Costanza, Margaret, 1932-2010

Margaret "Midge" Costanza was born on November 28, 1932, in LeRoy, New York, and was raised in Rochester, New York. She began her political career as a volunteer for W. Averell Harriman’s gubernatorial campaign in 1954; she later served as executive director of Robert F. Kennedy’s 1964 Senate campaign. She served as a Democratic National Committee member from 1972 until 1977. Costanza became an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights and, in 1973, became the first woman elected to the Rochester (N.Y.) City Council. She then served as vice mayor of the city from 1974 to 1977.

She ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974. In 1976, when Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter ran for president, Costanza served as cochair of his New York campaign operation and gave a seconding speech for him at the Democratic National Convention. Upon Carter's election, Costanza was named assistant to the president for public liaison.

Costanza was nicknamed "the president's window to the nation," consulting with a wide array of groups. She invited members of the National Gay Task Force to the White House during Anita Bryant’s controversial Save Our Children campaign. She also hosted a group of 30 women in protest of the president’s opposition to federal abortion funding. She was featured on the cover of Newsweek with the headline “Woman in the White House.”

After resigning from her White House post, she coached political candidates in public speaking and worked to get Barbara Boxer elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992. California Governor Gray Davis appointed Costanza as a special liaison to women’s groups, a position she held until 2003.

She was a professor at San Diego State University, where she worked with the political science and women’s studies departments. She created the Midge Costanza Institute at the University of California at San Diego to help young people engage in political and social activism. Costanza was also active with an AIDS research organization and fought for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. She worked tirelessly to elect more women to public office.

In 2005 she joined the San Diego district attorney’s office as public affairs officer, focused on the prevention of elder abuse. In 2011 she was inducted into the San Diego County Women’s Hall of Fame at the Women’s Museum of California. Midge Costanza died on March 23, 2010, at the age of 77.