suspects were in attendance, there was one instance which continues to perplex.

A woman -- quite obviously a Clinton supporter -- made the comment that "women have been cleaning up after men since the beginning of time." (Why do people take the microphone during question and answer time for the sole purpose of making a comment? Couldn't that be done in a letter to the editor or directly with the candidate? Fodder for another post, no doubt.)

I'm not sure if Clinton was trying to work religion into her speech, if she was making another attempt at humor, or if this is something she thought was just appropriate given the context, but she began to weave this tale of a minister who once introduced her saying, "it was Eve who got humankind into this mess and it will take another woman to get us out."

What the hell kinda comment is that?!? Left with nothing else, I guess I must accept the fact that when Bill Clinton got into his little flings, Hillary stayed around because she honestly believes that women are the root of all evil? Gimme a break.

In a move which has drawn quite a stir in Des Moines today, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has backed away from questions as to why a speech she gave on Friday to the Human Rights Campaign wasn't publicized. Clinton's response: "You'll have to ask my campaign."

Clinton delivered the keynote address at a luncheon meeting of the group on Friday. Roughly 400 were in attendance and video of the speech has since been posted on the group's web site: hrc.org.

In the speech, Clinton expressed to the group a desire, if elected, for a better partnership with the gay community. "I want you to know that just as you always have an open door to my Senate office, you will always have an open door to the White House and together we can continue this journey," she said.

Traditionally, this meeting has been closed to the press. This also marked the first time that video of a keynote address was published on the group's web site. Gov. Bill Richardson is scheduled to speak before the group's Gala Dinner in Los Angeles on March 24.

According to their web site, the Human Rights Campaign is American's largest civil rights organization working to achieve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality.

The senior Senator from Connecticut, Christopher Dodd, scored an upset this past weekend during the York County, S.C. straw poll.

• Sen. Chris Dodd - 28%
• Sen. Barack Obama - 24%
• Sen. Hillary Clinton - 18%
• former Sen. John Edwards - 11%
• former VP Al Gore (write-in) - 8%
• Sen. Joseph Biden - 5.5%

It should come as no surprise to Iowans that Dodd is running an old-fashioned get-out-and-meet-the-people-in-small-groups campaign. After all, he's hired to long-time Iowa operatives to head up his effort:

Marc Beltrame, longtime senior staffer to Rep. Leonard Boswell, will run Dodd's South Carolina effort. Taylor West, press secretary for Gov. Chet Culver's 2006 campaign, was tapped to be Dodd's South Carolina spokesman. Dodd also picked up a couple from Sen. John Kerry's 2004 Iowa campaign.

Hey... maybe Iowa finally found something valuable we can export to the rest of the U.S.: campaign staffers.

If you're a stickler and still reading, looking for the estrogen in this story, you need to visit with Sen. Dodd and ask him to show you the pictures in his pocket.

Iowans can say what they will about former Governor and former Presidential hopeful Tom Vilsack (goodness knows we have), but it's difficult to bash former First Lady Christie Vilsack.

Yesterday evening a small day school in the northeast corner of South Dakota was honored with the first ever Verizon Tech Savvy Award and given a $25,000 prize to continue and expand a school program. The program allows teachers to help American Indian parents write and produce children's books in the native Dakotah language. It fulfills a need for the parents while fulfilling a need in the community -- closing the digital generation gap between parents and children.

The awards are a joint creation of National Conference on Family Literacy, the Verizon Foundation and our very own former First Lady Christie Vilsack. The Tech Savvy is the first national award designed to provide an incentive for grassroots, community-based nonprofit organizations and schools to create programs that demystify technology for parents, enabling them to better guide their children in the use of new media.

In addition to the South Dakota grand prize winner, four additional programs were given regional awards of $5,000 at the banquet. Those four programs are:

• Rhode Island Family Literacy Initiative - Providence, RI - Program teams an English-as-a-second language child with a technology teacher and children's teacher to increase parents' computer and tech skills while improving English comprehension skills.
• Iowa Central Community College - Fort Dodge, IA - Program teaches parents who to use the Internet to communicate with their children's teachers, learn about the web sites their children visit and enhance writing and basic computer skills.
• Forrest Outreach Foundation - Addison, TX - Click-For-Success Prorgram offers weekly computer club classes and home visits where mentors help parents and children work together to improve computer skills.
• LTSC Community Development Corp. - Los Angeles, CA - DISKovery Angelina Program helps immigrants learn to use computers to navigate the challenges of everyday life, including finding public transportation, child care programs and legal services.

