Morning. Welcome to the center for American Progress and im Carmel Martin executive Vice President for policy at the action fund and thank you so much for joining us today for an exciting event on womens leadership. Weve arrived at a moment that has the potential to be a pivotal time for women in american politics. In the past six months weve had the first female candidate from a Major Political party run for the presidency of the United States and win the popular vote by a margin of nearly 3 million people. Although women in us policy began 2017, its grim numbers occupying less than 25 percent of elected offices at all levels of government. We also witnessed a historic women led outpouring by progressives into the streets in the wake of Donald Trumps inauguration. And since then weve seen a massive upsurge in the number of women who are coming forward to run for Political Office. Since the start of this year, more than 11,000 women have approached emilys list to discuss their interest in running for office, compared to only 900 in the 2016 election cycle. That brings us to the Central Point of todays event, where do we go from here . How do we make the most of this unique moment of political resistance and progressive renewal and turn womens desire for office into electoral reality . We have to start by getting our facts straight. For too long the conversation about womens Political Leadership in the us by which i mean are striking lack of political parity at all levels of government has been hamstrung by old ideas about what holds women back. We say that people are ready to accept women candidates or that women have left political ambition to run for office. But years of Academic Research and recent events weve all witnessed clearly indicates these factors do not tell the whole story. In fact, theyre a relatively small part of the story. Why we dont have more women in Political Office when women run, they win. Putting to the center for american women in politics at rutgers university, women were 28 percent of Democratic Candidates for the u. S. House in the 2016 election and 32 percent of Democratic Women winners. On the senate side, women with 31 percent of Democratic Candidates in the november election and 42 percent of winners. The problem isnt that voters will elect women, its that they are getting a chance to elect them because women are not making their way onto ballots. In the 2014 Campaign Season the last year for which a full of numbers is available, women were only 28 percent of candidates or federal, state and local office in the United States. That same spring women made up 29 percent of officials of the federal, state and local levels according to the womens donors networks reflected democracy campaign. Women are not getting onto ballots at the rate they need to in order to achieve political parity because of a whole array of forces having to do with recruitment, fundraising and the support of political powerbrokers or socalled gatekeepers. And those forces which favor insiders and incumbents keep women of color more sideline. E until we address and change the way our political power structures are built and operates, we wont be able to meaningfully address how to get women elected and the goal of creating a truly reflective democracy , one that looks like and seeks to all of us will remain out of reach. Our panelists today are going to give us a sense of the current landscape and talk about the source of concrete Structural Solutions that can open up the political universe to its most diverse range of women but first, im grateful to have with us to wonderful members of congress that weve had the pleasure of working with over the years. Representative Pramila Jayapal is the first Indian American women in the house of representatives. She spent the last 20 years working for womens immigrants civil and human rights. We worked with her as a state senator and are excited to welcome her to congress this year. I also like introduce congresswoman Nanette Barragan from california. She too began her career this year and thehouse of representatives. Born in harbor city california she is the youngest of 11 children raised by immigrants from mexico. She beat the odds and put herself through the ucla law school. She theyll be joined by our moderator for todays event, Judith Warner whos a senior fellow at action and who what out a paper just last week opening the gates, clearing the way for more women to hold Political Office. I urge you to pick up a copy. These join me in welcoming the congresswoman and judy to the stage. [applause] thank you for coming out on this gray morning. Its great to see you all here today and thank you congresswoman for being here for the conversation, i appreciate it. So the report as they said is about opening the gates, looking at the structural barriers that are keeping women off balance and out of office, both of you were on ballot or in office so you are Success Stories and i wonder, maybe we will start with politics. What worked . What do you ascribe to the success that you had so far . You both have different stories about what led you into politics. When you look back on your stories and if you are willing to tell them two women interested in getting in, what do you see that carry you . For me the first thing was i didnt allow somebody to tell me to wait my turn. Thats something we are still having today. And when i got into the race for congress, people called and said somebody else was chosen for the seat, its not your turn, drop out. I think women first of all have to run and most women have to be at the time to run so thats the first step is making sure we are encouraging women to run. For me that was the first step forward. The second was fundraising, as much as we dont like to hear it, fundraising is necessary to get your message out and thats the third thing you need, you need a message and you need to be a good