Donna Weaver: The Force Behind Term Limits Drive California Transplant Wants Businessmen To Fill Halls Of Congress

Throughout her high-powered career in the financial and corporate world, Donna Weaver had little time for politics.

Then came the 1992 election, her husband’s retirement and her own semi-retirement from the consulting firm she had founded.

In 1993, “I must’ve sent 1,500 letters to Congress,” Weaver said. “We were very, very concerned that Congress and the president were tweaking things around the edges without really getting at basic, fundamental problems. … I just feel like we have a lot more government than we need or want.”

Now, Weaver’s face is on the news, her Hayden Lake office is filled with activity and she’s working full time as volunteer chairman of Idaho’s term limits campaign. She shows the same drive that powered her through high school and college in three years apiece and through a highly successful career as one of the few women in the financial world of the 1960s and ‘70s.

“If there was any discrimination ever, I never noticed it,” Weaver said, looking back on her early days as a securities analyst and a vice president for finance at a series of San Francisco area firms. “Because these money-management firms didn’t care what you looked like or whether you’d just flown in from Mars. If you knew what you were talking about, that’s all they cared about.”

Weaver always has been a conservative, interested in money and markets. She has read the Wall Street Journal nearly every day since 1964 and believes passionately in lower taxes, less government and more individual liberty.

But most of her time until recently was devoted to her financial work, which ranged from visiting companies and reporting to thousands of investors whether to buy or sell their stocks to guiding companies in how they should deal with the financial community.

Once retirement approached and the Weavers moved permanently from San Francisco to Hayden Lake, “we were able to, I think, be more active citizens.”

Weaver and her husband, Chick, retired chairman and chief executive officer of Clorox Corp., began donating money to the Republican Party, the libertarian Cato Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, the Free Congress Foundation. She was a charter member of Newt Gingrich’s GOPAC and supported individual Republican candidates.

Weaver went to Washington for the signing of the “Contract with America.” “Have they been successful? Yes, they’ve done a lot,” she said of the congressional Republicans who signed the document. “But could they have been more successful if they hadn’t been blocked by senior members of both parties?”

Weaver picked up on the term-limits issue after meeting with Ed Crane, president of the Cato Institute, an influential libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C.

Crane, who calls Weaver “the roving revolutionary,” remembers the meeting: “She was expressing her frustration. She had all this confidence in Newt Gingrich and had kind of gradually and reluctantly concluded that whatever his formula was, it wasn’t working.” Crane, who serves on the board of U.S. Term Limits Inc., steered Weaver to the group.

“I wanted to see where would be the highest, best use of my time and energy, where I could create the most change,” Weaver said.

The term-limits group was thrilled to have her. It is running initiatives in 23 states, including Idaho, to try to force elected officials to push for limits on congressional terms.

“I wish we had a leader like Donna in every one of those states,” said Paul Jacob, executive director of U.S. Term Limits. “Donna is just a fireball.”

Julie Riggs, who then worked for U.S. Term Limits, said, “She’s one of the best activists we’ve been able to identify out in the states because she’s so damn smart. She asks lots of questions, wanted to know the issue inside and out, read everything she could get her hands on; then she took charge.”

Weaver’s vision is of a Congress filled with successful business people who take leaves of absence from work, serve a term or two and make a difference.

“Right now, the only businesses sending people to Washington to actually act as legislators are law firms. I would like to see more people who have real experience in business go back there and try to solve our country’s problems, who have real experience in the private sector.”

But she says the “old bulls” in Congress - in both parties - have a vested interest in not letting that happen.

“I don’t think there’s anything more frustrating than backing a candidate who’s all full of vim and vigor, and they go back there and they’re stifled by the seniority system. … You have a few people who’ve been there forever who keep the country on the same wrong track.”

With her newfound interest in political activism and the extra time that semi-retirement has brought her, Weaver, 52, sometimes is asked why she doesn’t run for office.

“Why should I go back there and become part of the problem, have to stay for 16 years before I could accomplish anything?” she responds. “That was not anything I thought about at all. I don’t need another career right now.”

The smartly dressed woman, who likes to spend her spare time sewing and cooking, said, “I’m just Joe Q. Citizen, concerned about having a better world for my grandchildren and my perfect niece.”

Weaver, whose mother made the move to North Idaho before she and her husband did, loves to bake huckleberry pies and sew presents for the grandchildren. Sewing and cooking relax her, she said. “I cook and Chick cleans up.”

Said the Cato Institute’s Crane, “I think she’s terrific. She’s a committed individual who wants to change the country for the better … and has decided she’s not going to sit there and just complain about it - she’s going to do something about it.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: WEAVER’S RESUME Founder-chairman, Weaver, Field & London Inc., a firm that helps its clients deal with the financial community, preparing annual reports and guiding companies through initial stock offerings. 1985-present. Executive vice president, finance, Golden West Financial Corp. and World Savings & Loan Association, Oakland, Calif., 1984-85. Corporate vice president-finance and treasurer, Lucky Stores Inc., Dublin, Calif., 1977-84. Vice president-research, Dean Witter & Co. and predecessor firm J. Barth & Co., San Francisco, 1966-76. Securities analyst, Wells Fargo Bank, San Francisco, 1964-66. Weaver holds a master’s degree in management from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from the University of Arizona. A certified management accountant, she serves on five corporate boards (Ross Stores, Crown Vantage Inc., Hancock Fabrics, Basic American Foods and Bon Appetit Management Co.). She also served for a decade on the board of trustees of Mills College and the board of directors of Children’s Hospital of San Francisco.