Transcripts For CSPAN2 Emilys List Hosts Womens Leadership C

When emilys list first started there were only two women in the u. S. Senate. Now there are 26 of us. You allowed so many more women to hold elected office and that made our nation better. They have the power to make a difference. I want to say thank you to Ellen Malcolm for getting this Party Started and im so appreciative ofyour vision. Thank you for starting an organization that brings women together and making this a better place. To stephanie, i am so grateful for your amazing leadership. You have the ability to see what is possible. Thank you for your courage. We will make sure more women are at the table then ever before. Especially more women of color arerunning for office than when it. Id like to see women like me become elected officials in the us in every corner of this country you helped elect new democratic prochoice women to the congress of the United States. So much has been accomplished in these 35years and so much more needs to be done. In 35 years i want to see women in thewhite house. We have at least with 51 percent. We continue to give women a voice at the table. We celebrate emilys list but i thank the many members and what a difference it will make when more women are elected to office. Thank you so much emilys list for everything that you have done, for your support of thewomen. You have forever changed the face of american politics. I am emily. I am emily. Because you believed it. I want to say a big thank you to every Single Person. None of this would have happened without the dedication of our staff. We are emily. I want to see women make a difference in this country. I am emilys list to my core. Good afternoon and welcome to our we are emily 2020. Now, this wasnt exactly how we had planned on celebrating 35 years of igniting change but dont worry. The gala, the Chicken Dinner and the balloon drop will just have to wait but the good news is you are still going to get the same amazing tories and information while wearing whatever you want. And eating whatever you want so grab your copy or a cocktail, no judgment here and together we will celebrate these 35 years of emilys list. And we would not be here without the women who started it all. Especially our founder, cochair and president for 25 years, the incredible gearless Ellen Malcolm. She is emily to her core. We are so grateful to her and for all of you for making her vision a reality area some of you have been with emilys list from the very beginning, for the whole 35 years and some of you joined our community but all of you are absolutely critical to our continued success nowand in the future. Before i go any further, there are a couple of things i want to remember as we do this work and spend this time together. First, we have lost some giants in the last year and just last month or last week the great congressman john lewis who is lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda today. And last october congressman Elijah Cummings was lost we all still feel everyday. We miss them both terribly and we are so grateful to them. We should all be looking right now to their example, the ones they sat with their lifelong fight forcivil rights. And the second, we should all keep in our minds and our hearts the pain and loss of so many who are suffering as a result of the covid19 pandemic. And continue to thank all of the people who are doing incredible lifesaving work on the front lines for all of us. Especially the union workers, the teachers and nurses and grocers who are holding this country together right now. What is more clear than ever is that Leadership Matters and the work we do has never been more important. The work of electing strong prochoice democratic Womens Office at every level is far from done. We need made the decision a few years ago to expand our state and local work and thank goodness we did everywhere we looked in this country right now we are seeing governors and state legislators and mayors making life and death decisions from how to handle covid19 to how to support black lives matter and to confront the deepseated racism in our laws and institutions and while all of this is happening we are seeing Donald Trumps Republican Party go to incredible lengths to keep people from voting across this country. These are big challenges that we are facing in this election cycle. But as always, this unity is ready to meet them. And what better way to start this conversation about how to do that than with an overview of ourfederal and gubernatorial races. The women who are going to walk us through all of this right now is the one who has a huge responsibility for the baby historic victory we all had in 2018 when we elected enough emilys list women who flipped the u. S. House. Karen is our Vice President of the Gubernatorial Campaign which means she oversees the recruitment and support of the campaigns of every emilys list woman running for governor, u. S. Senate or the u. S. House. Under karens leadership are federal and Gubernatorial Team as tripled the number of prochoiceDemocratic Women governors in the country. In 2020 she has not only built out a strong house in program to ensure we dont lose any of our great newly elected members of congress but her team has also been heavily involved with 24 of the 30 d triple c red to blue pickup opportunities to expand the House Majority. I just want to say that one more time. 24 of the 30 red to blues are emilys list women. This is extraordinary and a first for emilys list. And of course karen does all of this with an amazing team of 13 staffers, a very understanding wife and a very cool twoyearold daughter named maggie im sure is a future governorherself. So karen im so glad to have you with us today. Your team is awesome, just plain awesome. Thank you so much stephanie and