Thursday, April 25, 2013

Women with Wendy


Wendy Greuel has been a leader for women all her life.

The campaign launched Women with Wendy as a way to engage women on the issues that matter most to us and to reach out to women about the importance of electing Wendy as the first woman mayor of Los Angeles.

With Election Day less than a month away, we need to lead the charge and help push Wendy over the top on May 21.

That's why women from all across Los Angeles are participating in a "Women's Night of Action" on Tuesday, April 30 to help spread the word about Wendy and this historic election.

Can you host a house party and invite your neighbors and friends to join you at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday?

By hosting a Women with Wendy house party you'll be able to join Wendy -- and other house parties from all over Los Angeles -- for a live online video discussion at 6:00 p.m. on how women can make a big impact in this race.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to hear from prominent women leaders about electing our first woman Mayor -- and when the video chat is over, we're going to call other women in Los Angeles to get out the vote.

So sign up to host a house party, and then pass this email on to a mother, daughter, sister, or friend in your life to make sure she gets involved, too:

http://www.WendyGreuel.org/Womens-Night-of-Action

With a city council that could be made up of only men, Wendy will bring a strong and needed woman's voice to be LA's first woman mayor in the city's 163-year history.

Let's make history,

Lindsay Bubar
Political Director
Wendy Greuel for Mayor

P.S. After you sign up, someone with the campaign will contact you to make sure you have all the materials and information you need for your house party.

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Can't host an event, but want to help? Donate $5 or more to help make history on May 21.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Getting Your Voice Heard: How to Lobby Your Elected Officials

Friday, April 19, 2013

4:00 to 6:00 p.m.

Pasadena Hilton Hotel

168 S Los Robles Ave, Pasadena, CA, 91101


with

Lisa Mizrahi Kaado
Vice President for Education and Training, NWPC


Getting Your Voice Heard: How to Lobby Your Elected Officials

Be an effective advocate for your cause. Elected officials are public servants sworn to serve the public good. In order to do this, they need to hear from...well, the public. Learn how to establish a productive dialogue with your legislators. Raise awareness, help shape legislation, and hold their feet to the fire.

 

  • What does it mean and how do you do it?
  • Who do you contact and how do you find them?
  • Crafting your message: what, how, and when to say it
  • LTE campaigns
  • ERA packet: Sample scripts and letters, sample press releases

 

Stepping up to Leadership

Join the women of NWPC on the front line in the fight for women's rights. The hard-won victories of the past are facing serious threats and the advancement of women's rights is anything but assured. Be part of the force that refuses to lose ground on the issues that affect our very lives. Learn how to organize and lead women in your community to effectuate real and lasting social change.

 

  • Who we are and what we do
  • Structure and organization
  • How to get involved: starting a local chapter or joining the board
  • Recruitment and membership
  • Sample programs and flyers

 

Registration fee $10

Free for NWPC members

Register today email info@nwpc.org or phone 202-785-1100

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

An all-male City Council?

An all-male City Council?

It's entirely possible Los Angeles will soon have a City Council with no women.

Los Angeles City Elections 2013 - Los Angeles Timesby Jim Newton
April 1, 2013


Imagine if Los Angeles, with a population that is roughly half Latino, had just one or even no Latinos in elected office. There would be protests and political recriminations in every election cycle. There would be lawsuits and threats of lawsuits. The Justice Department would be scrutinizing voting procedures.

But Los Angeles is half female, and it is quite possible that in a few weeks, its 18 elected officials will include not a single woman. It would be the first time since 1968 that the City Council was all male.

"Shame, shame," said Laura Chick, the first woman ever to hold citywide elected office in Los Angeles, a breakthrough she achieved with her victory in the 2001 controller's race. Today, Chick is retired from public office but continues to work to elect women throughout the state.

Granted, it's possible that Los Angeles will not return to an all-male leadership. Ana Cubas is a candidate for the 9th District council seat currently occupied by Jan Perry, so that seat could remain in the hands of a woman. There are also two strong female candidates, Cindy Montanez and Nury Martinez, in the special election to replace outgoing Councilman Tony Cardenas, though that field includes four men as well. And, of course, Controller Wendy Greuel is in the runoff against Councilman Eric Garcetti to become the next mayor.

But at least 13 of 15 council seats will be filled by men after July 1. The city attorney will be a man, as will Greuel's successor as controller.
Does it matter?
"Absolutely it makes a difference," Chick said. "Our brains are different. We have different perspectives.... There's something terribly wrong with this."
Lots of people agree. I spent a recent afternoon with Cubas touring her district. We dropped in on a park where some young men thanked her for goading the city bureaucracy into installing benches where they can play cards and dominoes (Cubas is a former chief of staff to Councilman Jose Huizar, so she knows what levers to pull). We heard from supporters who talked of trash and jobs and safety. Cubas outlined her ideas for converting abandoned warehouses into a biotech corridor and for capitalizing on the creative and economic potential of USC, by far the largest enterprise in the 9th Council District, which stretches south from downtown to Watts.

As we talked with potential voters, over and over they said the same thing: They like that she's a woman. I asked one group of supporters why they were backing Cubas. The very first answer, delivered in Spanish: "First of all, because she is a woman." Others nodded in agreement, and one added, "Women are more able to understand change that is needed for children."
The city's sudden dearth of women in public life represents a startling setback. The first woman elected to the council was Estelle Lawton Lindsey, a socialist who was elected in 1915. She used the office to rail against billboards, a remarkably current topic.

She had enemies, though, including this newspaper, which described her behavior during the billboard campaign in 1917 as "agonized heroics and blasphemous melodrama." She had, one writer concluded, "laid herself on the altar of public ridicule." She was gone in two years, and no other woman was elected to the city office until 1953, when Rosalind Wyman won a seat on the City Council.

In my early days of covering Los Angeles government in the 1990s, there were four women on the 15-member council: Chick, Rita Walters, Ruth Galanter and Jackie Goldberg. In 1997, they were joined by Cindy Miscikowski. Parity began to seem possible, if not imminent. Then, abruptly, those trends reversed. Chick, Galanter, Goldberg and Miscikowski all were replaced by men. Today, Greuel and Perry are the only two elected women in Los Angeles, and both will vacate their current jobs this summer.

Despite that, there seems little attention — or concern — about the evaporating place of women in local government. Private polls show that Greuel's attempts to energize female voters by emphasizing that she could become the city's next mayor have little resonance with the electorate.

How did this happen? Some say women are more reluctant to engage in the nitty-gritty of politics — the fundraising and deal-making that are distasteful but necessary to win. Others suggest that some women don't see life as an elected official compatible with family life.

Chick agrees that those are factors, but she offers a more sobering possibility. Women, she says, are more often drawn to politics by the opportunity to accomplish something rather than the satisfaction of their egos or their quest for power. Looking at the problems of Los Angeles gives them pause.
"I'm so saddened by it," she said. "But women take a look at what's going on and decide they don't want a part of it."

Jim Newton’s column appears Mondays. His latest book is "Eisenhower: The White House Years." Reach him at jim.newton@latimes.com or follow him on Twitter: @newton_jim.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Support Anna Cubas for City Council

JOIN NWPC in Supporting Anna Cubas*



*Noting: Anna Cubas has been endorsed by the NWPC Metro chapter. 

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