candidate. There are different types of candidates and your story and your narrative really helps. I was running in a time where you had a very divisive president ial election. Donald trump was dividingthis country and was attacking immigrants and women. And mexican americans. And i took the category and all three so to be able to tell my personal story, to say that i was the daughter of immigrants from mexico, my mom had only a third grade education and i beat the odds was something that resonated with my district and gave people. At a time when there was so much division, people were looking for hope and we provided that. I think you know, i never thought i would be in elected office so thats the first thing i say to a lot of people is there isnt necessarily a path that everybody has to follow and for me, i was an activist, first of all and immigrants, i came to the United States when i was 16 by myself, my parents had 5000 in their bank account and use the whole thing to send me here because they felt like this was the place i was going to get the best education and have the most opportunity and there were three professions i was supposed to be. A lawyer, doctor or engineer. A politician was not one of them and so it never really occurred to me that i could or should run and i really ended up in the activism world and started what is now the largest immigrant Advocacy Organization in the state so i had 20 years of activism working for womens rights, devil and human rights and as i said in the introduction, i decided to run originally for state senate because i realized after 20 years of trying to get other people to do the things that he felt should be done, that we really needed more of us in office and more of us means more immigrants, more people that reflect the diversity of the country, more women i ran for the state senate and i was the only woman of color in the state senate in Washington State which a lot of people think of as a very blue state but not only are we dealing with the peace around gender but we are dealing with a piece around race and i think weve got to raise that over and over again and so for me, the things that made it successful were number one, i had a base. I had a strong base. I had worked with all labor unions, worked with all the womens organizations, all the progressive groups. I had a standing in the immigrant Racial Justice community and all those people were so excited to see me run so it wasnt really a thing of having to collect names on a rolodex. I had lived experiences working with people. And the second thing was that on the fundraising side, i think it you have candidates who are exciting to the base, then people will give money and im not just talking about the big donors but for me a big part of the success of my campaign was i had 83,000 donors across the country and the average contribution was 27, 23, 27 was bernie sanders, we beat him with 23 and we raised almost 3 million. It was an incredibly expensive race for a non district race and both nanette and i are in states that are top two states which make it difficult for us because the Democratic Party doesnt get in or one candidate or another if youre running against another democrat and your on your own with help from emilys list and from other really important groups but that was a big part of it too is, they dont think of the way things have been done as the only way things can be done. But she get up, shake it up in terms of how we organize, in terms of how we raise money and third part of my success i would say was doorknocking. I love it. A lot of candidates dont but for me, it is the way , this incredible privilege to spend two or three minutes on the door with somebody youve never met and have them tell you their deepest hopes and dreams and fears so we knocked on 170,000 doors, we made over 280,000 phone calls and there is no question in my mind that that is a huge part of why i want. Lets return for a moment to the media studies in your state, your opponents were democrats all the way through. And we returned to that issue of being asked, all people need to be asked to run. Women need to be asked more and they are asked less. Were either of you asked to run and if so repeatedly or not . I was asked to run but not by the powerbrokers. Not by the gatekeepers, i was asked to run by people in my community and my leaders i worked with every day but i was never, i dont think i was ever asked to run by anybody from the Democratic Party. I dont think i was asked to run by sort of the people that manage the process. I was asked to run by a number of congress who said this is a great opportunity, its an open seat. And at first i said thank you but no thank you. The hardest thing for me to get over was how much money i would have to raise. I was a city councilmember in the city outside of the district so my base wasnt even in the district i had this base that my colleague had. I ended up quitting my job a year and a half out. I was in my seat on the city council, exactly. To do this fulltime. And that was a that i made in cots, ive made in my state, had to take out a home equity line so i was misterwinick. And i think that. I had the letter, you name it. It truly was a race where my opponent was supposed to win but we ignored all that and we went right, raise your money, not on your doors and at the end of the day its the voters that decide and i think you have to keep that in mind when youre deciding to do this, its going to be the voters. If you have an intimidating list of people arrayed against you, the party, the lieutenant governor, the mayor, 30 Congressional Democrats got behind your opponent and you did it. Clearly this was an example of getting past the gatekeepers. You had to deal with a hostile media as well. Did you think that being women, women of color was behind some of that . Was it just these were the expected anointed people who had been in the works