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As a member of the prestigious House Appropriations Committee, Boggs in 1983 fought successfully to include "pink ghetto" occupations in a $4 billion jobs bill. But Boggs, a mother of three, is no militant feminist. A staunch Roman Catholic, she has an antiabortion record that she admits hurts her with some women's groups. Regarded as a political moderate (A.D.A. rating: 50%), she voted against Reagan's budget cuts and supports a nuclear freeze. Boggs thinks her roots in the swing-vote South would be a powerful plus for the ticket. But she is not waiting by the phone. "The ticket has to be as strong and well balanced as possible, regardless of the gender of the nominees," she says.
>Martha Layne Collins, 47. Kentucky's first female Governor is a former beauty queen who belies the old saw that pretty women cannot think. Last November she trounced her Republican opponent, State Senator Jim Bunning, once a successful major league baseball pitcher, by nearly ten percentage points. In office only 51/2 months, Collins has already pushed through several parts of an ambitious package of education reforms.
Collins worked behind the scenes in politics before winning election as clerk of the Kentucky Supreme Court in 1975. Four years later she took 63% of the vote in her race for Lieutenant Governor. A devout Baptist, she is against abortion except in cases of rape or incest or when the mother's life is in danger, favors the death penalty and opposes gun control. Her support of the ERA has not been vocal enough for some women's groups. As permanent chair of this summer's Democratic National Convention, she is likely to have a higher television profile than Platform Chairman Ferraro. But her husband Bill, a dentist and entrepreneur (they have a son, 23, and a daughter, 20), hopes Collins will stay in the Governor's mansion in Frankfort, at least for now. "I enjoy campaigning for Martha Layne," he says. "But I don't think it's in her best interest to run for the vice presidency." >Martha Griffiths, 72. White-haired and witty, Griffiths looks more like a fairy godmother than a canny politician. During 20 years in Congress (she retired in 1975), Griffiths played a pivotal role on two major pieces of feminist legislation, supporting the addition of the word sex to the types of discrimination covered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and forcing the stalled ERA out of committee in 1970.