Infinity Project is following the Wahl appointment model 

Posted: 1:00 am Mon, August 18, 2008
By Barbara L. Jones

In setting the stage for the appointment of a woman judge to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Infinity Project is following a model that was used when members of the Minnesota Women’s Political Caucus put in place a process to realize the appointment of a woman on the Minnesota Supreme Court.

The activities that led to Rosalie Wahl’s appointment to the state Supreme Court in 1977 were recounted by Infinity Group member Sally Kenney, the director of the Center on Women and Public Policy at the Humphrey Institute for Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota in a paper, “Thank you for being ready: Rosalie Wahl holds her place on the Minnesota Supreme Court.”

Kenney wrote that the caucus and the recently formed Minnesota Women Lawyers, along with other advocates, were instrumental in assisting Gov. Rudy Perpich in making good on an earlier promise to appoint a woman to the court. Both groups were determined to overcome the problem of male elective officials who said they would appoint qualified women if only they could find them, Kenney wrote. Their efforts resulted in the 1977 appointment of Wahl as the first woman Supreme Court justice in Minnesota.

Kenney quotes Wahl as saying, “This opportunity [to serve on the court] opened up because the women of Minnesota had become sufficiently organized and sufficiently powerful to say to a governor, ‘Nine-zip won’t do it.’” Continued support resulted in Wahl’s re-election in 1978. She served on the court until 1994.