Stephanie has been active in democratic circles. She was the National Director for howard deans 24 2004 election. She helped to unseat an 18 year republican incumbent. Stephanie also managed the campaign of senator frank and i and minnesota. She defeated norm coleman, correct . She is a graduate of cspan. O [indiscernible] university in minnesota. She has a lot to say and then we will field questions from all of you. Thank you, stephanie. Thank you all so much for coming out. Good morning. Again, my name is stephanie schriock, president of emilys list. As mentioned, i grew up in butte, montana, where my heart and soul still reside. Special thanks to the National Press club for setting the solemn. It really is an honor for me to be here today. For those of you who do not know as much about emilys list, emilys list has been around for 27 years. We are solely committed to electing prochoice Democratic Women to office up and down the ballot across the country. As mentioned, we had a good election cycle in 2012. Two years before that, and would save like most folks, i was ready to see the 112th congress and. I could not have been more excited to see the new congress on thursday. We saw the swearing in of Tammy Baldwin and elizabeth warren. They were joined by 20 women in the senate. Our three new senators . They are the first women in their states to serve in the senate. Were still breaking through the glass ceilings around the country. We saw 16 new prochoice Democratic Women sworn in across the country. It is quite a group. A Diverse Group at that. The first women who have never seen combat are serving in this house of representatives. Just north of here we have a unique story in New Hampshire where we have the first state in the union to have an all female delegation and governor in this country. It was quite a night and the 113th congress has the greatest number of women serving ever in our history. How i can proudly say the 59 of them are emilys list candidate for. It is not hard to see why many were calling this the year of a woman. We do not just make changes to the congress overnight. For us, this is a result of 27 years of hard, hard work. We have been working with women, recruiting and training women at all levels for 27 years to build a pipeline so that we continually have young women stepping up to run for office. When we started working with tammy in her state legislature, standing by when she ran for the house, we can proudly call them United States senators. It is not just about electing women. It is about advancing leadership through the process. We often look at one of our dear friends, barbara mikulski. Our investment in her, our First Investment as an organization, culture to win that seat in 1986. Her hard work and dedication has resulted in her being the first woman to lead the very Important Senate appropriations committee. The more women than we have gaining seniority means we have more women in leadership. Dianne feinstein, chairman of intelligence, patty murray, chair budget. Barbara boxer, chair of the environment. Seven women for ranking members on the house committee. On the republican side . Every Major Committee is led by a white male. In fact there is only one woman sharing a Minor Committee in the house. So, what does this mean . Does it really matter . It changes the conversation that the negotiation table. Senator gillibrand often tells the story of serving on the Armed Services committee. When they were talking about military readiness, she and women like daddy giffords were there to rest questions about personnel and Mental Health programs for the troops and their families at home. You cannot tell me that if we had two or three women involved in the fiscal cliff debate over the last month that we would not have gotten through it faster. I was at home over the hollow eyes with my father. We knew where we would end up. We knew that there would be tax increases. But women just want to get these things done and keep moving forward. These republican men, john boehner in particular, tend to want to stand around and found on their chest rather than getting things done and i think it is time to get the speakers gavel out of his hands and back into the hands of a woman. Making sure that congress is having a conversation that americans are having every single night. It was not just a fiscal cliff. When you look at the last days of the 112th congress, you can see why we are so happy that this congress is over. The outrageous refusal from Speaker Boehner to bring to a vote the needed relief for our fellow americans suffering from Hurricane Sandy is an outrage. Then they let the session end without reauthorize and the violence against women act. They let a normally Bipartisan Legislation expires since the First Time Since 1994, putting women across the country of risks because they wanted to refuse to protect vulnerable populations like immigrants and native americans and members of the lgbt community. With priorities like that, you will not be surprised if this. We conducted some Critical Research on independent women voters in battleground states. What we found was quite stunning. The women there were not impressed with congress. What is stunning is that 77 of these independent women voters 77 said that congress was old, out of touch male politicians who do not have a clue what life is like for people like them. I am pretty sure that if we hold on new years eve, the number pulled will polled on new years eve, the number would be even higher. As one talkedabout the numbers i just want to talk about the change in the conversation. One of our new Congress Members had to grow up in a gas station that had no running electricity for two years growing up. You cannot tell me that she does not understand what families across this country are going through. Our new member from hawaii, our new member from illinois, theyre both women who have served in combat. They know what life is like in a real way for those returning from combat. Diesel the voices we are going to have for years to come in these debates. This is what we Want Congress to look more like america. We know that the best way to get a progressive policy is to have an equal number of women and men sitting at the negotiation table, making decisions for our communities. We will work every single day to make that happen. We recruit, train, and support women up and down the ballot. We support the women and the good men who are with us to stand by these women until their election. We put programs in place to turn out women voters. We had an historic year in 2012. 