good afternoon everyone. Before we begin i wanted to note the changes to the program. You may have noticed this time was originally slated for our panel withhouse members. That would be congresswoman Lucy Mcfadden and congresswoman debbie powell. Due to changes in the schedule were unable to make it today but you will still have the opportunity to hear from some of those members tomorrow so we hope you can join us and thank youfor your flexibility. Before stephanie the parts i want to go back and thank her again for her leadership both for that generous introduction and her consistent leadership. This work, the work of emilys list which is so important would not be possible without the leadership of Stephanie Schriock whose our fearless leader. We are happy to have her because as we celebrate our 30th anniversary i cannot think of a time where stephanie and emilys list are needed more. As stephanie mentioned i have a young daughter, a year into trumps presidency i became a new mom and after that, like so many parents i found a daily darkness of the Trump Administration even harder, particularly at night when i put my daughter to bed i would think about the fights at the border and inhumanity of the gop and everyone who stood by as families were torn apart and my mind would wander to children across the country who for one reason or another have an unstable future and a certain panic would settle in and i would say to myselfwhat can i do . And the answer was always easy. Go to work because i know that every day we are helping get hundreds and hundreds of women one step closer to having the power to change this country. But we are only able to do all of this because of the enormousgenerosity of so many of you. Thank you for everything you do. It is truly a collective effort to elect women and make our country better. We have to defeat donald trump this year but hopefully our president , our future President Biden will also lead a congress to get our country back on track and to do that we have to protect the house and lift the senate and take the gavel away from mitchmcconnell. The first step in flipping the senate is protecting our incumbents. 2 emilys list women are up for reelection, senators jean shaheen in New Hampshire and tina smith in minnesota. You have to make sure both of these women when and we cannot take anything for granted. New hampshire is a perennial swing state and what i always tell people is remember in 2016 maggie had been won by 1000 votes. Republican primary here is chaos between two deeply flawed candidates. Donald duke and colorado courtney meadows, both will be a rubberstamp for donald trump and while the republicans are fighting amongst themselves jean shaheen is already on air reminding voters of her legacy of fighting for New Hampshire families including everything she has done on behalf of the opioid crisis. In minnesota tina smith is out for reelection again for her first full term. She is running against the far right wing activist and radio host jason lewis who candidate angie greg defeated last cycle. However minnesota is a purple state and donald trump has made minnesota a top target of his campaign. Earlier this month be booked 14. 1 million in television time. Thats the fifthlargest expenditure of any state in that timeframe. Our team is working with both of these campaigns to make sure they have their resources and infrastructure to win. Now, the next step in flipping the senate is to flip at least four feet from red to blue and emilys list has endorsed for women who can do just that. So im going to go through them in alphabetical order. So starting with iowa, in iowa emilys list is proud to stand with teresa greenfield, a farm kid with farm values and with the help of emilys list and an investment from women, teresa handily won her primary and is ready to take on jody. She was elected with a promise to make washingtons special interests real. The reality is the only people jody has made it will is iowans, she voted with donald trump 90 percent of the time and supports fossil fuel reveal is to run the epa even after his disastrous policies have devastated iowas farming community. And after her last break the sec made ernst pay the largest penalty of any iowa politician after her campaign acceptedhundreds of thousands of dollars. And earlier this year the ag also reported that ernst potentially illegally coordinated her campaign. The lack of bipartisanship and iowans and issues make jodi ernst vulnerable. She is the third most unpopularsenator in the United States. The first is actually Susan Collins and we will get there in a moment. Recently politico has moved this race to a tossup and its not because jodi ernst is flawed which she is, its because we have an exceptional candidate in teresa greenfield. Youll have the opportunity to hear from her tomorrow as well as other challenges. These women are all incredible but what i always say about teresa is you have to meet her. Her authenticity and hardworkinggroups are what connector to every day iowans. Teresa grew up on a farming site in the 1980s and as she will tell you there are no boy jobs or girl jobs, just jobs needing to be done. At just 24 she was pregnant with her second son when i Union Electrical lineman was killed on the job. Teresa rebuilt a life for her and her boys. She initially supported her family with Social Security benefits but eventually worked her way to president of a real estatedevelopment company. Every public pool done since the june primary including one by emilys list shows teresa greenfield beating jodyherbst in iowa. This race is not only key to flipping the senate but a strong top of the ticket helps the contested house races and three of the four house races at emilys list women as thenominee. Emilys list women will win in iowa this year. And the proof