for a long time . What was going on there . We had the l. A. Times endorsed me so the media in that sense was good and that help and we used it as much as we could and i think that was somewhat of a turning point because we saw somebody who was in elected office, my opponent who had a track record in here you had two independent outlets effectively say my opponent was winning elections but that doesnt mean hes good at governing so it was harder as a female candidate because the questions you get sometimes, your set to a different standard. Women still today, women still contribute less money to women than men sometimes so i think theres a challenge there. Theres certainly for me i think it was a different dynamic. It was that a lot of people had worked with my colleague whether it was my opponent and he was promised a seat. He ran for the seat in 2012 and was told drop out of the race. Youll be next in line. And thats why you had a rare opportunity in my race where there was only one guy really running. And then after i got in, really the only to raise any real money at the end of the day, you had what you sometimes see as stacking of ballots. You had more women being added to thebalance. More people of color, even though none of these people openly raise money or spend money, it was merely to split the vote. And this strategy worked because in the primary, i only had about 21 percent of the vote and he had 40 percent of the votes but when you then looked at the overall numbers, you see where women were in alignment and you saw latinos when you combine them, you saw it very differently. I think that you know, for me, we had nine people in the primary. There were another, the person who ended up in the general with me was in the state legislature would have been one of the youngest members of congress had he been elected. And then we had somebody who had been in office since he was like 18 or something. He had been part of the Democratic Party machine so he had a number of endorsements, a lot of people stayed out of our race but the media was challenging. I had the opposite situation where the Seattle Times endorsed my opponent and but our progressive paper the stranger which is an alternative paper that has just as much weight as the Seattle Times endorsed me but not without controversy because the person that i ran against in the general is a good guy. Hes progressive, of latino heritage. Lgbt q community and so it was challenging. I found the media though to be particularly difficult in my race and i found it in subtle ways. It wasnt always open but there was an article that was done on all three major candidates during the primary and for each of the two male candidates i was the only woman in the race. Each of the two male candidates, they gave a long paragraph about their accomplishments in office and for me even though i spent a long time on what i had accomplished, even though i was in the minority, in just the first term when it got to my profile it said shes a vociferous debater on the floor which to me is a brown woman says angry brown woman screams a lot or something not that helpful. So i called the reporter and said im really curious what happened and he said congresswoman, or state senator at the time, i feel so bad but i had a paragraph in there about how unusual it was you had accomplished what you accomplished in your first term and the editor started out. So that kind of thing happen quite a bit. And its probably the first time i felt it so strongly but it definitely operated and i think it was both race and gender but it was also the fact that ive been a really strong progressive advocate for a long time and ive created challenges for people around things that matter to me. Like immigration, gender, racial equity. Is opening up and democratizing of media in the moment, theres a lot of pushback online that was very visible. Did you encounter similarly any kind of gendered or racialized language in the media . Its interesting because i want to distinguish the editorial side of the times was supportive but the on the new site it was very different. Although my opponent was a city state legislator, these got way more of the front runner and the accomplishments of a portion of it so when she mentioned her story, it did ring a bell for me. And its kind of hard to pinpoint what its on in my race whether its one of the most powerful state senators in california and it could have been because people thought i had no chance but you always think about whether race and gender plays a role. My opponent did try to make our campaign about race and so the race issue was always hanging over our race and it was just a terrible thing because i started working in politics when i was in college in the white house, working in the office of africanamerican outreach and i had a chance to go anywhere i wanted and went to the naacp on the hill working on racial and social justice issues because i talk about the fact that racial profiling is having an combined together, we Work Together and were way more likely to make progress yet my track record long before i ran for congress was trying to make it about race so there was no doubt there was actually a paper, a local paper that was very close to my opponent, they held a fundraiser for him in his office and they did an endorsement that was all along race and it was just unfortunate. That was probably the toughest part of my campaign because of my track record and it was unfortunate and i think we got to move away from that because people today use it to divide us and we have to really unite. You mentioned how fundraising can be difficult for women and you also mentioned before then you have a Training Program and im wondering if its worth highlighting Something Like that with the sort of, something structural that allowed you to address the structural problems and what those experiences are with programs. Before i ran f