A Three Name NON Hypenator (DAMNIT)

Hyphengate: Wasserman Schultz calls CQ sexist

By Betsy Rothstein
June 27, 2007

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) is raising hell these days, and it concerns what she claims is Congressional Quarterly’s sexist policy of hyphenating names. For months, Wasserman Schultz has been angered over the fact that CQ repeatedly hyphenates her last name against her wishes.

When Wasserman Schultz first got married, she decided to use her maiden name, Wasserman, but added “Schultz,” unhyphenated, to share the same last name with her husband and, later on, their children.

“It’s my personal choice and personal name,” says Wasserman Schultz, who first had her spokesman address the matter with CQ reporters. “Look, this is not personal, but my name is spelled how I choose to spell it.”

When discussions with reporters didn’t work, the congresswoman’s spokeswoman went up the chain of command. Last week, the CQ executive board met and decided to drop the hyphen. But there is a catch. Since their stylebook doesn’t change until the year’s end, her name will not appear hyphen-less until January.

“Women need to be able to decide what they are called,” she said.

Wasserman Schultz stressed that the CQ reporters she dealt with were receptive to her. It’s the “nameless, faceless” higher-ups, she said, who were less accommodating. “I’m just glad they did the right thing,” she said. “It was a sexist policy.”

This isn’t the first time the lawmaker has experienced frustration over her name. When she was a state senator, her name would not fit on the voting screen; just “Schultz” appeared.

Editor and senior vice president of Congressional Quarterly Michael Riley said, “CQ is not sexist. We’re nonpartisan politically and we don’t want to be sexist either. I’m the new editor. I first learned of this issue last week and it caused me some concern. I did ask the right people to look into what the issues were and decided we should honor the congresswoman’s requests.”

Riley said the decision was likely made 10 to 15 years ago. “We’re not just a daily and weekly publication, but we have this massive set of 33 databases. So the reason for the delay is that we have a very complex set of databases that would have to change all [at] once rather than having it done piecemeal. It’s far more complex than I wish it was.”

Riley also said there were some editors who argued against Wasserman Schultz’s wishes. “Their initial concern was how [we would] handle the databases,” Riley said. “There were some practitioners of the old style.”

He added, “A given style should not get in the way of common sense.”