"Literacy is no longer just about learning to read," Vilsack said. She added that she hoped the Tech Savvy Awards to draw attention to the need for technological literacy among entire families and spark discussion about the values which emanate from web sites and the importance of technology in our schools.

More than 1,600 educators and advocates traveled to Orlando, FL for the 16th National Conference on Family Literacy. Ironically, Florida ranks 45th in the country in linguistic integration and 47th in high school graduation. Christie Vilsack and Verizon Foundation President Patrick Gaston presented the awards last night.

Kudos to you, Christie! From looking over her web site, we know that Christie will continue to stay involved in our communities -- and that her involvement will bring about great things. (We promise to blog about the Belle Babb Mansfield project soon too!)

Hey, Mari, we know Christie has set the bar high, but we also expect great things from you too as you work for Iowa's women and children's services! Matter-of-fact, we're watching closely to see how much muscle you might flex in the upcoming budgeting battles.

Former Sen. John Edwards has announced a list of people who previously were number ones for former Gov. Tom Vilsack who have now committed to his campaign.

While we aren't typically the gals who bitch about people getting involved in the process, this list gives us pause (as we did after glancing through Vilsack's list). While there will always be some who will feel strongly about a particular candidate early on, is it really in the best interest of our state for elected officials to be endorsing any one candidate at this stage in the game?

If you look at the Edwards list -- and keep in mind these are only the previous Vilsack supports and not his entire list of Iowa ones -- you'll notice quickly at the top several Iowa Democratic Party Officials.

The time has come, we think for elected officials to have impartiality until caucus night written into their duties. That is, county chairs and other members of county executive boards, district central committee and state central committee members should not be allowed to endorse. Why?

Not to pick on the good folks down by Mt. Pleasant, but let's look at Edwards' list for Henry County. We've got the Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary all endorsing Edwards. (Note that this all means each of these people endorsed Vilsack -- which is probably understandable given the logistics.) This endorsement is all well and good for these people, but what about the remainder of the Democrats within that county?

I wonder how the other candidates are going to feel about contacting Henry County for visits and events in the coming months? Obviously the process put in place by the IDP is no longer of use to them and they will need to develop their own contacts within that county -- outside of the official party -- in order to campaign there effectively.

In this scenario, the endorsement by the county's elected officials limits everyone of their constituents and is unfair and, in our opinion, unethical. When one agrees to represent a group or region, one agrees to be part of something bigger than the individual. Therefore, you cannot be a good County Chair and a number one for any candidate.

To put it even more bluntly, we believe the Democrats in Madison, Henry and any other Iowa county in which executive board members have made formal endorsements should call a coup. We believe those on the State Central Committees of either party who have publicly endorsed a candidate should be immediately ousted from office. There are some things -- such as Iowa's status as First in the Nation -- which is bigger than any one person. Those elected to positions of influence and authority... those who have the most opportunity to perhaps tilt their county's relationship with a candidate should not be making endorsements. Period.

In November of last year, The Daily Iowan reported that IPERS had roughly $28 million directly invested in companies that Sudan Divestment Task Force lists as "warranting scrutiny." In other words, these are companies which could be funding and/or facilitating genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

Rep. Dawn Pettengill is one of two Democratic legislators who have made divestment a top priority this session. Pettengill along with Sen. Michael Connolly are equally concerned IPERS benefits from stock in PetroChina, a front for the Chinese government-owned China National Petroleum Corp. CNPC is an oil consortium accused by scholars and research groups of providing financing and weaponry to government-backed militias in western Sudan.

According to the bills in both the House and Senate, companies would be asked to halt operations and given 90 days to comply. Once that time period expired, if the company had failed to address the concerns, the state would begin a divestment process. While the original bills called for divestment in 15 months, the Senate bill has been changed to allow a three year divestment. Pettengill, who has been pushing for this measure upwards of three years, calls the Senate compromise unacceptable.

"I can understand bing more lenient with the mutual funds, but we need to drop the companies we're directly invested in right away. IPERS had an annual return of 11.1 percent, and none of those companies was above that. If anything, they're bringing the average down."

