Helen Sommers: An Oral History

pg. 150 Mary Lou Dickerson
It took our caucus awhile to organize and get
a plan in place; a plan that would be effective in
reacting to the Republican priorities. I would say
that this was quite a shock for the Democrats who
had been there during their times of a majority.
Democrats controlled the House for the previous
13 years. Most members in our caucus had never
been in the minority.
I think Helen gave us an important historical
perspective because she had been there in the early
1980s when Republicans last held the majority. She
played an important role giving us information on
how to be effective in the minority. We were very
fortunate to have her there. There were a lot of feelings
of shock and bewilderment on the part of some
of the Democrats who hadn’t anticipated being in
the minority. Helen helped us work through that.
1995 was the year the Republicans rolled back
many of the health care reforms of the previous
decade. It was a very bitter-sweet moment for many
of the Democratic legislators. Many had worked
hard on health care reform and were very sad to
see the progress that had been made evaporate.
I think Gov. Mike Lowry did what he could to
mitigate the roll-back, but in fact, there were very
significant roll-backs of health reform during the
next four sessions.
Shortly after 1995, women in both Democratic
and Republican caucuses reached out to each
other and formed a Women’s Caucus. So we did
start establishing some ties with women in the
new majority, which was helpful. I had female
and male friends also in the Republican Caucus,
so I wouldn’t generalize to say that there was no
cordiality or friendship.
In 1999, the state had its second 49-49 tie in the
House. Helen Sommers, who was the only current
House member who had served in the very first
historic tie in the House in 1979-80, was named
co-chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
Helen’s historic perspective, again, was important
and she did talk about when she was co-chair of
the Revenue Committee with Ellen Craswell in that
first tie. All of us were aware of how conservative
Ellen Craswell was, so we took some comfort in the
fact that if a Democrat could successfully co-chair
a committee with someone so very conservative,
then we might be able to do this in many other
committees.
I don’t think Legislatures are designed to work
well in a tie situation. So, we didn’t accomplish
a lot during the three-year tie, but we did do the
work of the Legislature getting the budgets passed
despite the tie. However, it’s never an ideal situation
for a legislature.
The Legislature is all about relationships. I
learned this early on in my legislative career, and
Helen was a great example of this. Those who reach
across the aisle and create good working relationships
with people in the opposite party are the
legislators who are most successful. You could see
on the floor of the House every two years we’d do
seating assignments and Helen would often take on
a freshman member to sit next to her on the House
floor and work with that new member.
There were a number of issues Helen and I
worked on as we represented the 36 th District. And,
Helen was very receptive to issues of protection of
children, the rights of women for birth control, and
family planning issues. She was also concerned
about issues that involved drug-affected babies and
we worked on that together. Those are the issues
that stand out in my mind.
Helen believed in providing important birth
control information both to adolescents and adults.
She started the “Teen Aware” program because
52-percent of all welfare recipients in the state
had a child as a teen, and the recipe for poverty
is an unmarried teen mother with no high school
diploma. Helen established some grants to schools
to help students understand the importance of
family planning.
She also became very aware of the infant brain
science related to early childhood development,
and was a great spokesperson for the issue of early
literacy with children. So, there were appropriations
for that. Often appropriations can be as important
as legislation. You can do a lot with budget provisos.
So Helen and I worked together on many of
these issues.
Another issue we worked on together was the