Latest / Executive Alliance Podcast / E10: 2026 Legislative Wrap with Ariana Kelly of the Maryland Commission for Women
Transcript
- Rebecca Snyder: Hi everyone. I am delighted to have Arianna Kelly in the studio today. She is the executive director of the Maryland Commission for Women, a wonderful advocate for for women, a long-standing advocate for women, and a former state legislator. So welcome to the program, Arianna. Ariana Kelly: Thank you so much for having me, Rebecca. I'm excited to be here. Rebecca Snyder: Well, and it is exciting to have your view because you have brought this invigorating spark to the commission for women. So tell us a little bit for those who who aren't familiar with the commission, because it's I feel like it's been operating a little bit on the down low for a while and you have raised its profile, tell us what the commission is set up to do. Ariana Kelly: Thank you for that question, and you're spot on. I was so excited when I was elected to office in Maryland in 2011. I learned about the Maryland Commission for Women. It's a state agency. It is 60 years old. It has been embedded in state government for a long time, and it is charged with making sure that Maryland government is working for women in Maryland, making sure that somebody is watching out to make sure that policies that are good for women are happening, are being implemented, legislation is being passed. It's an opportunity. Opportunity to serve as a centralized hub within state government for all of those folks working across the state of Maryland to advance opportunities for women. So I love that the Commission for Women exists. I especially love that while I am on the staff, I run run the staff side and we have three other full-time staff members. We work with 25 appointed volunteer commissioners who are leaders in their own rights, who are using their free time to advance opportunities for women in Maryland, which is so fun. Rebecca Snyder: Well and I've just rotated on to the commission and I'm so delighted to s see just the passion and the expertise that the other commissioners bring to to the table. So I think it's a it's a great time for women. Now that is a huge charge though. Like when you think about, yes, we're just gonna coordinate and be the you know, the policy focus of women in Maryland. How do you wrap your head around such a a large charge? Ariana Kelly: Right, because things that impact women are all things. Right. Rebecca Snyder: Right. Ariana Kelly: And often, and I found this during my legislative career, you know, women's issues can sometimes be sort of I don't want to call it a distraction, but reproductive health, which is essential for women's rights, can also take up all the air in the room and you maybe forget about Economic security or professional opportunity or acknowledgement of women's contributions, there are a lot of other things that have to do with how women can function in society that are really, really essential in addition to reproductive rights. So, what we've been trying to do at the Commission for Women is make sure, you know, back in 1965, when the Commission for Women was founded, they were proactively working to ensure that women had control over their bodies, but they were also wanting to make sure. That women were represented in all levels of government, wanting to make sure that they had economic rights, credit rights, things like that. And that legacy of the work that the Commission for Women has done since the 60s is really carrying through now. The the challenges are slightly different, right? Like we did work in the 70s to support displaced homemakers. Now we're doing work that is really more about pay pay equity, child care support, but it's still economic in nature, right? Making sure that women's economic opportunity is front and center and the issues that are important to women and their families and their communities are are addressed, right? So it's it's it's your traditional issues that you might consider because maybe they have state funding to support them, such as sexual violence or domestic violence, but it's also reproductive health, it's also pay equity, it's it's everything that you can think of that disproportionately impacts women. How are we looking at that from a policy perspective and what are the solutions? What what research can we do, right? Starting with what's the research, turning that potentially into legislation, turning that into implementation, And then that final component, which is communication, which brings us back to the beginning. How do we know what to research? We're going to hear about it from the advocates on the ground, from the regular everyday people on the ground who are telling us what problems they're facing. So it's the Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Ariana Kelly: full spectrum of the story of how do you tell what support women do need, how do you identify what it is, and then how do you effectuate a solution? Rebecca Snyder: Right. Well and And for executive alliance, one of the reasons I think we work so well together, you know, our our purview really is women in the workplace. We want to see women take their power at the highest levels of leadership. And so I wanted to take a step back because we may be looking around in in the big twenty twenty six and say, Okay, you know, like we've come a long way, baby. Things are we're not working on necessarily just homemaker issues or or these things. But let's paint a picture. Maryland sees itself as a progressive sort of There's a lot of good stories to tell. You know, we have an amazing speaker of the house and Jocelyn Penyamelnik. we've got the first we have the first comptroller is a woman, Brooke Learman. We've got a lot of strong and powerful women CEOs. But when, for instance, Executive Alliance looks at at some of the metrics that we measure, which are women sitting on corporate boards publicly traded in Maryland, we're lagging behind the national average. when you and I have talked about the state senate and the position of women there, it's a sad story. So what's your perspective on kind of the state of women in Maryland? sorry, and we have just a few minutes, so Ariana Kelly: Wow, big question. And I love the way they No, but I love the way you framed it because on the one hand, you know As compared when compared to other states, Maryland is a leader in many, many ways. And there is so much more that we need to do. And there are some specific areas where Maryland is actually lagging