Ellen Malcolm, president of EMILY`s List, was exhorting troops that needed little exhortation.
”You go out and look at your budgets,” she urged her audience at a fundraiser last week for EMILY`s List, a politically significant national network of donors to female Democratic candidates who support abortion rights. ”You think about your priorities. Do you want that new pair of shoes, or do you want to be represented by Carol Moseley Braun?”
”We`re buying shoes,” Peggy McTigue, a sponsor of the event, murmured mischievously.
But it was not footwear that was weighing on the minds of the 150 women who had gathered at a Near North Side hotel. Within moments, a number of the women were waving aloft checks to Braun, an EMILY`s List beneficiary who spoke at the fundraiser.
After the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings last year, membership in the donor network grew to 11,000 from 3,000. It now stands at nearly 14,000 nationwide.
The group picked up more than 100 new members at last week`s event downtown; 85 people joined EMILY`s List at a fundraiser in Wilmette the night before.
Members pay $100 to join, then agree to donate at least $100 to each of two candidates recommended by EMILY`s List in an election cycle.
The name EMILY`s List comes from the saying ”Early money is like yeast”-it makes the dough rise. Malcolm founded the group in 1985 to overcome the most serious hurdle facing female political candidates: lack of financing. Some EMILY`s List members have never before ventured into politics or feminism.
”I`m a professional woman, and I`ve never been that politically inclined,” said McTigue, vice president of a commercial real estate firm.
Last fall, she watched the Thomas-Hill hearings. At their conclusion, she joined EMILY`s List.
”When I actually saw the senators and heard how they talked and how they thought, I thought, `This is really scary,` ” she said.
”I just thought: Women make up half the population. Why are so few of us represented? It`s not like I consider myself a feminist. I just feel like we need more balance.”
Women at the fundraiser were still basking in the glow of Braun`s upset victory in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in March.
Ruth Nelson, an insurance claims handler from Wheaton, bragged that women in Du Page County gave Braun the victory.
”When I walked in (to the polling place), all the women were taking Democratic ballots,” she said.
”My mother thinks that she did it,” reported Ann Fisher, of downtown Chicago, who is deputy director of administration for the National Conference of Bar Examiners. ”She lives in Kane County. She`s 80 years old, and this is the first time she`s ever taken a Democratic ballot.”
Mindy Mailman, an advertising writer from the North Side, sighed with delight. ”Doesn`t that bring tears to your eyes?” she said.
Nancy Boughn, a sales manager for a cereal manufacturer who ran several Democratic state Senate campaigns in her native Minnesota, said she has given up her long-standing practice of donating money to the Democratic Party.
”I am only contributing to EMILY`s List,” she said. ”We have been ignored for too long by our own party.
”And the Republican women must be feeling the same way,” she said, pointing out that a similar group called WISH (Women in the Senate and House) List has been formed to channel donations to female Republican candidates who support abortion rights.
Grace Kaminkowitz, a political activist who attended fundraisers for both groups, said that Republican women donated $17,000 to WISH List at three fundraising events held in the Chicago area on a single day in May.
Said Hedy Ratner, a veteran activist and a sponsor of the EMILY`s List fundraiser, ”For the first time in my political life, and that`s 25 years, I feel that we are empowered.”
Carolyn Hodge-West, assistant comptroller of Illinois and a new EMILY`s List member, was enthusiastic, but noted that aside from Braun and her campaign aide, she didn`t see a single black person at the fundraiser other than herself.
”They need to diversify,” she said, adding that minority businesswomen could be an important source of donations.
Braun, who won the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate despite being outspent by her opponents, told the group that money is crucial.
At every campaign event, she said, ”the first question you got was, `How much money did you get? Are you viable?` ”
EMILY`s List candidates can get a lot of money and be extremely viable. Ann Richards has said she would not have been elected governor of Texas in 1990 if she had not received $400,000 from EMILY`s List members.
The group has raised $1.75 million this year, and expects to raise a total of $4 million by November, making EMILY`s List one of the larger political action committees in the nation.
But the network does not operate like a traditional PAC. Instead of giving donations to candidates the organization chooses, EMILY`s List sends members profiles of female candidates it supports. Members make out checks to candidates and send them to EMILY`s List, which passes them on.
”Candidates can really understand the impact of women constituents when they see, in the form of checks, the support of other women,” said political activist Julie Hamos, a co-sponsor of the fundraiser.
And because the checks are from individuals, EMILY`s List can produce more money. PACs can give no more than $5,000 to a candidate in an election. There is no limit on how much the checks from EMILY`s List members can total. ”This is a PAC for the `90s,” said Phil Sparks, a Washington-based media consultant. ”This kind of money will never be seen as special-interest money because of the way it`s raised.”
Malcolm and her staff in Washington choose candidates by interviewing them and their staffs and conducting voter surveys to see if ntum became clearer in the last week of the campaign, Malcolm said, EMILY`s List sent its own donation-the maximum $5,000.
Braun is on the network`s recommended list now. EMILY`s List members believe voter anger over the Thomas-Hill hearings will elect Braun and other women, and that the anger will not fade.
It is an assessment echoed by Joanne Johnson, a Chicago woman unconnected with EMILY`s List who had parked her car near the site of the fundraiser.
She said that several times every day, other motorists-men and women of all ages-honk their horns, give her a thumbs-up and point at the sign she has in her rear windshield.
It reads, ”I Believe You, Anita.”
