We hope history books will say 2018 marked the year women finally began to achieve gender parity in national elected office. But it’s going to take more than hope. After all, it took 242 years to have a U.S. Congress comprised of 24 percent women.
That got me thinking: how are other countries doing in women’s representation in comparison to ours? It turns out— much better than we are.
The latest research from RepresentWomen, (a nonpartisan organization working to advance reforms to ensure more women can run, win, serve and lead) shows that the U.S. currently ranks 78th among the world’s nations for women’s representation. So much for patting ourselves on our collective backs for 2018.
Read moreWDC was fortuitous in having MSNBC legal analyst Chuck Rosenberg as our luncheon speaker at Normandie Farm on April 18 since the Mueller report had just been released that morning. He began his remarks by emphasizing the importance of the rule of law, both to him personally, and as an overarching principle. Rosenberg spent most of his professional life at the Justice Department. His extensive legal and government experience includes such positions as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and counsel to FBI director Robert Mueller.
Read moreLast week WDC members toured the 95,000-acre Agricultural Reserve in upper Montgomery County. Guided by Caroline Taylor, Executive Director of the Montgomery Countryside Alliance, the group explored five stops across the Ag Reserve which is a first-in-the-nation visionary plan that set aside a large swath of the up-county decades ago.
The goals of this sweeping zoning change were -and remain- several:
Manage and restrict sprawl, with its prohibitively expensive implications for government services: extending sewer and water, road networks, libraries, fire & rescue, schools and other public amenities.
Preserve the economic viability of both commercial and smaller-scale farming and agricultural activity. The Reserve also includes national, state and local parkland.
Retain dwindling open space through a coherent large-scale plan for environmental and recreational purposes in proximity to a major and increasingly urban region. The plan protects our drinking water supply and air quality, and offers access to hiking, biking, birding, hunting, camping and more.
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