80 of our candidates won. We raised a record number, 51. 2 million. Quintupling our membership to over 2 million 2 million members, excuse me, over the last few years. There is great Energy Around womens leadership in this country right now. We turned out women voters in our largest ever Expenditure Program across the country. In turning out these voters we did not just to let historic people to congress, but we have helped president barack obama, who has been so good for women across the country. It is so clear that this election was about women. Women candidates, women donors. We heard a lot about womens issues. Some in a way that i would prefer not to hear about. We heard about women voters who made those decisions. There was a lot of talk about the new Democratic Coalition of young people, hispanics, and women. I think that that is a great coalition. Women are not just a voting bloc or a subset of the population. They are 51 of the population. Last time that i checked, that was the majority. This last election, 55 of the women voted for president obama. There was an 18. Gender gap. For every unmarried woman who voted for mitt romney, two voted for obama. Women are going to make the decisions for the elections to come. They will decide to hold the power in this country. We know what is moving women voters. We know how to expand the Winning Coalition to come. Do not make a mistake of thinking that this is a one issue election. Our Research Shows that this matter just as much as the social issues for these voters. 78 of the women we polled rank equal pay amongst the most important issues facing the country. An issue that the republicans have stonewalled and opposed and called a nuisance. I think they told us that they would get back to us on that. Women understand and reject all aspects of this gop agenda. They were even more voted more motivated to vote for a democratic candidate and a brighter future. 76 of the women that we hold voted for a candidate. Only 16 voted against. Think about that. More than any other issue, women were excited to vote for a candidate that they thought had the right priority, which was clearly not the republicans. 89 of the women that we polled said that that was very important, that the candidate had the right priorities. The other important thing is that the women that we polled after the election got at Something Big in november. That this was a different election. When we told respondents that a historic number of Democratic Women had been collected, 56 these are independent voters 56 thought that it would make a positive difference. Only 8 thought that it would make the opposite effect. Women saw the gop agenda and understood the harm it would do to our rights and freedoms. They reacted by sending a group of people to washington that they felt had the right priorities. We asked women also about the problems they had with the candidates that they voted against. Why did you vote against this republican . It was not Just Health Care or social issues. There were most concerned that these candidates would take america backwards to the failed policies of the past. These independent women want to move forward. They do not want to roll back the clock of america in this country. Women recognize that the total bad man agenda mad men agenda, if i can call it that, did not want it. I say that this coalition is strong and going to grow. They know that it is going to make a difference. We are going to use this historic year to lay the foundation for years to come. This is not about one the election for us. We have been looking at the opportunities for 2013. There are 38 governors up for election between now and the election. Those are critical races for women and families in this country. We have seen the priorities of state legislatures across the country. In 2011 and 2012 we saw the greatest number of restrictions on womens do have access to health in the history of this country. We need to make sure we have good, strong, prochoice women governors to draw the line in the sand. They need to be there to draw the line in the sand to protect Womens Health and block voter id laws. To make sure that workers rights are protected. Races have already begun at emilys list. I cannot believe that i want to say this, three prochoice women running in the election right now, you may not know this, but this is exactly how the cycle started. Emilys list was involved in four of these elections. We start early, right there in the name. Do nothing but we are not looking seriously at 2016 and who will be running them. After the next cycle to come, i would like to open up about 2012 moving forward. Thank you so much. Lets have questions. Please identify yourself and your organization. Ok. [inaudible] view talked about this being the year of the women the year the woman. I have read the analysis of what went wrong for the republicans. Even amongst the democrats now, there is a need for republicans, as culminated by Katherine Parker in the washington posts, you are talking about this being the year of the woman, our