If passed and signed into law, Iowa would become one of six states who have elected to make their voice heard on a national level. The belief is that if enough individuals and states pull their money, the companies would be pressured into ceasing harmful operations -- which allegedly include arms-for-oil deals -- that have led to the death of nearly half a million Darfuris and the displacement of 2.5 million more. According to Pettengill, IPERS has more than $100 million invested in companies directly or indirectly connected with Sudan.

Both bills have cleared their respective committees.

There are simply times when a writer has so much to discuss that she doesn't quite know where to start. As I peer over my shoulder into the latest Missouri happenings, I do well to allow my lips to form "wow" much less try to make sense out of it all.

It seems that last spring a Missouri State employee - Heather Elder - brought to Gov. Matt Blunt's attention a complaint of sexual harassment against Agriculture Director Fred Ferrell (her boss). In Missouri, the Director of Agriculture is a gubernatorial appointed position.

Gov. Blunt decides to keep the whole mess hush-hush and instructed the state police to quietly investigate. When that investigation provided validity to the original complaint, the state agency (with the Governor's blessing?) cut a check for $70,000 for the complainer. She, however, refused the payoff.

Ten months later (Feb. 23) -- after the complainer had been placed on leave and other such nonsense happened -- the complainer filed official court papers and half the state of Missouri exploded. (Well, not literally of course.)

The blushing and apologetic governor requested his appointee resign while the state treasurer and state auditor caught a whiff of possibly misappropriated monies.

In midst of all the uproar, state legislators in Jefferson City are considering a bill to legalize sexual harassment in Missouri. (Yup, you read that correctly.) The legislation in question currently resides in state committee and would have made it much more difficult for Elder to sue Ferrell. Basically the bill changes the state definition of discrimination by deleting "any unfair treatment based on" such things as race, religion, gender or disability and inserting "an adverse action motivated by" those factors. Repeated words would mean nothing under the new law since an action such as demotion or firing would be required to prove the case.

The bill is actually so bad the Missouri Commission on Human Rights has come out in opposition, claiming the proposed changes could put the state in violation of federal law and cause the agency to lose federal funding.

Republican Sen. John Loudon, author of the bill, says he wrote it in response to a age discrimination suit against the University of Missouri - St. Louis and that it had nothing to do with the current mess. The university was found guilty in the discrimination case and was ordered to pay stiff compensation to former baseball coach James Brady (well over $1 million). The university argued they should not have been forced to pay punitive damages since those would come from taxpayer pocketbooks. The appeals court allowed the verdict and damages to stand.

The legislation addresses the definition of harassment, refuses punitive damages to a taxpayer-based entity, and would allow an employer already facing a discrimination lawsuit from a fired employee to come up with new evidence explaining why the employee was fired.

In a further plot twist today, state veterinarian Shane Brookshire submitted his resignation. Brookshire went with Elder to the governor's office to report the sexual harassment complaints, according to the Missouri Highway Patrol's report.

Also according to the MHP's report, Ferrell referred to his secretary as a "show dog" and told Elder he'd be the first in line to see her in a wet t-shirt contest. He also told another department head not to promote Elder since "we shouldn't have women supervising men."

But as disgusting as all of this is, perhaps the most telling thing about it is Gov. Blunt's own double-standards. While keeping the charges against his male appointee on the low-down, Blunt quickly and publicly ousted Dept. of Health and Senior Services Director Julie Eckstein for essentially making payments out of the wrong checkbook -- and then named his own lawyer as Missouri's new health director.

I don't care how much warmer the winters might be in Missouri, this girl would rather freeze to death in Iowa than join Missouri's sexist circus.

Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge joined with Senate Leader Mike Gronstal and the Iowa Pride Network College Coalition today to press the legislature to change the Iowa Civil Rights Code to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons.

In a move which will, no doubt, truly disturb the fundamentalist and evangelical Christians throughout the state, Judge stated that the civil right's code had a "glaring" omission. "Discrimination and intolerance have no place in our society and that is why Chet Culver and I are supporting this change," she said.

While this may not be the best political move for Judge and Culver, we are extremely pleased they have decided to weather the storm. Iowa should not be a state of equal treatment for all humans. Good job, Patty!

While zipping around the 'tubes' on the 'internets' today I came across the following news item from KRQE News 13 out of Albuquerque:

Call it the second-tier lament.

At a recent house party in the early voting state of New Hampshire, Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd became exasperated as he talked about being overshadowed by front-runners Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

Dodd, Clinton and Obama are senators from Connecticut, New York and Illinois respectively.

