European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 07, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse Saturday August 1993 commentary the stars and St filpes Page 15 Ginsburg joining ranks of Pioneer seconds7 Ellen Goodman on tuesday morning in a rare Blip of agreement 96 United. States senators voted to Send Ruth Bader Ginsburg onto the supreme court. An straight into the arms other historic for mothers. The diminutive judge and women s rights lawyer will hot Only join the ranks of justices. She will permanently join the ranks of such historic figures As Alice Mary Robertson Alta m. Hulett an Lydia Folger Fowler. She will become an official second woman. Alice Alta and Lydia May not be exactly household names. They May not appear on boo covers or in College course Cata logs. They were the women who followed respectively first congresswoman Jeannette Rankin first female lawyer Mara Brad Well and first female doctor Elizabeth Blackwell. Alice Alta and Lydia Are among the women who finished second the runners up inthe historic sweepstakes that turns the spotlight on the truth is that in our National Book of obsessions it s the Sandra Day o Connors and the Janet Enos who make the lists. It s the first women who Are destined through the unwritten rules of historic primogeniture to become the winners who take All Fame. It s the Sally rides who go through life standing on the Pedestal marked no. 1. It s the Amelia Earhart who go into history wearing the first prize on their biography. It s the Geraldine Ferraro who travel through midlife knowing the first line of their , someone keeps a master or mistress list of every first woman in history. We have a graph line from the first woman newspaper editor Ann Franklin to the first woman to swim the English Channel Bot ways Florence Chadwick to the first woman with a seat on the new York Stock Exchange Muriel s the rare curator in a Dusty Library or the rarer family archivist who keeps track of no. 2 or 3.but on the Brink of Ginsburg s initiation it seems to me that the second woman plays a much More important role than that of second fiddle. Firsts May in deed make one giant step for womankind to Para phrase firster Neil Armstrong. But it s the second who takes the next maybe most serious stride. It s the Sec Ond who begins to turn the extraordinary into the Ordi first woman on any seat whether in a courtroom or an office is by definition the Only and often lonely woman. She s the exception to the Rule. The title comes with a curse of attention and self consciousness. Even a perfect a activist supreme court Justice Sandra Day o Connor must have More than occasionally Felt As if she were on trial. A first is expected to be a role Model without Ever having had one. She s considered a Queen Bee by some and a Token by others. She s supposed to be the reason Why a company or an electorate wants another but she s never entirely sure if Shell become the excuse that we tried most of the first women i have known wanted one thing More than anything else company. By the time the seconds come along however we re getting away from symbolism. A second woman can be a person As Well As a Pioneer. A second woman is the next in what we can As sume is a line. Take a number. When Myra Blackwell passed the bar in 1869, she was the Only woman lawyer. Alta Hulett made it two in1872. By the time Ruth Ginsburg was in Law school in the 1950s women were 5 percent of the Law student Sand by the 1990s they Are close to half. Ginsburg her self went from arguing in the supreme court for equal rights to being chosen for the supreme court. There Are still some Blank pages in the women Shook of firsts. But when half the population finally gets More than one out of nine scats on the highest court we re getting closer to the time when we can Stop counting. Alice Alta Lydia. And now Ruth. Anyone who Seager for a nourishing plate of change has a special appetite for seconds. C Tow Boston glob Hatch act reforms will Only fatten government to president Clinton s criticism of Congress As dilatory and indecisive a reasonable response is would that it were. Congress is decisively re forming the Hatch act and this is Parton a pattern of Congress acting boldly concerning what it cares about most. An what is that read on. The new Deal radically quickened the permeation of life by politics expanding Federal Power and the potential for abuse thereof. The 1938 elections produced a Congress made More conservative by the electorate s repudiation of Roosevelt s desire to pack by expanding the supreme court. In 1939 Congress passed the Hatch act named for sen. Car Hatch a new Mexico Democrat to halt the coercion of Federal employees int partisan politics. Today s Senate Reform of that act i substantially less awful than the House version. For example the House would allow Federal employees to solicit Politi Cal contributions from the Public the Senate would allow solicitation Only with in the employee s organization. The House Bill does not even have the Senate Bill s prohibition of partisan political activities by employees of such sensitive agencies As the Cia and the irs of Ike of criminal investigation. Even so the Senate prohibition Cov ers just 2.8 percent 85,000 of the three million Federal civilian and postal service workers. And both Bills would serve the goal of making the Federal bureaucracy into a muscular partisan lobby thereby deepening the incestuous nature of government decision making. Contemporary government is another country. Government s distinctive culture produces a mentality unlike that of the society on which it battens. The Federal govern ment Imperial i scale and even grander in pre sumption Domi nates this company town where few competing elites leaven or lower the vanity of the political George f. Will class. The gutting of the Hatch a twill unleash the permanent government to work for the election of congresses and presidents who favor the further fattening of that government. The Reform will Advance the Al ready far advanced transformation of the government into the largest interest group lobbying the government. A few years ago a scholar studied 14 House and Senate committee hearings about spending is sues. Of the 1,060 witnesses who testified,47 percent were Federal administrators 10 percent were state or local government officials and 6 percent were senators or con Gressmen petitioning their colleagues. To Day s government is a monologue wherein government convinces itself that there should be More of itself. That is the Way Washington already the Hatch act will make mat ters worse. Federal employees will for political action committees to elect the Congress that pays their salaries and set their portions of the budget. Which party will Benefit most a hint Only pne democratic senator Oklahoma s David l. Boren voted against the change. The democratic party is the party of government in two senses. It has a Capa Cious Faith in government s goodness an competence. Also government itself and those dependent on government for the party s Core constituency. This dependant society do snot consist Only or even primarily of the poor on welfare. It also includes the larg est recipients of Transfer payments the elderly and the beneficiaries of Busi Ness welfare which includes agricultural subsidies protectionist measures an subventions in the name of Industrial and if the Clinton administration has its Way the capstone of this architecture of dependency will be a healthcare system that further politicized the one seventh of the Economy concerned with health care and will deepen the Public s sense of dependence on a car ing read spending government. Congress gutting of the Hatch act impart of a pattern of notably decisive be Havior. In january the House of representatives quickly gave enhanced voting privileges to the five delegates Al democrats of course representing Guam Samoa the Virgin islands puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. The Senate has briskly passed a Campaign Reform that would enhance incumbents Security. It would use various coercions to compel challengers to accept spending limits thereby surrendering their ability to compensate for incumbents advantages by out spending those incumbents. The House has not accepted the Senate s Campaign Reform because enhancing the Security of House incumbents requires a different sort of rigging of the rules. Congress was not at All dilator when it passed the motor voter Bill re Quiring states to Register anyone 18 or older applying for or renewing a Driver s License and to have registration available at All offices that provide Public assist Ance unemployment compensation or re lated services. The latter places will Regis Ter people especially dependent on government and hence disproportionately disposed to vote democratic. Seen As part of a pattern of Power aggrandizement by the political class an especially by democrats the party of government the Hatch act Reform seems Al most banal and for that reason particularly ominous. Still conservatives have a not inconsiderable Consolation the Hatch act re form serves their goal of deepening Dis Trust of government in order to limit government. C tit Washington Pott