people overlooking the importance of women in these zero elections . It is interesting, i am with you on the question. I have been surprised at how little we have heard from the Republican Party about their 18. Gender gap. That is a nonstarter. You cannot win elections with those kinds of gaps and it will be released as the Republican Party continues to push for work parties that are alienating women voters, particularly independent women voters. It comes from the bills that they continue to introduce and the fact that they put in leadership and entire cast of white men to run these committees. It is stunning, i do not think they have learned the lesson and i am not quite sure why that is. I would love to know. If i was in charge of the Republican Party, i would not be handling this in the same way. Reach williams monthly. I am wondering you reach millions monthly. I am wondering what is the best former Digital Access to move your message forward . A great question. Thank you so much for being here. The best way to connect everyone is on line. The ability to be part of this large community. Earlier i said that we were not public, but we were five times bigger, 2 million members in the last two years. That is a massive amount of growth. Truthfully, i think we can go much further. That is where we need the help. We need to introduce was going on to these women who have these busy lives. Women working one job, to jobs to balance everything out, politics for regular folks is not even on the top 10 list of their daily lives. Our job is to make it part of the fabric. It is really important. Important locally on your school board, important in the citys in deciding between safety and education, we need women to really getting gauged in politics. Truthfully, we need them to run for office. Many more and more women to run for office. One of the big focuses over the next many years is to get more women to run for legislature, city council. That is our pipeline to congress. It is also the regulations and laws being passed everyday affecting our lives and the lives of our family. Questions . I am kathryn lewis, a freelance journalist for the New York Times and others. As a followup to a leashs question, i have seen coverage that women are no longer this block that politicians can expect to appeal to with one set of issues and you can no longer count on women to just vote on specific issues. Can you address that question and the challenge for you and in general for viewing women as a monolithic voting bloc . I always thought that it was odd that we thought they were one issue voters to begin with. 51 of the population . Women are very different in that population. What i think is really important here is that there are key economic priorities that women in this country feel are very, very important. These are priorities that we are not seeing the Republican Party addressing. The Democratic Party needs to really lean into some of these, including equal pay at the top of lists. This is a huge issue. Women are really feeling that things are not quite right out there. Because they have to make a payment every night to make sure they have enough food for the kids or their putting gas in a car. They are feeling it. For a long time folks thought that Democratic Women were reproductive rights. With women, it is all part of an Economic Future and our ability to make choices. It is all important and they feel it is all important. I think that we have done successfully at emilys list is broaden the agenda, but even more importantly is how we are communicating with women. The biggest change that is starting to happen is our ability to meet women where they are and talk about the issues that they face. Not just blast them with television commercials. It is not working. Arguably it is now working for men in this country either, but it is really not working for women. Our ability to use online programs, to have long conversations with women, not just one day or one week, but over a year to make sure they know what is going on, that is part of our future in building the coalition, to really be a part of the education of women voters across the country. It is not so much about one issue or a series of issues. But it is a progressive economic agenda, not one that will take us back. Just like health care. They feel that it is time to move forward from these debates. That choice is available for us in our personal lives and health care, and now in our economics. It is about all of that and it is where we are communicating. That is where we will be playing a bigger role in the years to come. Thank you. Yes . Tiffany [indiscernible] my name is tiffany [indiscernible] and i was a women voters in turn in 2006. Intern in 2006. [inaudible] you have had very good luck with great women. Absolutely. My colleagues and i often talk about this. One of my best friends is from texas. We talked a lot about being progressive and being from the states. Frankly, we feel a little bit intimidated and under represented. My question to you is what advice do you have for women that come from those states where things are more conservative demo or where we want to see the country go . Particularly in texas, where we do need to do some work there. The truth is you have got to get involved. There are lots of women and men who feel the same way in texas, virginia, or georgia. Dare there. Our ability to start networking those folks to build a coalition in the state and find a right candidate is what we have to do. There are some great organizations in texas and around the country doing local work. Islys list as a Network Building out more and more, because we know that these changes cannot all happen at the congressional level. We have to move these governors. When there are 38 governorships up for election in the next few years, th