Women have had limited success as political candidates in New England: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine have never elected a woman governor; and Vermont and New Hampshire have never sent a woman to the US Congress. At the first New England Women's Political Summit, panelists discuss the the state of women's participation in politics in all of the US States.
Denise Lynn Nappier is the first African-American woman elected to serve as a State Treasurer in the United States and the first African-American woman elected to a statewide office in Connecticut. Elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2002 and 2006, Treasurer Nappier is also the only woman to be elected Treasurer in Connecticut history. As Connecticuts chief elected financial officer, Nappier oversees $50 billion in state funds, including the $26 billion Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds, one of the nations top performing state pension funds. Widely respected by her peers, Treasurer Nappier was re-elected Treasurer of the National Association of State Treasurers and is a board member of the National Association of Corporate Directors, Connecticut Chapter; the first public fund investor to serve in that capacity. The Hartford native previously served as Hartford City Treasurer for nearly ten years, and as Executive Director of Hartfords Riverfront Recapture. She holds a B.A. from Virginia State University and a masters degree from the University of Cincinnati.
Anne Marie Cammisa is associate professor of government at Suffolk University. Since 1994 she has been a visiting scholar at the Murray Research Center at Radcliffe College.
Rhoda Perry is a Rhode Island State Senator, Democrat, District 3, Providence. She is a retired health care administrator and part time teacher of English as a second language. She was Deputy President Pro Tempore of Rhode Island Senate from 1994 to 2006, and was elected Rhode Island State Senator on November 6, 1990.
Margie Reedy was the host of *NewsNight with Margie Reedy*, an in-depth nightly news program on New England Cable News, and ranks as one of the region's most skilled interviewers. Before joining NECN, she spent five years at WHDH-TV in Boston, six years at WDIV-TV in Detroit and five years at KVUE-TV in Austin, Texas. Ms. Reedy was a fellow at The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University in 2003, where she studied the impact of cable on television news.