Washington's first with women.

• Author: Ammons, David
• Position: Includes related article on women legislators in the West - Washington State - Cover Story

What a difference a century makes. Washington is riding high at being No. 1, with more women legislators than anywhere else.

Washington Governor Gary Locke found just the right way to get everyone's attention when the legislature gathered in joint session for his annual state of the state address.

Harkening back a century, he noted that his predecessor had addressed an all-male gaggle of legislators and that women still were 11 years away from winning the right to vote. "Today," he said, "Washington holds the proud distinction of having the highest percentage of female legislators in the United States."

Before he could go any further with the thought, the women members began to cheer and applaud, to whoop and holier. House Co-Majority Leader Barb Lisk hopped to her feet and soon all the women were up and joining in the raucous moment of celebration. Soon, their left-out male colleagues jumped up too and joined in the high-fives and hugs.

A few days later, the women gave notice that they were interested in more than revelry. Women from both parties and both houses held a joint news conference - a first - and said they will pursue a "women-led economic agenda" as they seek to translate their numbers into results.

Their agenda incorporates issues women have championed for years, such as child care and insurance coverage for contraceptives, to newer concerns, such as telecommunications and drug courts.

The dozen female leaders posed next to a large sepia-toned photograph of the House membership of '99 - 1899, that is.

"There is a lot of facial hair there. All men," said Representative Mary Lou Dickerson, vice chair of the House Democratic caucus. "What a difference a century makes."

Today, 23 of the 49 Washington senators are women, and 37 of the 98 House members are female. That's nearly 41 percent of the Legislature's membership, the first time any state has surpassed the 40 percent marker, according to the Center for the American Woman and Politics at Rutgers University. Women already are talking about the day they'll cross the 50 percent mark and occupy the governor's mansion as well.

The national average for female legislators is 22 percent.

A DECADE OF THE WOMAN

Starting with the 1992 election, which saw the election of Patty Murray as the state's first female U.S. senator and four women to statewide executive office, it has been the Decade of the Woman in Washington state.

In November, Murray was re-elected in the state's first female vs female U.S. Senate campaign, women won a third of the state Supreme Court seats and, of course, topped the 40 percent mark for the Legislature.

(The lone clinker, says the state Women's Political Caucus, is the low number of top women in the Locke administration. Only three of the 20 cabinet directors are women, and only one of Locke's closest aides is a woman. Locke officials say he's working on improving the numbers and that at least 37 percent of his 1,000-plus appointees are women.)

In the Legislature, the ascendancy of women has been particularly noteworthy in the Senate, which was a male bastion for most of the state's history. The Senate now has an almost equal number of men and women; if just two more women had won in November, as analysts had expected, it would have been a female-majority chamber.

As it is though, the majority Democratic caucus has a 2-to-1 female supremacy - 18 to 9. Political consultant Cathy Allen says it could be the first time that the ruling party of the...