other states. One great example of this from my legislative career. When I was first elected, you know, my mother told me the the night I was elected, she said, I'm very proud of you. And if there's one thing you do in your job as a public official, make sure to protect that child care subsidy program, which we now call Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Ariana Kelly: the child care scholarship program. She said, We wouldn't have made it. Right. She my mother was a teenage mother. we we didn't have a lot of resources. She said we wouldn't have made it if it weren't for subsidized childcare. And the subsidized child care that she was able to get in the 1970s and early 80s when I was little was pretty good. She said, I remember how much I paid a week. I remember how we were able to climb out of poverty. I was able to get a college education, so was your father. It was an amazing story. When I when I got into office, I looked up this subsidy program and I learned that Maryland was 49th in the nation. Only Mississippi was worse than us. So Rebecca Snyder: That's stunning. Ariana Kelly: it was stunning to me, even as someone who was running for elected office. I couldn't believe how we had fallen so far behind. A lot of the time the story is Maryland was a leader. And then other states surpassed us and we didn't Rebecca Snyder: Yeah. Ariana Kelly: update the progress, right? So that happened when you look at our our sexual assault laws. We had one of the first spousal rape laws in the country. What did that mean? It was one of the weakest by the time we updated it two years ago, right? Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Ariana Kelly: So that's that's often the story of Maryland. Our wage gap data is it looks different, right? Because if you look at it if you break it down by county, you'll see there's this huge wage gap in Montgomery County 'cause you have a lot of affluent white men. And so their wives have a big gap between them. When you compare it to Prince George's County, there's actually a reverse wage gap. Women out-earn men in Prince George's County. That tells a different story. It tells a story of women's success, but it also tells a story of the racial disparities there between what black men are earning and what white men are earning. And so Maryland is unique and we have to look at the unique challenges of Maryland to to really identify which problems we need to be working on the most. And it's still, Rebecca Snyder: Uh-huh. Ariana Kelly: unfortunately, childcare. We've done a ton of work to strengthen that subsidy program. We're no longer at 49th in the nation. But when we talk about childcare scholarships, we need to do a lot more. Paid family medical leave, we were late to the game. It is getting up and running. I am so excited. Our Department of Labor is doing so much incredible work implementing that program as we speak. But our peer states got theirs up and running years ago. Rebecca Snyder: Right. So there's two things I wanna pull out of there, and I'm just saying it so I don't forget. I want to hear more about child care subsidies and sort of why we we lagged, but the family program, because that's going into effect I believe in in January and employers have to start diverting and paying into that now. Can you summarize? 'Cause that's it's it's been on on hold for a minute and now it's it's starting to be implemented, but just let's foreshadow what is that program and what is it gonna do for marriage. Mm-hmm. Ariana Kelly: Right. So that program, which again it's taken years to set up, they're doing it the right way. It's a big government program. You have to invest in the infrastructure. you have to do a lot of communicating with the community. It involves communicating with all employers. So I think especially, you know, women in business find this program really interesting. And we partnered with a lot of organizations that support women in business to get that program up and running. The goal is that both for People who are caregivers and people who have their own health need, as well as new parents, you have a government-run insurance program so that people can take time off work up to 12 weeks with some portion of their income in a way that works functionally like unemployment insurance. So if you are an employee or you have an employee who you know is ill and needs surgery and needs to be out for four or six weeks, or who has a parent who needs to transition to memory care facility and they need to work for six or eight weeks with their caregiver on a transition plan or a new child, whatever the situation is, any type of family health care related need, you're gonna be as an employer required to give them job protected time off of work and you are gonna be supporting them in applying to this government fund to pay for their time off. There's a tax you know that that is paid to s to to support this whole fund. So it's not free, right? It costs money and employees pay in, employers pay in, and and it creates a a fund that we use to pay people when they need time off. Sorry. So it you Rebecca Snyder: Well Ariana Kelly: know it works a little differently in different states. And Maryland's program is just getting up and running now and so what is gonna be starting this year is the payroll tax and then Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Ariana Kelly: next year the benefits start getting paid out. Rebecca Snyder: And so I thank you for that 'cause I feel like we all need to be on alert because that's that's coming down the pike. And when we talk about it's these like family leave and child care subsidies, you know, I think that really speaks to the role and sometimes unlooked for responsibility that women bear around child care, around family care, around just that sort of executive level functioning of the family unit. And You earlier had talked about your mother's experiences as being a a teenage parent and really needing those subsidies in order to craft a better life for her and you and your father as well. So I feel like I wanna talk to you and get your your thoughts on how those subsidies, scholarship programs, you know, all those programs, I feel like there's been attrition. Like you may have them, but they don't keep up with the cost of living. and and how that materially affects women. And so like in your personal life, how did that how does that all play out? Ariana Kelly: Right. mean, we hear this, especially when the Commission for Women does survey work or research