Another Democratic hopeful, Gov. Bill Richardson, was similarly frustrated campaigning in Iowa last week.

He said Iowans resent that the media has created a myth that two candidates are the only serious ones.

Dodd, Richardson and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden have stellar resumes, decades of experience and an inviting style on the campaign trail.

So far, though, this presidential race has been dominated by the celebrity treatment of Clinton and Obama and to a lesser extent John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina.

That has left the second-tier hopefuls struggling to be more than blips on the national political radar.

The article is credited to the AP without an individual byline. So, this is the work of one of the largest news-gathering organizations in the world? Boy, are we in trouble.

The unknown reporter seems to be working toward the real crux of the issue -- that the media has unfairly treated the full field of Democratic (and Republican) hopefuls while spending most of their time fawning over a select few -- when she quotes Gov. Richardson stating that Iowans resent the myth created by the media.

Striking so close to the truth, however, must be painful because the article ends with no new understanding for the author or for the readers. Despite having these wonderful candidates with "stellar resumes, decades of experience and inviting style on the campaign trail" they will continue to be frustrated blips on the national political radar. I wonder why that is?

There are few things in life which really stick with you. Clothes are updated. Friends move in and out of your life. For Pete's sake, please remember to replace eye make-up every now and again! Furniture gets handed down to a relative, placed on the curb with a 'free' sign or sold in a garage sale. It seems nearly everything is temporary... except Southern accents.

Seeing how my friends at Media Matters have picked up on the Sen. Hillary Clinton 'fake' accent in Alabama last weekend, I've decided maybe my own life experiences can shed some light here. You see, I'm not a native Iowan. Although I married an Iowan, but I am -- and forever will be -- a southern girl. Forget the fact that we've made our home in Iowa for more than a decade, my roots remain just a phone call away.

In times of intense emotion (sadness, joy, anger, elation) my southern accent returns to me just as strong as the day I hopped in the U-Haul. After a half-hour of speaking with my sister on the phone, you'd swear I just blew into town from Mississippi. As the saying goes: You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl.

From my own experience then I call foul on those who believe Clinton was faking an accent in Alabama. The woman lived in Arkansas for nearly two decades and the drawl sticks with you.

While I'm quite sure I could turn on the southern-speak if I desired to do so (just as I'm sure Clinton could as well), there are only certain times and places I'd do so. For instance, I might be willing to bat my eyelashes and unleash a soft, slow southern drawl if I were stopped by a nice male highway patrol officer. I might purposefully relax my jaws in an attempt to persuade my husband to take out the trash or fix something around the house. I've often employed the accent when commanding my dog. (Don't ask me why animals respond better to a southern accent, but they do.) I would never, however, switch to a southern accent anytime I wished to project intelligence and strength.

It didn't take long after moving to Iowa to understand what most folks expected from a woman who possessed such an accent. Think Daisy Duke... Mae West... Loretta Lynn. The perceptions of a woman with a southern accent are quiet different than the perceptions we have for males. Yeah, it's a double-standard, but one that every woman who has ever had/has a southern accent is well aware exists.

Committees in Des Moines have squeezed two more bills out ahead of a funnel week deadline.

The so-called bottle bill remains alive after being approved 20-0 by the House Environmental Protection Committee. While the bill creates a beverage container task force, the primary focus of the bill is the doubling of redemption center revenues (increase reimbursement per container from one penny to two). This would mark the first change in revenue in three decades.

While it wasn't really a full bill, members of the Iowa Senate Human Resource committee have passed enough of a bill summary to keep adoption regulation alive in this session. Committee Chair Amanda Ragan (D-Mason City) says the "shell bill" includes only a basic intent of the future full bill (which will be completed in the next week or two).

The bill takes aim at adoption facilitators by allowing the Iowa Department of Human Services to oversee their operations. Such facilitators are individuals or companies that charge a fee to match prospective adoptive parents with women looking to place their children.

The bill was prompted by problems which surfaced with a company known as Adoption Insight out of California. The company (like many other similar agencies) places classified ads in newspapers throughout the U.S. and advertises on the internet for pregnant women who are considering adoption. Through a court case spawned by a mother who refused to give up her child to an adoptive family, the public learned that Adoption Insight was bringing such pregnant women into a certain apartment complex in Sioux City where they were introduced to prospective parents for their unborn children.

