In Brief New Jersey counties earn low marks on electing women Archived article from Mar 20, 2006   Despite a record number of women serving in the state Legislature, New Jersey continues to see only slight progress in electing women as mayors or freeholders. An annual report card issued by the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics, labeled all but three counties “unsatisfactory” for their records in electing mayors and almost half the counties “unsatisfactory” on freeholders. Only Bergen County received an excellent grade for electing freeholders, and no county had an excellent record on mayors. Seven counties rated unsatisfactory on both measures. Overall, the report card showed the numbers of women edging upward from 2002 to 2006, but the growth was uneven. “There are women in every county who are well prepared to serve their communities,” said Debbie Walsh, director of CAWP, which each year offers “Ready to Run,” a program to encourage women in New Jersey to seek public office. Since 1998, more than a quarter of the women who attended the program ran for office, and 68 percent of those who ran won their races. View the report card. Return to the Mar 20, 2006 issue

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