Women In Power PACk DNC For Trivia & Tea

Chicago — A question arose at a Democratic National Committee Connecticut networking event:

Wallingford woman Rebecca Hyland is running for state representative against a Republican incumbent. Will she win?

If it were up to Connecticut’s current coalition of female powerhouse politicos, the answer would be yes.

They offered that answer in Chicago’s Sheraton Hotel Tuesday afternoon over ​“tea, cookies and trivia.” It was all part of a girl power-heavy Democratic National Convention networking event hosted and attended by a delegation of local women poised for potential political promotions. This week, that crew is centering in on one common goal in particular: Electing the first female president into the White House this January.

The event, featuring pink and yellow puff pastry and similarly color coded convention trivia, was organized by the Power of Woman PAC and Engage CT PAC, the political action committees formed for Connecticut Lt. Gov. Susan Bysewiecz and Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas, respectively: two women who, like Kamala Harris, have been rising up the political ladder.

“More than anything, the elections in 2020 and 2022 proved so strongly that women can make the biggest difference in winning an election,” West Hartford Rep. Kate Farrar told the Independent. ​“I think Hillary Clinton exemplified it best last night when she said the future is already here … it’s right in front of us. We have all the power to vote in the first woman and woman of color president over the next 77 days.”

At the event, which featured a trivia exercise, Bysiewicz finished a quiz on female firsts in two minutes flat. The one-pager prompted quiz takers to ​“match the description to the trailblazer” with descriptors like ​“developed CT’s first electronic voter registration system to prevent fraud and encourage registration” with answers like ​“Susan Bysiewicz,” a former secretary of the state.

Thomas explained that she wanted to incorporate trivia into the event in order to ​“make people think about what they do and do not know.”

“Most people think about young voters, we talk about Black voters and Hispanic voters,” she said. ​“But we don’t actually talk a lot about the gender split.”

Bysiewicz’s PAC is all about ​“women in power.” Thomas noted that her PAC is about civic engagement more broadly. ​“If women were thinking more about civic engagement and how it works, perhaps we would see more female candidates,” she said. ​“Connecticut had the first female governor in the entire United States.” So, technically speaking, ​“it seems we’re losing traction.”

For Hyland, the female-focused event was an ​“opportunity to build community with people who are working towards a lot of the same goals.

“To be with these role models and these people who have come before me reminds me that, yes, it’s not just about politics — it really is about people.”

She said she’s building her campaign largely on healthcare access, which is predicated on the understanding that reproductive rights are a ​“humanity” issue, and not only a ​“woman’s issue.”

Hyland spoke to the Independent about the women on that trivia list who inspired her own run.

She pointed not to Shirley Chisholm or Eleanor Roosevelt, but closer-to-home Bysiewicz and Thomas as her role models. 

In particular, she said, ​“Stephanie is similar to me because she got involved in politics in the 2016, post-Trump catastrophe; she comes from a public interest background; and she kinda changed career paths.”

Hyland said it was difficult to leave her own work as a public defender and run for office because ​“when women find success, they are often expected to appreciate it and stay with it. It’s rare to see someone say, I’m gonna do something new and different.”

While Thomas cleared crumbs and ​“girl power” stickers from tables at the end of Tuesday’s event, her niece followed suit, collecting leftover Bingo sheets and trivia tests to help out.

I broke out of my reporter role to tell the child’s father that he had an ​“alarmingly cute kid.”

“Yeah,” he said. ​“And she’s hardworking and intelligent, too.”