to to hear from ri women across Maryland what issue matters to them. I mean, childcare is top, top, top. It's so expensive. and it makes sense, right? When we talk about childcare and women, we're not just talking about people who need childcare. Women and men both need childcare for their children. but also who's the workforce? It's women. So It costs money to pay for child care and we don't want the people who are providing childcare underpaid. We don't want them not making a living wage. We don't want them, you know, not able to support support their own families because they have a career in childcare. So it's a challenge because the cost drivers are are real, right? They're the cost of living for childcare employees has gone up and and the employee is the the main cost for childcare. so Most other countries invest a lot of government money in subsidizing childcare. And in fact, in the United States, we passed a federal child care bill that Richard Nixon vetoed. If that veto had not happened, we would have a national childcare system. Instead, what we have is this cobbled together system of subsidies, which in Maryland we call scholarships, and the income threshold for qualifying for them is not very high. We did in Maryland change the law to increase the income threshold. And immediately what happened was there was enough money. And so there's wait lists were created. Right. It just it takes money to invest in in supporting childcare. But what other countries have found is that you don't we're investing in people's education, we're investing in our employees, we're investing in in the workforce, you know, with tons of money. Women, w everybody knows this, right? Everybody has either themselves or friends and family who've had this experience. You sit down, you do the math, you say, I'm paying more in child care than I bring home in my job. And people leave the workforce. Rebecca Snyder: Right. Which relates into that pay equity issue for sure. And so like the intersectionality of of these issues, you know, at heart you could make I think you could make a case that women in workforce in the society is sort of like that's the ultimate goal. How can women contribute fully to their potential? And what are the barriers that hold them back? And they tend to be we don't get paid at the same rate. There's child care, you know, there's there's all sorts of barriers. So and a lot of some of that is cultural. Barriers, but a lot of it can be you can't always fix culture with legislation, but you can start to make some inroads there. And so we're here ostensibly to talk about the legislative work that that the commission has has sort of done. So can we talk a little bit about the policy buckets that you've been working on? Because that's a real change from how the commission has operated previously with such a a broad spectrum. You gotta wrap your head around it. So tell us. Ariana Kelly: So the commissioners, when I came on board a little over two years ago, I sat down with the commissioners and we just threw out all the different issues that they wanted to work on and we tried to organize them in a way that made some logical sense so that we could prioritize our time. And the commission basically determined that there are three buckets of policy issues that the Commission for Women is prioritizing. The first, sort of those traditional issues we were talking about, women's health, women's safety. That's where you're gonna find our legislation related to menopause, or related to reproductive health care, or related to gun safety, or related to domestic violence or interper interpersonal violence, intimate partner violence. all of those issues we would put in the women's health and safety bucket. Separate from that bucket are these issues that we've been talking about, right? Women in the workforce and society. So it might have to do with are professional opportunities available for women? What are the wages for traditionally women's jobs versus men's jobs? You know, are we seeing occupational segregation by the gender? Can we can we fix that? Can we address that? traditional workforce issues in over overwhelmingly female-dominated roles, right? Can we make sure to help with licensing issues. There's all sorts of things that we can do to support women in the workplace. Sexual harassment, you know, we're coming up, I can't believe it, coming up on 10 years since me too. So one of the things the commission's going to be looking at is how much progress have we made. So all of this, and then of course the society part, because it's not just the workplace. There's been some innovative legislation around women and jury duty, for example. Right? So we wanted to make sure that it's not just going to work but every role that women play in public, in society that is included there, and representation for women. And then the third bucket is might not traditionally be thought of as women's issues, but the commissioners really identified as the issues that we're hearing from women matter the most right now. Where are we in the women's movement? It's dealing with these care economy issues. It's sandwich Rebecca Snyder: Uh-huh. Ariana Kelly: generation issues. It's I can't deal with child care and I've got to do caregiving for my parents. and and it's both Who's providing that unpaid labor and how do we create a system that recognizes that it's women doing this labor in the paid workforce? As I mentioned, most child care providers are women, most home care providers, most elder care providers are also women. so Rebecca Snyder: Uh-huh. Ariana Kelly: as we think about the economics of how is our society gonna function, right? It's like a half-baked revolution. We got The stuff done in the seventies and the eighties where women overwhelmingly entered the workforce, they got educated, they became financially independent. But we didn't finish the part where the part of society that was depending on women's unpaid labor, which has tremendous economic value, was accounted for. That's why women are so tired. Rebecca Snyder: All the time. Well and and it occurs to me that w you know, the safety net is a lot more frayed than it used to be, and women have always plugged the holes of that safety net. Do you think that's Ariana Kelly: Right. Rebecca Snyder: the case? Ariana Kelly: Of course. I mean I don't I don't know if the fray safety net is more frayed than it used to be. I think we have always had a pretty inadequate safety net in this country as compared to other countries. But I will say, I mean, my mother's anecdotal story, you know, makes the point. I think that i'm you know, I wanna be careful here because I don't wanna not acknowledge how much unpaid labor the women before me were doing and the women before them were doing. And there are many women who were in the workforce, you know, into in the thir nineteen thirties and in the eighteen eighties, right? But they were still doing so much unpaid labor. so part of it is that we're not investing in a social safety net, for sure. But another part of it is that the official economy has never really acknowledged the economic value of the work women has always have always done. Right? Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. And so when you when you have the three buckets of issues, tell us a little bit more about what came out of this past legislative session and how you're gonna use it to build and also before we before you do that, I just wanna put that caveat out that the Commission for Women is not a lobbying organization. You're a policy, you're setting policy and you're I see you as a convener, where you're bringing advocates in who who are speaking out in different ways. So I I just wanted to make sure we were clear on that distinction because you're not a lobbyist, you're a policy shop, essentially. Ariana Kelly: Right. Yeah, we we are trying so hard. We work it's been so exciting in the last couple of years, the opportunities we have had to move policy forward. I mean we do I mean we are statutorily required to provide advice to the legislature and advice to the governor on the issues that are important to women. So we take that responsibility very seriously. and that I think we have seen tremendous success, especially at this last session. just one example is the menopause legislation, which again, it's Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Ariana Kelly: in our health bucket, but it also significantly impacts the economy and the workforce. And and we know Rebecca Snyder: Yes. Ariana Kelly: that. so that intersection on all of these issues have intersections, right? And that intersection is a really real one. So if we talk about as a women's health issue, you know, we were able to work with legislators and work with advocates who have specialized in women's health to pass legislation that is going to incentivize clinical training on menopause. Menopause and to require insurance coverage for menopause care. Why? Because we heard, as we went out in the community, we heard from women on the ground that they were facing so many barriers just in getting a diagnosis, that the clinicians they were seeing didn't understand that their symptoms were actually related to menopause or they weren't up to date on the literature in turn in terms of what appropriate menopause treatment is these days. Rebecca Snyder: Uh-huh. Ariana Kelly: Portrayed one way, but the truth was much more complicated than that. And now we know HRT is safe. But a lot of clinicians don't have that memo. So we knew from a policy perspective that work needed to happen. We were able to partner with legislators to pass legislation, and now the real work is starting. So insurance is going to be required to cover treatment for menopause, and we're going to be creating all of these different programs to make sure that clinicians have access to the training they need. And that's a lot of work. That's a lot of coalition work. You're partnering with different associations. We're partnering with different licensing boards. The Department of Health is going to be spearheading this effort, and I'm so excited for the work that they're going to be doing. The Commission for Women's role specifically is to make policy recommendations next year, to spend a whole year listening to people, looking at what other states have done, looking what they're doing in other countries, and come up with innovative policy solutions so that we can help women's Not only health outcomes, but also their economic security, because the data we saw shows that women who have challenges receiving the care they need for menopause are working fewer hours, are earning less money at exactly the time we know that they can't afford to be doing so because retirement security, there's already a huge gap there. Women have less money at retirement, in part because of the time they're taking off as caregivers, and in part because of the wage gap, right? So it's all interconnected. Rebecca Snyder: Well I guess we And just when you're hitting your stride as a senior leader, if you're cut down by or slowed down by menopause symptoms that aren't well understood or dismissed in the workplace, that is also feeding in. So I'm seeing this arc that you talked about previously of policy recommendations, policy, implementation, and follow-up, and it kind of then just feeds on itself. So menopause, Ariana Kelly: Exactly. Rebecca Snyder: big win. what other what other things based on past legislation will be you be carrying forward into this next session? A lot. Ariana Kelly: wow. So we did we we started a program with student researchers this year, which was really exciting. And our policy committee identified women's economic security as the key area they wanted to focus on. And they looked across the lifespan. So they looked at childcare, they looked at pay equity, they also looked at retirement readiness, caregiving, and we did a number of different research papers, and we were able to present to the Secretary of Aging our our research on caregiving and retirement. Security and out of those conversations will be coming some outreach work that we're gonna be doing over the next couple of years to support women in becoming educated around retirement readiness and also you know dig a little bit deeper into those policy questions. We can we can we can make sure we can do public education, but we also want to make sure we're doing the policy to to support to ensure that we're doing everything we can to close that retirement security gap for women. We don't want women in poverty in their senior years in Maryland. Let's let's work to address that. Rebecca Snyder: Right. And already the data shows that that there are more older women in poverty than older men in poverty. Ariana Kelly: Absolutely. Rebecca Snyder: and I would imagine I'm not sure though, but I feel like there's more women in poverty just across the board because if women are taking care of children alone, that tips you into poverty most often. Right? Ariana Kelly: Mm. Yeah, I mean