Such facilitators often get paid an up front fee of $5,000 or more to match an adoptive family with a mother. They charge so much more than the traditional nonprofit agencies because they are typically much more aggressive with recruiting mothers which leads to quicker placements.

When the Florida woman who was relocated in Sioux City and then refused to sign the final papers to release her newborn daughter to the chosen adoptive family, she says the adoption agency retaliated by evicting her with one day notice and phoning the hospital with concerns about the woman's ability to care for her newborn and older daughter. The state, upon discovering the woman had no home, took both children and placed them into foster care.

Unfortunately, this legislation comes too late for the mother mentioned above. I attempted some phone calls today to see if the mother had ever re-won custody of her children, but have not been able to find an answer. The last update I have is from Feb. 2006 when the woman and her mother were living in a Sioux City home and continuing to fight to get the children back. It was expected for the children to remain in a foster home throughout the summer.

Rep. Linda Upmeyer (R-Garner) is one of three Republican legislators who plan to formally introduce a bill to benefit beginning farmers this week. Because the bill will include tax breaks, it is not subject to the funnel week deadlines.

Upmeyer joined with junior Representative Pat Grassley (R-New Hartford) and Rep. Jeff Kaufmann (R-Wilton) to sponsor the bill which takes aim at both the cost associated with becoming a farmer and motivating women and minorities to enter farming. In total the bill would allow extended relatives of farmers (not just children) to avoid inheritance tax for family farms; all for tax exemption of a new owner agrees to crop-share with a beginning farmer; provides $5 million in property tax credits for beginning farmers; and offers $25,000 to create a program encouraging women and minorities to enter farming as a profession.

The section which deals with outreach to women and minorities is credited to Upmeyer. "We sometimes forget that young women can be young farmers," she said.

While the three legislators have not expressed a great deal of hope for the bill's passage in such a minority hostile climate, they also believe the values projected in the bill are bipartisan and good for Iowa.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin announced today he will be sponsoring three farm bill listening sessions on March 24 as a part of his role as chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

• 9:30 a.m. - North Scott High School Cafeteria, 200 S. 1st St., Eldridge
• 12:45 p.m. - Northeast Iowa Community College, Conference Center, 10250 Sundown Rd., Peosta
• 4 p.m. - CR Prairie High School Auditorium, 401 76th Avenue SE, Cedar Rapids

"As we begin drafting the 2007 Farm Bill, it is important to hear you comments and suggestions," said Harkin. "The best ideas come from my constituents who are directly affected by farm and rural policies. I look forward to hearing from you at these upcoming meetings."

For more information or if you have special needs, call (515) 284-4574.

Three high school girls from a New York City suburb were suspended for saying the word "vagina" during a reading of The Vagina Monologues. According to the school's principal Richard Leprine, the word was not appropriate at a community event open to children. (I know there's a pun in there somewhere...)

Eve Ensler, author of the play, has surfaced to defend the girls and use of the word for female genitalia.

According to reports in the Des Moines Register last weekend Iowa Rep. Janet Petersen took a few moments -- during labor -- to speak on the phone with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Two hours following the phone call, the legislator gave birth to a healthy son, Buck Henry (7 lbs, 3 oz.).

Not only do we send kudos to the entire Petersen family, but we're very impressed with Janet's ability to multitask!

Newspapers in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Michigan have pulled conservative commentator Ann Coulter's syndicated column following her comments at the CPAC, according to an article at Fox News. In addition, it was reported that three companies - Verizon, Sallie Mae and NetBank - have dropped their advertising from Coulter's site.

You'd think Ann would have learned a few things following the "spawn of satan" comment. which got her dropped from USA Today.

Prominent feminist and long time abortion activist Kate Michelman has not only endorsed former Sen. John Edwards, she took to the stage at a California rally to assert "as a lawyer, as a husband, as a father of two daughters, he understand the reality of women's lives. He understands the centrality of women's lives and experience to the health and well-being of society as a whole... He understands that on an extremely personal level."

Needless to say, the comments weren't met with only cheers. Some have commented that just as Toni Morrison christened Bill Clinton the first black president, Michelman is attempting to dub Edwards our first woman president. It is obvious to most, however, that Michelman still has a difficult time swallowing Clinton's 2005 speech.

Despite what you might have read in email this week, staring at a woman's breasts is not a form of exercise which will add years to your life.