is in the pudding. Teresa greenfield raised a whopping 6 million in the Second Quarter of thisyear. That is the most of any democrat running for senate in iowa ever. So much of her success is because of the emilys list communities a special thank you to all of you have supported teresa and allof our candidates. In kansas we are proud to meet with physician and champion for Womens Health doctor Barbara Boyan read if elected doctor boy a would be the first democratic woman to represent campus in the senate and their first democrat to win a senate seat since 1930 two. If there is one thing i want you to remember about this race that candidate is in play. We approved the strong women can win, even in typically red states when voters are looking for common sense leadership. That is how laura kelly one in 2018 and were going to do it again barbara boy a and if there is a time where we needed medical professionals in congress, its now. Barbara has served in the Kansas Legislature since 2009 he built a reputation as an independent voice willing to stand up to anyone to do what is right. She fought for education funding, Affordable Healthcare and she works with then state senator laura kelly to put an end to the disastrous brownback tax experiment. Last quarter arbor raised one point 4 million more than the entire republican field. The republican primary is currently numerous candidates including failed gubernatorial candidate chris kovar, conservative congressman Roger Marshall and. Significant outcry spending has already come into canvas because republicans are worried about barbara boy a who has been on the air for weeks laying the positive ground for her candidacy. A poll done by civics in june showed barbara tied with any of the republican candidates and joe biden with only leading candidates by 12 points. For reference donald trump one candidates in 2016 by 21 point three of i will say it again. Regardless of who wins the republican primary, kansas is in play. Moving to the next slide. Lets get the next slide up. I apologize for the delay on this slide. There we go. So apologies again. Looking down to maine. There is so much exciting news to talk about but i want to first take a moment to celebrate how close we are to defeating Susan Collins. One of the deciding votes to put Brett Cavanaugh on the supreme court. At the beginning of the cycle , beating collins seemed like a long shot last quarter emilys list candidates sarah gideon, the democratic nominee was raised in eyepopping 8 million. Overall sarah gideon has raised 24 million to Susan Collins exceed riyadh fundraising advantage is impressive as is the overall money being raised in maine but its all because this race is winnable and we can beat Susan Collins. Susan collins and years building a brand as a bipartisan and independent but the reality is that susan is more interested in catering to special interests than mainers and her actions across the system and as i noted earlier Susan Collins is the most unpopular sitting us senator. In the dark purple state of maine devoted 94 percent of the time including on his judicial nominee. The reality is she can no longer afford to carry gary trumps water because she has met hermatch in sarah gideon. There are gideon is the main speaker of the house of representatives and a champion for womens families. Shes worked with the republican and democratic governors to fight for every day mainers. She stood up to governor page to pass legislation to combat the Opioid Epidemic and she worked with democratic governor janet mills whose standard of her coverage for low income mainers and she also extended access to healthcare for people with preexisting conditions, work to control the cost of prescription drugs and divided poverty tax relief for mainers. I vividly remember the day i first met sarah. It was back in october 2018 and we sat down over lunch in portland. She told me how she got involved in politics, the local party tried to recruit her husband so she ran instead and while she was thinking about running for the senate she articulated the ways she thought collins was failing maine. Her commitment was always to maine and making it a better state for her family. And while this race has garnered Significant National attention is focused for sarah as always remained on main and that is why she will beat Susan Collins. Part of the net last six public pool showed sarah gideon beating Susan Collins area however maine is also a purple state and republicans will foreverything they have into this race. Both of these campaigns have been on the airwaves since october and collins and her allies are now going very negative on sarah so we have to ensure she has what she needs to win riyadh thank you again to the many of you who supported sarah, for those of you have not met her yet i hope you can hear her speak tomorrow. Sheis truly wonderful. Last but certainly not least, texas. Overall texas is a huge priority for emilys list and democrats down the ballot that this april so we need a strong ticket and we have that. Mj is a combat veteran, working mom and a texan. During one of her three tours of duty in afghanistan, her helicopter was shot down by the taliban read her response that they earned her the purple heart and the distinguished flying cross of valor for what she did to save lives. When she was no longer able to fly and barred from serving in Ground Combat because she was a woman she petitioned congress to change the rules and she one. So mj hagar knows its a tough fight and she is ready to take on the gop senator john cornyn in an almost twentyyear politician. With the help of emilys list and women vote mj defeated the field of a dozen candidates and insured the democratic nomination and in the weeks following her victory she raised 1 million in just seven days and kicked off a virt