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EMILY's List Program Trains Women to Run for Office

By Ken Thomas
Naples Daily News
Posted on Wednesday May 26, 2004

When Alma Allen first campaigned for a seat in the Texas Legislature in 1998, she hated asking for money. Her fund-raising operation brought in $40,000 and she lost the primary to a longtime incumbent.

Enter EMILY’s List. Allen attended a campaign school run by the organization dedicated to helping elect Democratic women who support abortion rights. This spring, the state Board of Education member raised $300,000 and ousted 27-year state Rep. Ron Wilson in the Democratic primary, assuring her of a seat representing the Houston-area district.

“They taught us how to ask for money, one of the things I was very uncomfortable about doing,” Allen said in a phone interview. “I don’t have that phobia anymore.”

Allen is among more than 2,000 women in 29 states who have learned how to craft an organized, effective fund-raising operation, set up a strong campaign team and hone a message that resonates with voters through the organization’s Political Opportunity Program. EMILY is an acronym for “Early Money Is Like Yeast,” meaning a candidate’s campaign cash gives rise to more support.

The group’s opportunity program, established in 2001, aims to build a “farm team” of women candidates at the state and local level at a time when the number of women serving in statehouses has become stagnant. It works to bolster women candidates who support abortion rights, which remains a contested social issue and dividing line between President Bush and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

By training new candidates, it also tries to overcome term limits and redistricting, which has led to some women leaving office and level the playing field for women seeking office.

“Men come out of the womb ready and knowing that they can be president. For women it takes a little longer,” said Kate Coyne-McCoy, a former congressional candidate in Rhode Island who serves as one of the program’s regional directors.

“Men see themselves as qualified and women are less likely to see themselves as qualified to run for office, although clearly they are — we just need to make the connection between the experiences that they had and how it fits into the political process,” she said.

A study by Brown University and Union College published earlier this year found that men account for 86 percent of the members of Congress, 86 percent of state governors, 88 percent of big-city mayors and 78 percent of state legislators.

The study included interviews with 3,700 male and female professionals, which found that many women are less likely to consider themselves as qualified for elected office or to consider a candidacy. Men pondering a political career, meanwhile, find a nurturing environment in the fields such as business and law.

“The old boys network is still alive and well in the feeder professions,” said Jennifer Lawless, a Brown University political scientist who co-authored the report.

Republican groups have also joined in the effort to recruit more women candidates. The Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion women’s organization, provides early funding for women running for office and The WISH List helps Republican women supportive of abortion rights at the state and federal level.

Seventeen states currently have programs modeled after The Richard G. Lugar Excellence in Public Service series, an Indiana program that works to increase the influence of Republican women in public office.

Pat Carpenter, president of The WISH List, said the group trained 60 candidates and operatives last year and its members contributed $767,000 to more than 200 candidates it endorsed.

“If we want to support more women running for congress and statewide races, the majority of those leaders come from state and local positions,” Carpenter said.

Women comprised 4.5 percent of the nation’s state legislators in 1971, a figure that climbed steadily during the 1980s and 1990s and reached 22.5 percent in 2000. Since 2000, the number of women in legislative office has shown minuscule gains and losses and now again hold 22.5 percent of state legislative seats, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

Debbie Walsh, the center’s director, said term limits were “sold as a bill of goods” that would help increase representation by women and minorities but hasn’t quite lived up to expectations, especially in states such as Arizona, Ohio and Maine.

Looking forward, EMILY’s List has concerns about California, where 16 of 36 women in the state Assembly and Senate will be forced out because of term limits in 2006. Two years later, another 11 will be termed out.

At a recent training session in Miami, Coyne-McCoy guided about 30 women in a hotel conference room through the fundamentals of raising money: how to form an organized plan and target groups of donors such as friends, voters who share your beliefs, people who hate your opponent and community powerbrokers.

Participants received a thick training manual that covers every aspect of running a professional campaign, down to minute details such as a 15-page spread sheet with Florida press contacts, sample door-knocking guides and estimated costs for direct mail pieces — to the cent.

For Tiffany Moore, a 30-year-old Orlando attorney, the seminar offered a window on how she could improve. A relative unknown in 2002, she lost an open primary by about 400 votes to Bruce Antone, who later won the general election. Moore is considering another run for office — and expects the campaign school will help.

“It allows you to plan ahead, to identify your message and stay on point,” Moore said. “It helps you be a better candidate because, oftentimes, there are good candidates that have a great message but don’t know how to deliver it.”

Ammal Elhaddad, 26, of Southwest Ranches, recently completed a stint as an AmeriCorps volunteer and was moved to seek office in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the resulting scrutiny against Arab-Americans. A Muslim-American, she hopes to run for school board at some point and ultimately reach the U.S. Senate.

“I believe that one person can make a difference,” Elhaddad said.

Others are already using the program’s techniques. Liz McCallum, a state legislative candidate from St. Petersburg, says the seminar helped her develop a campaign plan when she decided to run and “also let me feel as though I wasn’t alone in this.”

For Allen, the program taught her lessons that helped her knock off Wilson, who was targeted by party leaders after supporting the Republican redistricting effort that led to rancor at the statehouse.

A self-described independent person, Allen never liked raising money and recalled fund-raising events in her first campaign that never really panned out. Not anymore.

“It has all changed for me. My whole fund-raising life has changed,” Allen said. “I know how to do it and I don’t have a problem asking for money.”