Interview: EMILY's List President On Electing Democratic Women

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2021

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

The group was founded in 1985 to get Democratic women who back abortion access elected to office and has faced criticism in the years since from people who say the group has not done enough to support Black women and other candidates of color.

Now, EMILY's List has chosen a new leader: Laphonza Butler. She is the first first woman of color and the first mother to lead the group and spoke with NPR political correspondent Juana Summers and NPR White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe about her plans.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there is the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover the White House and I'm
0:08.4	one of Summers. I cover politics. So no politician who runs for office does it by themselves.
0:15.8	There's always this massive team behind that one person whose name is on the ticket because
0:25.5	it takes a lot of support and it takes a lot of money to run for office. For a lot of women
0:33.5	candidates over the past few decades one of the most important teams that they can get an endorsement
0:42.4	from and get buy-in from is Emily's List. But a lot of people listening may not know what Emily's
0:50.2	List is. Can you explain what Emily's List is? Yeah so Emily's List is one of the biggest
0:57.0	fundraising powerhouses on the left. It was founded back in 1985 by a group of women and it's
1:03.1	specifically and explicitly supports Democratic women and politics who back abortion rights.
1:10.1	It's called Emily's List and you might think there's a woman named Emily out there who must
1:13.2	be the founder but Emily actually stands for Early Money is like yeast. At the time that the
1:19.0	organization was founded there were only 12 Democratic women in the house. A Democratic woman
1:24.0	had never been elected to the Senate without succeeding her husband and in the 30 some years since
1:28.9	Emily's List was founded it has been a force that has helped empower so many women and politics
1:35.2	not just with money but also helping them put together all those building blocks that you need
1:40.1	to run a successful and viable campaign. Okay I really did not know that Emily's List was not
1:47.2	named after someone named Emily I'm just going to be honest. That is news for me. But this
1:55.6	organization which has been around for a long time it just had a change in leadership,
2:01.3	a leader who we're going to talk to today thanks to you Wana and it comes at a time when all
2:08.7	eyes are on women running for office and because there are some pretty key issues for women that
2:19.2	could potentially be on the ballot this midterm. Yeah that's right so today we're talking to
2:25.0	Lafonda Butler who is the new head of Emily's List. She is the first woman of color the first
	...

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