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doing their work and are effective in a different
way. It’s the personalities of these women.”
Deckman also doubts that an era of comity is in
the offing: “I’m not expecting this big influx of GOP
women in Congress to really change much. If any-
thing, members of the minority party often feel they
have to stick together to have any leverage, so there’s
even less incentive especially on the House side for
people to want to work together.”
Still, Beutler believes that as the drama of the ri-
ots and impeachment give way to a more normal
legislative year, opportunities abound for the new
women to find common ground. She views herself as
a template—ProPublica shows she voted with Dem-
ocratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi a surprising 46 percent
of the time during the last Congress and still won
re-election by a landslide—and points to topics like
COVID-19 relief, sexual assault in the military and
parental leave as areas ripe for compromise.
“One thing I like about working with some of these
women is that in general, they don’t lead with their
egos,” she says. “They’re workhorses. When you’re
well-prepared and you’re not shooting from the hip
and you tend to have a little bit more of a circum-
spect approach, I love that.”
Dittmar agrees that it’s too soon to know whether
the uptick of GOP women will alter the tempo and
temperature of the House. It depends, she says, on
“whether some of the women who were elected in
swing districts try to appeal to the ideological cen-
ter or will they feel like doubling down on the base
because they’re electorally at risk if they don’t. If so,
you’re going to see less willingness to work across
party lines. We don’t have the answer to that yet.”Ơ Steve Friess is a newsweek contributor based in
Ann Arbor, Michigan.the Capitol riot for political gain. Mace discussed
the incident several times on Fox News and sent
out fund-raising emails to capitalize on the drama.
Ocasio-Cortez replied that such an effort shows
Mace “is cut from the same Trump cloth of dis-
honesty and opportunism. Sad to see a colleague
intentionally hurt other women and survivors to
make a buck.” Uncowed, Mace mocked the Dem-
ocrat on Fox News the next day, saying that she’d
been “living rent-free I guess in her Twitter ac-
count all weekend.”
Such moments bode poorly for collaboration,
but they don’t necessarily reflect what’s going on
behind the scenes, says Patricia Russo, executive di-
rector of The Campaign School at Yale University,
a non-partisan training program for female candi-
dates. Folks like Mace “are being very forthright in
their opinions and they’re getting covered dispro-
portionately to many other women who are quietly
“One thing I LIKE about working with
some of these women is that in general,
they don’t lead with their egos.
They’re WORKHORSES.”