Tagged: EMILY’s List

Posted: October 12, 2012 at 6:59 am

Time for Women’s Groups to Focus on States

It’s time for national women’s groups to shift their focus to state races.

With less than four weeks left until election day, Romney/Ryan’s disdain for women’s rights and support for forced births for rape victims are of understandable concern to national women’s health groups because of future Supreme Court appointments.

NARAL Pro-Choice America, national Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and EMILY’s List seem to be concentrated on the outcome in the presidential and congressional elections.  But races for governor, attorney general, and state legislature are arguably more important.

According to a recent report compiled by NARAL Pro-Choice America, states are ground zero of the War on Women.

State Abortion Restrictions

No matter how you look at it, anti-choice and anti-women measures at the state level received unprecedented attention in 2011. The Guttmacher Institute reports that “in the 50 states combined, legislators introduced more than 1,100 reproductive health and rights-related provisions, a sharp increase from the 950 introduced in 2010. By year’s end, 135 of these provisions had been enacted in 36 states.”

They aren’t just targeting abortion either. Access to birth control and preventative care, equal insurance prices, and equal pay for women are also under attack.

Many of these provisions are laws passed by wingnut legislatures and signed by anti-woman governors.  In Montana, legislators introduced a record number of anti-choice bills.  Thankfully, we had a democratic Governor who vetoed these bills.  Rick Hill meanwhile wants forced births for rape victims. He would sign it into law – along with dozens of other anti-woman bills – during his first few months in office.

Anti-choice attorney generals are now discovering they have an enormous amount of power over women’s rights and are ramping up their attacks.


Attorney General Ken Cucinelli is in the news  for forcing 20 new medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion providers - even though abortion is one of the safest and most regulated medical procedures. If Virgina’s AG has his way, most of the state’s abortion clinics could close.  In Wisconsin the War on Women’s foot soldiers are asking the attorney general to bar medical schools from teaching how to perform abortions.  Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline is featured in GQ magazine in an article that labels him “the most aggressive abortion litigator in the land.” The nine-page article carries the headline, “This man will do anything to stop abortion.”

If Tim Fox, who supports forced birth for rape victims, is elected he’ll start implementing this garbage in Montana immediately.

Sure, there are some grassroots state organizations doing what they can to influence these races, but without much money. National GOP and corporate PACs meanwhile are dumping hundreds of thousands into state races at an alarming rate.  Clearly, the right knows where the fight is.  Unless national women’s groups  realize it–and shift their focus to states, now–it will be too late.

Posted: September 21, 2012 at 5:00 pm

Montana Candidate Suddenly on National Radar

 National political groups this week upgraded the Montana house race. It’s now considered winnable.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which helps candidates around the country with cash infusions, put the Kim Gillan-Steve Daines contest on its Red to Blue 2012 target list, which “highlights top Democratic campaigns across the country, and offers them financial, communications, grassroots, and strategic support.”   EMILY’s List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, also announced that Gillan has been put “On the List” of its targeted candidates and she will thus receive assistance.  In the 2009-2010 cycle, EMILY’s List raised more than $38.5 million to recruit and support women candidates, help them build strong campaigns, and mobilize women voters to turn out and vote.

Last week, Public Policy Polling, a non-partisan group, announced that the race “looks like a toss up,” as Gillan closed the gap with her opponent to within the three-point margin of error.  The race is now a statistical dead heat, the polling firm reports: “This race could go either way” as candidates become better known in the final eight weeks.

 

Posted: March 29, 2012 at 6:19 pm

GUEST POST: It Takes Courage

The following is a guest post by Holly Kaleczyc.

In my years serving women in crisis in Helena, I learned that it takes courage to be an advocate for women—to stand up for our reproductive rights in the face of aggressive and sometimes ugly, violent opposition. I’m thrilled to support such an advocate for Attorney General—Pam Bucy. Pam has served on the board of Planned Parenthood, she has done countless hours of pro bono legal work on behalf of women, and she authored the Attorney General opinion that ended gender discrimination in insurance purchasing and mandated that health insurance cover birth control like any other prescription. Pam has fought, with courage, for women.

Women’s organizations are lining up behind Pam. EMILY’s List and the Women’s Campaign Fund endorsed Pam very early on. Just a few weeks ago, Planned Parenthood Montana gave their sole primary endorsement to Pam Bucy. Her primary opponent, Jesse Laslovich, received a recommendation, indicating that his record has not been 100%– and demonstrating that he is not the best advocate for women running in this race.

Mr. Laslovich has not always been on our side. In 2003, Mr. Laslovich had a 66% score with NARAL for his vote for a fetal pain bill—a bill mandating questionable medical procedures for women and opposed by the medical profession. In 2009 he had a 90% record because he voted for a bill that defined life at conception, creating a crime of fetal homicide. Overall, Jesse’s record on choice has been ok most of the time. Pam Bucy has stood with women all of the time.

With the attacks on our basic rights to contraception, funding for victims’ services at risk, and continuous anti-woman rhetoric, we need to elect leaders who we can count on all the time. 

Posted: March 15, 2012 at 6:12 am

Organizations Endorse in AG Primary

Groups are beginning to make endorsements in the Democratic Attorney General Primary.

To date, the groups that are endorsing Pam Bucy include:

  • Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana,
  • Montana Teamsters,
  • Montana Conservation Voters,
  • EMILY’s List, and
  • Women’s Campaign Fund

The groups that are endorsing Jesse Laslovich are:

  • Anaconda Teachers Union Local 502

While more organizations are endorsing Bucy at this point, Lazlovich seems to be better at putting endorsements on his website.  The Bucy campaign has not yet posted their endorsements on the campaign site. Instead, supporters of the candidate are touting the endorsements in letters to the editor.

Posted: August 9, 2011 at 12:16 pm

Butte Girl Plays Leading Roll In Wisconsin TEA Party Recall Election

The voters of Wisconsin go to the polls today to vote on the recall of six TEA Party Republican legislators who helped with Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s attack on unions. One of the leaders in recalling these legislators is Montana native Stephanie Shriock, who grew up in Butte and ran Senator Jon Tester’s successful 2006 campaign.

Now Shriock, CEO of EMILY’s List, is among the national players leading the charge to oust the Republicans responsible and replacing them with democratic women candidates. Says Shriock in a column in the Huffington Post today:

The public employees who Republicans are targeting are unionized fields with primarily female memberships. Teachers are 75% female. Nurses are 95%. Groups exempt from Walker’s attacks such as firefighters and police officers are predominantly male — but our brothers and sisters in labor are out there together because they understand the stakes.

We know these candidates are bad for unions. They’re bad on other issues women care about too. Really bad.  Kudos to Schriock and the women of Emily’s List for getting involved.  Here’s wishing them good luck from the home crowd.