they're they're The financial security issues for women happen, you know, consistently through the lifespan. Birth of a child is one of the reasons people go into poverty, right? And and after caregiving for a spouse, many times you might have a you know, a couple where traditionally men pass away earlier and traditionally men are slightly older than their partner. So what often happens is that retirement savings are dwindled spent on the caregiving for the male partner, leaving the surviving Female partner with nothing. Right? So Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Ariana Kelly: this is just has to do with sort of what we consider just commonplace in life. Sure, you know, women might marry an older man. What are the consequences for that? Women might make less and the man is the primary breadwinner. What are the consequences for that? Because there's policy consequences as we as we as policymakers shape policy, they need to be thinking about these parts of society and women's role in society that we take for granted. Rebecca Snyder: Right. Well and and I wanted to take a step back because you have been working on these issues for a really long time. and I feel like in the back of my head you have one of your legislative claims to fame is that you have always pushed a lot of of so called women's issues in your policy work. But where did that first start? what what drew you to that work? Ariana Kelly: Wow, you know, it's funny, I told that story about my mother, but my whole career I knew I wanted to advance women's rights. And to be clear, right, to me that meant make sure you have the money you need. To me, it was the same, right? A social location Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Ariana Kelly: is everything. And I as a legislator represented Bethesda, District 16, one of the most affluent districts in the state. It was such a privilege for me to represent that district. But that's not the sort of social location I came from. I remembered very clearly. What it was like to struggle, right? To not have the resources that I needed. And I could see that the cost of raising children, the cost of having children when maybe you couldn't afford children, the cost of elder care, these are the drivers in in my lived experience to the economic inequality. So for me, the idea of economic justice and women's rights, they were just completely interconnected. And I did I studied history, women's studies, and film as an undergrad. I was definitely gonna Rebecca Snyder: Hmm. Ariana Kelly: make documentaries about women's lives. That was my jam. I was gonna do it. And I was a television producer for a number of years for a PBS program called To the Contrary that focused on women's issues. so I was able to sort of as a generalist discuss policy around women. But I did a story, one of my last stories for PBS was on the last abortion clinic in Mississippi. I went down Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Ariana Kelly: to Mississippi, I interviewed the clinicians there, I interviewed the patients, I interviewed the protesters outside. and I was just struck. Because again, it's it's is about intersectionality, right? I was struck that The women who were bearing the burden of the politics around abortion were incredibly poor women from the Mississippi Delta. And the politicians were forcing barrier after barrier. Obviously, you know, now you can't get any abortion in Mississippi, but back then, in order to access abortion care, you would have to get to Jackson, Mississippi from where you lived in the Delta, probably borrow someone's car, sleep in your car overnight because of the waiting period at the clinic, you know, scrounge. Together the money to pay for care, it was just so much harder for her to access what I thought was a fundamental right than many of my constituents in Bethesda who had access to resources. And the contrast was so stark for me. So all of the policy work I've always done is asking what's at that intersection, right? It's not women's rights in the abstract so the richest, most powerful women can continue to enjoy wonderful lives. That's important. But what's really important is figuring out how all women And can enjoy wonderful lives. Rebecca Snyder: Yeah. Well and and I think over and above the idea of wonderful lives, you're really just talking about parity. You know, you're just saying we need and and that's what I think is so interesting about this conversation about women's rights. No one's asking for specialized treatment. You're asking for a playing field not just to be leveled, but for opportunity to be able to shower on everyone equally. and so do you have a a an experience or a time where something like that really came true with you in in in like where you really saw like this is what this is why I'm fighting so hard for this? Ariana Kelly: You know, it's funny, I love your question because you mentioned at the top of this conversation that we're so lucky to have Speaker Panya Melnick in her role. For me, it was so interesting. I was elected in twenty ten, as I mentioned, and I served for fourteen years in the legislature. And When I came in, the legislature was very male dominated. There were not a lot of women in positions of power. There were even fewer women who were mothers and mothers of young children. Speaker Penny Melnik was one of them. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Ariana Kelly: and again, it's these intersections of issues, right? It it doesn't mean that you have to be a mother to understand these issues. It doesn't mean that that you have to be younger than 65 to understand these issues. But for me, my experience, I ran for office because I was a young Mom and I saw that childcare, paid family medical leave, these economic issues weren't being addressed, in my opinion. And I got to Annapolis and I was like, right, because all the people making decisions are older men who had someone doing this for them for free. Right? Like Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Ariana Kelly: their lived experiences different from mine because they had someone else figuring out the child care, or they didn't need child care. They had someone else taking time off from their job or leaving their job to deliver a baby. It wasn't them. