Jodie Evans Has a Code: How the Political Insider Turned Activist

There she is, brandishing handcuffs at Karl Rove, interrupting a Beverly Hills book signing to make a citizen’s arrest. Or she’s holding a banner, or marching, or doing a video interview. Sometimes she’s camouflaged under a big floppy hat or behind enormous peace-sign sunglasses, recognizable only by her mane of red hair. But other times she’s exposed, vulnerable, incontrovertibly herself, as in 2004, when she stripped off a layer of clothing during George W. Bush’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention to reveal a carnation-pink slip with the hand-lettered demand, fire bush—women say bring the troops home now! Clearly not appreciating the pink-slip pun, operatives quickly hustled her off the convention floor. She’s been arrested numerous times.

Jodie Evans, one of the founders of Code Pink, is not afraid to put herself on the front lines of the organization’s political actions. Since coming together in 2002 to protest the war in Iraq, the mostly female, mostly peace-focused Code Pink has put the theater back in politics, its pink-clad denizens relentlessly crossing boundaries of taste and decorum to make their voices heard. Take, for example, a US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in January 2015, where the ninety-one-year-old Henry Kissinger hobbled to his seat to join other former secretaries of state Madeleine Albright and George Schultz. Code Pink activists shouted that Kissinger was a war criminal, unfurled banners, and held up blood-red hands behind him. As they were being ushered out, a furious Senator John McCain called them “low-life scum.”

“At Code Pink, if people aren’t mad at us for a long period of time we wonder if we’re doing something wrong,” Evans says, laughing.

Evans chose the activist path instead of others that would have been far more comfortable—where she could sit in banquet halls with former secretary of state Colin Powell instead of confronting him and being promptly removed; fly first class without having conservative critic Andrew Breitbart tweet about it; help to fund Senator Barack Obama’s presidential bid and simply relax during his tenure, like many of her old friends did.

Once there was no better-positioned Democratic insider than Evans. During Governor Jerry Brown’s administrations in the 1970s and 1980s, she held key positions, including director of administration. Her name regularly appeared in society pages next to big-money Democrats Stanley Sheinbaum and Norman Lear. Even when Brown campaigned and lost, Evans’s fundraising skills struck envy into the hearts of fellow operatives.

A motto during Brown’s 1992 presidential run—Evans was campaign manager—was “Speaking truth to power.” In the 1980s, Evans had been so close to power that she didn’t have to speak—she could just whisper. Why walk away? Why leave the insiders’ cocoon for a cold sidewalk in front of the White House with a ragtag group of women wearing fuchsia, shouting from the wrong side of the fence?

I worked for that 1992 Brown campaign, first volunteering in the Santa Monica office and then going to New Hampshire and beyond. Everyone on that campaign called her Jodie, which is why it sticks with me, even though it’s more journalistic to call her Ms. Evans. After the convention I worked for Jodie a few more months, wrapping up campaign paperwork and doing occasional errands, like driving her son Matt to his father’s house, maybe in her electric-powered car. She used her guesthouse as an office. Phones were always ringing, lots of projects were in progress. She had an open-door policy so wide that some pretty kooky people floated through. Jodie is glamorous with a slightly spacey glow, something that I think hides her acuity from those who are dazzled by a shapely redhead.

Even though she’s just across town, I’m not in her office...