Del. Jeannemarie A. Devolities (R-Fairfax) was upset by remarks that a colleague made on the House floor. (By Scott Brown for The Washington Post)

By R.H. Melton and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 7, 1998; Page D01

RICHMOND, March 6—Just when Virginia's women legislators have acquired unprecedented political power and prestige, along came a male colleague with a reminder of how far they haven't come in the General Assembly.

Freshman Del. Jeannemarie Devolites (R-Fairfax) was still miffed today about randy remarks that a Southside Democrat made about her Thursday as he parodied President Clinton. Del. Ward L. Armstrong (D-Henry) was doing a schtick on the House floor about that night's legislative basketball game when he announced that Devolites was the team's center.

"In fact, she's coming over to my place later. We're gonna go over the play book," Armstrong said as delegates roared with laughter.

At a postgame party, Armstrong told more Clinton jokes, this time comparing Devolites to Monica S. Lewinsky, again in her presence. Those present recalled Armstrong saying something to the effect that Devolites was "no Monica Lewinsky," but that she had potential.

"It whittles away at what all women have achieved down here," said Devolites, 41, who said she was more perturbed by Armstrong's comments on the House floor. "The parody was . . . inappropriate and unfortunate."

Armstrong, 41, apologized during today's House session, saying that "to the extent that some members may have been offended by my remarks, I wish to extend an apology. . . . I was merely trying to bring a little levity to the process."

Speaker Thomas W. Moss Jr. (D-Norfolk), a 32-year House veteran who periodically has offended women with his own tart-tongued comments, played down the episode. "If the gentleman did anything offensive, I certainly didn't recognize it," Moss said after Armstrong's apology.

Armstrong's remarks put in sharp relief the gulf between the real power that women lawmakers have accumulated in recent years and the backslapping, fraternity-house antics of a legislature where men outnumber women 118 to 22.

Devolites is one of several female legislators from Northern Virginia, which has accounted for 21 of the 56 women who have served in the assembly since 1924.

Of those 56, 23 have been elected in the last decade, 11 of them from the Washington suburbs, according to a new analysis by legislative researchers. Today, Northern Virginia has three female Democrats and one Republican woman in the 40-member Senate, and five female Democrats and two Republican women in the 100-member House.

More telling than numbers, though, are the chairmanships and other senior positions women are beginning to hold, thanks partly to power-sharing in both houses.

With 20 years of seniority, Del. Gladys B. Keating (D-Fairfax) ascended this year to chair the Corporations, Insurance and Banking Committee.

In the Senate, Jane H. Woods (R-Fairfax), a former state delegate, chairs the Education and Health Committee, and Janet D. Howell (D-Fairfax) nabbed a seat on the powerful Finance Committee -- a historic first for women, as was her spot on the Courts of Justice Committee.

Howell is in many ways typical of most women Northern Virginia sends to Richmond: moderate to left leaning, with strong interests in family, child and welfare issues, and plenty mindful of a legislative culture with vestiges of its good-old-boy past.

"If you want to win, don't ever say, 'Vote this because it's good for women,' " Howell said, chuckling. "I've made that mistake!"

On Finance, the Senate's power center, she says she has been viewed as a "bit of a renegade" for backing earned-income tax credits, regulations to help caregivers and aid for the working poor.

For years in the Washington suburbs, many women were drawn to political life because their husbands, federal government employees, were barred from partisan activities by the Hatch Act. That was most clear in Maryland, which has a tradition of women at the State House in Annapolis; today there are 46 women in the 141-member House of Delegates and eight in the 47-member Senate.

Howell and other women in Richmond said one of the biggest obstacles in running for the legislature has been a perception that women are poor fund-raisers. Being a woman in her first race in 1991 "was viewed as a disadvantage because you couldn't raise money," said Howell, who went on to raise $113,000 for that race and $230,000 in her second campaign.

She plans to raise $300,000 in her reelection bid next year. "Both parties are beginning to realize women make good candidates," Howell said.

Partisans also have learned that while female lawmakers may vote together on some issues, a women's caucus is not monolithic.

Some conservative women have stopped attending the weekly Women's Roundtable here because of its emphasis on welfare programs; the other day, when several women called a news conference to complain about an "Ol' Boy Iceberg" threatening to sink welfare programs like the Titanic, not a single female GOP lawmaker was in sight.

"These women are not going to come together just because they're women," said Toni-Michelle Travis, a George Mason University scholar who specializes in gender politics. "They have different experiences in the work world, different . . . approaches to moving up."

But there are times when solidarity makes women a force here.

Two years ago, House leaders had barred a floor vote on legislation forcing insurers to offer coverage for mammograms and Pap tests, two cancer-detection procedures for women. As delegates streamed into the chamber for a morning session, Del. Thelma Drake (R-Norfolk) gathered her female colleagues in the center aisle to make a silent statement about their displeasure.

It worked; the bill passed.

Conversely, Drake was one of three GOP women who debated Keating the other day, shredding her bill for "gender equity" in the sales of goods and services.

"More often than not, we'll split" along party lines, she said.

Other female lawmakers said that through the years they, like Devolites, have been subjected to what Devolites called "inappropriate comments bordering on harassment" from male colleagues. They said they have learned to brush off such remarks as the cost of doing business in Virginia's legislature.

Devolites, meanwhile, said she accepted Armstrong's "very sincere" apology. "He's a good guy," she said. "He did it inadvertently."