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Ariana Kelly: and so you know, for me the the coolest experience of my life was being part of the evolution of the House of Delegates from this traditional male and again I have to shout out to the women who were elected before me and those women like Nancy Kopp and others who were early women legislators who did amazing work in a way more male dominated institution than I was part of. but to see an institution go from pretty male dominated to A place where there's equity, where women have equal numbers of positions of power in leadership, where women of color are thoroughly well represented, and shout out to Emerge for doing a lot of work to make that happen. You know, that being part of that and watching the institutional change, watching how policies that didn't have a shot could suddenly move because more people understood what I was talking about, watching how younger people, when the pages would come in or or young interns or young staff assistants. come in and could see themselves modeled in the leaders. I mean it was real palpable meaningful change just during my lifetime. It's been the greatest joy. and electing Speaker Jones and then Speaker Pena Milnik it was a the most beautiful experience for me to be just a small part of. Rebecca Snyder: I love that. And in the time of that change though, I'm sure you had to have a lot of difficult conversations because as you said, sort of the men in power, it's just wasn't in their frame of reference to worry about like, well, who's gonna pick up the kid when they're sick and you know, in that negotiation sometimes. And as a as a leader, how do you handle those difficult conversations where sometimes it's so easy for the person on the other side of that conversation to be like, well those those are just women's issues or you're hysterical about that or you don't really know. Like how do you how do you deal with that? Ariana Kelly: It's so challenging because for me I spent my whole career just being passionate about this and not being ashamed. I am here like and the people of Bethesda knew who they were electing when they elected me and they were glad to elect me. I was honest with them. And then I got to Annapolis and one of my mentors, who was an older man pulled me aside and I really appreciated his advice. he was a man of color and he said, Listen, Ariana, if you go around telling people I'm here to, you know, advance Opportunity for women. You will be minimized, marginalized, you will basically be erased. You will become a laughing stock. Like you can't lead with that. It can't be the thing that matters to you most. And I'm like, but it is the thing that matters Rebecca Snyder: It is. Ariana Kelly: to me most. I was like, you've got to get it. He's like, look, like, you know, as a as a minority man here, one thing I have learned is I have to be speaking to the global institution, and that's what gives me the power. To do the things that matter to me on my issues. If you immediately come in and you say, I'm just here to do women's stuff, or I'm just here to do black caucus stuff, you will be marginalized. Find something, and this was the best advice. Find something you're really good at, make yourself useful, show your capacity to the pro the legislative process, and that's what's gonna give you the power to get the things you want. That was the best advice, and I'm so grateful to him because what happened was I became an expert on healthcare, health occupations. Health insurance, nerdy, boring policy stuff. I carried a lot of water. Rebecca Snyder: But important. Ariana Kelly: Very important. If you are in one of those professions, it matters. If you're someone seeking health Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Ariana Kelly: care, it matters. but by building expertise and by using my capacity to do really meaningful work in that space, which I probably spent two-thirds, if not three-quarters, of my time on, I was able Rebecca Snyder: Uh-huh. Ariana Kelly: to build up the political capital for my pet projects. Rebecca Snyder: Interesting. I l and I think though that keeping it in that idea of intersectionality, healthcare is such an important issue for women, but framing it as a broader issue and then being able to then use it in a w use that expertise to benefit women is a brilliant Ariana Kelly: Yeah. Rebecca Snyder: move. That's a long game move for sure. So now when you're you have a different type of of power, like as a legislator you have I think more overt power to shape policy. Here you're in a sort of recommendation, dotted line convener role. How has your leadership style changed? Ariana Kelly: Wow. Yeah, that's a such a good question. I'm still learning. I think we're all always evolving, right? And I am I'm gaining as much as as as I think one would hope from my staff and the volunteers that we work with and the commissioners. being spending as much time as I do in a collaborative environment, very dip the legislature, I tried to make it as collaborative as possible, but it's competitive, right? You gotta Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Ariana Kelly: keep an eye on your back every every move. But what I always enjoyed about the legislative process was the moments I was able to be collaborative. My background was in advocacy, so my heart was always in that collaborative work. So I think now having a professional background in advocacy, and then a professional background in both the legislative and the political work of getting to be legislative, I can marry both and I can be an extremely strategic advocate. So collaborative, but But with an end result that is really productive. During my time in advocacy prior to the legislature, you know, the work of getting there sometimes became more important than the outcome. I I hate to put it that Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Ariana Kelly: way. I loved being an advocate and I have so much respect for the advocates. But the one thing that I think I'm able to bring as a result of my fourteen years in the legislature and the really, you know, the hard decision making and the hurt feelings and the painful choices, like is more cutthroat, right? And it's n it's not as soft around the edges as advocacy is. You don't get to wake up every day and say, I'm just gonna do good things for good people. That's not how it works. I wish it were, but it's not. so that experience really taught me that, you know, making the hard choices pays off, right? It I'm still collaborative and I'm still working really hard to listen to everyone and make sure that everyone has a seat at the table because that's how you get the best work product. It's the right thing to do, but it's also how