Just 24% of Officials In Congress Are Women. That’s a Problem We Can Fix.
Sometimes you just don’t notice organizations doing extraordinary things. They can be right under your nose. And then suddenly you do. That happened to me this week with Vote Run Lead.
Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington (April 2019)
Not enough women hold elected office
There are lots of reasons why we don’t fully acknowledge and appreciate nonprofits doing incredible work -- we don’t have the time, we’re wrapped up in other issues, and the most didactic reason being that we don’t understand the problem being addressed or the positive impact a solution can have on broad audiences. That’s what happened this time.
Women running for public office. I never really thought about it as an issue. The obvious reasons for that are because I never wanted to run for office, I know very few people who have ever seriously considered running for office, and I’m not a woman. None of those are valid reasons for me to ignore the obvious -- that everyone in America will be better off when women hold (at least) their fair share of elected offices. And by that, I mean at least half.
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The only way to change that is to train more women to run for office
That’s where Vote Run Lead comes in. They are a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization that trains women to run for office. And win. Yup, based on their record they have every right to say “train and win.” When I met recently with their founder and CEO, Erin Vilardi, she shared that 70% of candidates trained by Vote Run Lead win. Damn!
Not only does training by Vote Run Lead work, but it also scales. Over 30,000 female candidates have been trained by Vote Run Lead since they began in 2014. Damn again!
Vote Run Lead doesn’t care what political party a potential candidate supports; any woman running for any of the over 500,000 elected offices we have in this country can be trained by them. During my discussion at New York’s Civic Hall with senior members of the Vote Run Lead team, I pressed them to confirm that they are truly party agnostic. “We will train any woman candidate. Period” said Erin Vilardi. With just 8 of the current 53 Republican Senators being women, I got the impression from Erin that her team is actually itching to train and see more women run on behalf of the GOP.
As with many social problems, there are many reasons why women are underrepresented in public office -- some of them dating back to the 19th Amendment (if not before). The mission of Vote Run Lead is to eliminate many of the cultural and systemic blockers that discourage women from running. “We believe that by empowering women to run as they are, they will build a campaign based on their own passion, their own ideas, and their own values. And these campaigns will win.”
It’s been said that all politics is local, and if that’s true, my politics is relatively well represented by women. For more than 30 years, my District has been represented by Ms. Nita Lowey. She doesn’t just represent us, she is beloved by us. In 2018, when she was already 81 years old, we reelected her by an 88% to 22% margin. As Chair of the House of Appropriations Committee, Ms. Lowey is one of the most influential members of Congress.
Everyone out there should be seeking a more gender-balanced pool of elected officials. I have just two messages: 1) Encourage the women around you to run for public office. State legislator, Congress, local school board -- every office matters; and 2) send them to Vote Run Lead for inspiration and guidance.
Donations to Vote Run Lead are tax-deductible and can be made at voterunlead.org. For more information please visit their website or contact the author at CoolestCharity.org