It's been an interesting week in Des Moines as state legislators worked overtime to clear bills through House and Senate committees. Most left town last night for their homes across the state... most likely to spend some time with their favorite journalist about their views of the session thus far.

A few, however, didn't allow the cheese to become aromatic at room temperature before opening a big bottle of whine.

"I’d give them an A for the fact that they’ve been committed to their issues," said Senate Minority Leader Mary Lundby, R-Marion, of the new majority.

"I’d give them an F for caring about Iowans and what most Iowans need and want. They have left behind so many Iowans with this agenda," Lundby said.

While on the surface it looks like just a nice spark of wit, this comment is actually a pretty good slap to every Democrat in the state. Lundby says she'd give Dems an A for commitment to their issues... then follows with an F for caring about Iowans. With that one statement Lundby says Democrats, their platform, their key issues and everything they stand for is bad for our state and our people. Those are pretty strong words, Mary.

It is difficult to see Lundby's diatribe being more than sour grapes when we recap what the Democratic majority has accomplished so far this session: raising the minimum wage, protecting Iowa students from bullying, and allowing existing stem cell research to be applied in patient care. She didn't even bother to mention that the doves appear to be in the clear.

If you've ever wanted to know the ideological fiscal differences between conservatives and liberals, you get a good peek by reading the quote from House Minority Leader Chris Rants (R-Sioux City).

"Democrats are determined to get every anti-business piece of legislation shoved out of committee."

There seems to be this divide between the political parties when it comes to business and individuals. That is, legislation which helps individuals is anti-business while legislation which benefits business is anti-people. Republicans (especially true Conservatives) tend to view everything through business-enhanced glasses. True progress in our state would be both parties realizing both entities are required to be health for society to flourish.

As Funnel Week comes to an end, wave goodbye to open meeting and records reform; the statewide smoking ban (which really didn't make much sense when the state *needs* the extra $1 a pack to pay for new initiatives); undoing Steve King's English-only bill and the resurrection of TouchPlay. Only divine intervention in the form of political maneuvers can save them now.

A few days ago while writing a piece about Christie Vilsack, I promised to return with more information about one of her pet projects. Today is the day! So, I invite you to meet one of Iowa's most prominent women of the 1800s, Arabella (Belle) Babb Mansfield.

Mansfield passed the bar exam on June 15, 1869 to become the first woman licensed to practice law in the United States. That however, is only one chapter of her story.

She was born in Sperry (Des Moines County) and graduated from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1866. She taught briefly at Simpson College in Indianola and then began studying law with her brother in the Ambler Law Office in Mount Pleasant. In June of 1968 she married John Mansfield, a professor of science at Iowa Wesleyan.

In June of the following year, she was admitted to the bar. The Henry County attorneys who examined her wrote, "Your committee take unusual pleasure in recommending the admission of Mrs. Mansfield, not only because she is the first lady that has thus applied for this authority, in the State, but because in her examination she has given the very best rebuke possible to the imputation that ladies cannot qualify themselves for the practice of law.”

Unfortunately, she never practiced law in the traditional sense. It is likely that she was too involved with women’s issues at the time. Not only was she the first woman admitted to the bar, but she was a strong advocate for women’s voting rights. In l871 she served as a delegate to the 2nd Iowa Woman Suffrage Convention in Des Moines. Also in the early 1870s she traveled extensively in Europe observing the courts of London and studying law in France.

In the late 1880s when her husband accepted a position at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana she served as professor and dean, but returned often to Iowa Wesleyan to teach and lecture during the fall semesters. In the summer of l893 she addressed the National League of Women Lawyers at the Chicago World’s Fair, where she was officially acknowledged as the first woman to be admitted to the bar in the U.S. She was inducted into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame in l980.

As Christie Vilsack wrote in a letter last month, visitors seeking Belle in Mt. Pleasant will be sorely disappointed. There is only a small conference room named in her honor on the second floor of the Iowa Wesleyan Library.

"I want young women who consider attending Iowa Wesleyan to know that this community has always nurtured women who achieve," Vilsack wrote.

The short-term goal is to create a nationwide grassroots fundraising campaign to raise $250,000 for two projects -- a bronze statue on the Iowa Wesleyan campus and a yearly symposium.

Those who would like to contribute can send donations to: Iowa Wesleyan Foundation, 601 North Main, Mt. Pleasant, IA 52641. Further information can be found by viewing Belle Babb Mansfield Project brochure.