you get the best work product. But I'm also always thinking strategically of the next step and the next step and the next step and really working with my team and everyone, all the partners that we work with to be as strategic as possible in our goals. Rebecca Snyder: Yeah. Well and I've always loved your clear-eyed pragmatism. Like you you know I'm doing this step so I can get to that step. And so what's kind of what's in your future trajectory on with that clear-eyed pragmatism? Ariana Kelly: Wow. So, and to be clear, right, I I work with 25 commissioners, you among them. So the future plan is really the brainchild and the vision of this collective. As I mentioned, right? Everybody's voice brings us the better decision. I am I am not the world's greatest expert on all things, but I know how to get smart people around me and listen. so with that being said, some of the ideas that have been noodled around involve number one, really figuring out a solution for getting money For caregiving, to caregivers or to people who need care, because investing in that system is going to be the key to women's liberation. I'm just gonna be honest. it's important. so figuring out caregiving and support for caregivers, figuring out how the economy addresses the you know the shifts in population without forgetting, neglecting, overlooking, or just depending on women without compensating them. so there's policy approaches that we are planning on taking. As I mentioned, we start Started with student research, we're partnering with our state agencies, we're talking to national experts, we're we're looking at what innovation looks like, figuring out what we might be able to pilot. This is gonna be a 10-year plan, right? And part of that is building out a coalition, talking to the folks on the ground who are working in this space, who have expertise and who have muscle, right? And figuring that out and messaging it and coming up with the best messengers for explaining why we might need an investment. Because money is hard to come by. The hardest thing to come by in politics is the investment for your programs. so doing something really innovative in the caregiving space is gonna be happening. doing something in terms of women's representation. you mentioned the work Rebecca Snyder: Uh-huh. Ariana Kelly: Executive Alliance does. It's incredibly, incredibly important. And while we have made great strides, there are areas where women's representation is shocking, shocking. Rebecca Snyder: Right, especially all women. I think we i it's so easy to be like, women are going ahead but when you break down you realize it's not all women and we need to work harder on that. Ariana Kelly: Right. And and I think that, you know, success in one area doesn't necessarily equate with success in another area. Even I know Comptroller Leerman has a report coming out on women in the economy this fall, and I'm so excited to to read it because some of the data and analysis she's gonna have in there is gonna tell the story of where we're succeeding and where we have more work to do. One of the places we have more work to do is with the the s share of state dollars going to women owned businesses. That it's pitily low. Why? Shockingly Rebecca Snyder: It was shockingly low, I guess. Ariana Kelly: low. we can work on that. We can we can work on that because there are a lot of women running businesses in Maryland, so why why not be represented in that P piece of the pie. but another area that the Commission for Women has done a report on and will be doing another report on is women in elected office. We have a great I think I want to lift up those women running serving as county executives and soon to be serving as county executives. It's amazing in the executive level what we've seen. But there are still counties that have never elected a woman county executive. And we've never elected a woman governor. We've never elected a woman attorney general, right? So there's work to do. Rebecca Snyder: And our numbers in the state Senate are abysmal as well. When and that's that's a special project we're working on. Ariana Kelly: Exactly. And you know, when I told the story about the amazing change I saw during my lifetime in the House, the second part of that story is let's do the Senate now. Right? Like I'm not saying you need to replace the leadership in the Senate, but I am saying you need to have representation in the Senate that looks like Maryland. Rebecca Snyder: And just for those listeners who aren't aware of what that representation looks like, there's what, forty seven senators, forty eight senators. How many of them are women? Ariana Kelly: So there's forty-seven senators, and after this general election, the prediction is likely to be eleven women. It could be ten, it could be as many as thirteen, depending on how the races go. But it is most likely to be eleven women. And of those eleven women, only three are women of color. Rebecca Snyder: And so how does that play out in terms of we've talked a little bit about representation and how it is all interrelated? What does that mean to have so few women and so few women of color in the Senate? Ariana Kelly: I mean, number one, any Senate committee, you're likely to have only two women sitting on it. Right? Maybe three. Rebecca Snyder: Right, 'cause there are there are only four committees. Ariana Kelly: Exactly. So so the number of women literally in the room when a bill is being heard is limited. And that gives disproportionate power to individual women because they become, which is not right, they become the representative for all women. But we know women are diverse. We know women have different lived experiences and different opinions on things. so you you you know, when you when you have under representation, one individual woman's views have to speak for all women. That's a really hard position to be in. so the more women you have, the more you know, there's all sorts of research that shows that once you hit a critical mass of women or any other underrepresented group in an environment, you know, their voices become stronger, they become more heard, they're less I ha you know, I don't mean to sound cliche, but it's it's very oppressive to be the singular representative for your class of people. It it's Rebecca Snyder: Right. Ariana Kelly: it's a lot of work extra work. A lot of extra work goes To the women who are representing all women in the Senate right now. so if you can if you can hit a place where you've elected women and a appropriate number of women and diverse women, you're gonna have a it's gonna be a lot easier to be a woman in the Senate. It's gonna be a lot easier to be a policymaker who's talking about issues that disproportionately affect women in the Senate. the women's organizations, I was just having a conversation with a number of different leaders. You know, it's been since the eighties there's been a chair, one woman of among the four chairs. and that woman, whatever subject matter she has, is often the point person that the advocates for women issues will go to, right? Because who else are you gonna go to? When it's tough, Rebecca Snyder: Right. Ariana Kelly: when we did the big sexual harassment bill, when we did the big abortion bill. Like you need a voice in the room. so the more women you have in leadership, the more opportunity there is, not just for individual women in the Senate, so that they're not representing all women, which is an unfair burden, but for women on the outside who are trying to impact policy. Rebecca Snyder: Right. And also I I think it has to be said that senators can only carry so many bills at a time. So you may have all these women centered progressive bills coming out of the House that can't go anywhere in the Senate because they're restricted. So there's only s but so many people to sponsor them. And of course that doesn't mean that men can't sponsor them and shouldn't they should be able to sponsor, but that's just how life is right now. So thank you for your your work on that. I wanted to to now kind of bring it back because you were playing such a long game, like you you were talking ten years in the future. So I wanted to end with the you have a daughter that's just sort of embarking in her professional life. And so what lessons or advice are you carrying that maybe you got from your mom that you want to pass along to your daughter? Ariana Kelly: wow, I love that question. You know, it's so funny because I just had this conversation with my daughter and this again, I I I'm curious, because this is gonna be an unexpected sounding story from me, but I was always very professionally ambitious. And I think my mother often warned me that maybe I was being too ambitious. I was spending too much time, working and and again my ambition brought me a ton of accomplishment that I found professionally personally rewarding but also I think did good in the world which was my goal professionally and everyone has their own goals and I am a huge proponent of women's ambition. But the story I'm gonna tell you is that my daughter raised at my knee and Rebecca Snyder: Yeah. Ariana Kelly: and I love her so much. I raised her to be ambitious. I raised her to work Hard. I raised her to drop everything and put work first and she's now twenty two and that's what she's doing, which is age appropriate. Great time to do it is when you're young. I know all of these things. But as her mom, I'm sitting back being like, wait a minute, don't you want to have dinner with your mom? Like what do you mean? Rebecca Snyder: Think about model. Ariana Kelly: I know what do you mean you got a really important business meeting? She turned to me and she looked at me and she was like, She's like, You this is your fault. You raised me this way. And I Rebecca Snyder: Yeah. Ariana Kelly: know it. I know it cognitively. Like I know that this was a choice that I made to to raise a daughter who was strong and ambitious and professionally driven. and now I'm like paying the price because I miss her, because her career is taking off. And These are good problems to have, right? Figuring out that balance between work and family life and social life, you know, it it's over the course of a lifespan, right? Like some some years you work more, some years you work less. Those years for me when my kids were little, I was spread thinned on both sides, you know, and I I I know that pain when I see it in another woman's eyes now. And now I'm at this place in my life where, you know, my career has has reached a place where things are easier for me because I have so much in my brain that I can just recall and do, recall and do. But you get that through years of experience, right? And and I need to give my daughter the grace of putting in those years and putting in the hard work and the hard hours and I have to work myself on being a more supportive mom to her ambition. So that's my my true story is that all of us all of us can can play that role of being like, Well what about mommy? Don't you have time for mommy? Rebecca Snyder: Well, but you know, does it ever feel like you're kind of being left behind a little bit? And you can be so proud and so excited. I mean, I have a a daughter who's in college now, but Ariana Kelly: Yeah. Rebecca Snyder: like she's doing she's living her best life. She's doing all the things I want her to do. But around the edges I'm like, but I'm still here. I'm waiting for Ariana Kelly: Yeah. Rebecca Snyder: you. And so like how do you how do you juggle that? Because you want her to do all those things, but is is that like self care for you? Like how do you how do you manage it? Ariana Kelly: I think and you tell me because you're going through this too, but for me, I think that it's it's about not forgetting that I have my own life too, right? Like like the time she has for me is getting smaller and smaller. She's still there, she still loves me, and she's clearly I'm an inspiration to her, so I should be a winner, right? Rebecca Snyder: You are. Ariana Kelly: but I am focusing on my friendships, focusing on my other relationships. That's the stage of life I'm at, right? That's I gotta own it. She's not my baby anymore. Rebecca Snyder: I feel like that's amazing advice for all of us. Like you're a real person with a full enriched life and when you put all your eggs in a proverbial basket of of something, then it's gonna end in tears. But like keep that full life. Ariana Kelly: Yes. Yes. And work is a huge part of it, but so is your social life and so is your giving back and whatever it is for you, it's it's a full life. Yeah. Rebecca Snyder: Hmm. Well, Ariana, thank you so much for sharing your very full life and for sharing more about what the Commission for Women is doing. I can't wait to talk to you more about we'll we'll have to have the Hall of Fame people come back when you do that in the spring. And there's so many things that we can work on together. So I'm really excited for your leadership. Thank you. Ariana Kelly: thank you so much. I love working with you.