comes to voting rights. we also f perspective cannot walk away from this mike without talking about trayvon martin and what is going on in my hometown. i am from the g florida, i know everybody has been there on your vacation list. it's 20 minutes from sanford, florida. i have cousins there. so the issue of criminal justice, young people if they didn't get why they're going to vote this time it's going to be around justice issues so we have young people coming together around the banner of the black youth vote focusing in on making sure young people really fully engage around the issue of justice what they're calling vote for justice campaigns this year. we have our target the issue of jobs, unemployment, under employment. so there is a major focus for our target around under employment and under employment

especially around our young people. a big focus for us is goin vtin. we know that those who don't believe in inclusion have done a very good job in they look at who voted where. how they voted. they looskd ked at the fact we d on sundays in florida is alway doing something. anything wrong you see --n fighting. all you got to do is keep fighting so we have to keep fighting but we know there is someone -- there are some folks who got in a room we weren't invited to and studied that vote and they looked to see, how do we vote? how did that turnout get so high among women? how did that turnout get high among african-americans and other people of color? how did we make sure that even from the -- when it came down to seniors and looked at these things and the folks -- the newspaper tells you who it is.

alec made a -- did a good job not a healthy job of making sure they found a way to exclude. so it's about -- talking about the 99%, arlene talked about that, but it's about those who want to have it all and those who want to be sure others don't get a little bit and so the reality is we're in that kind of a fight and so for us, the voting rights issues are threefold. we know the lawyers are doing everything they can. we know the legal communities, the justice department is but we also have to have a street fight as far as those who have to make sure they know what to do when it comes to their voting rights. some of them have to go to jail. some have to go to jail and fight for our voting rights. we just saw that march and if we know why that happens, they're people who die. am i wrong? o went to jail and did what they had to do. what are we willing to fight

for? what i love about ellie is she t toot afraid to fight. know you're ready we either make some noise that we're ready to fight, can we say we're ready to fight? thank you, baby. being organized or we haveat we have table, women from ten states who came together and we brought the young ladies with us.rls so th could learn about how all of this works. we have our youth training next week. we're organizing and getting ready for the fight. we'll focus on a hundred thousand new black women as youth, the biggest thing around voting rights and to make sure we are prepared. faye anderson is somewher there's faye. we have the cost of freedom act we're about to saying that righ? the cost of fact.

kirsten is down there with moms rising. we actually have had an act to try to give people information they need to know what to do when it comes to theerou take ai getting close to my time? okay. south carolina, for instance, people say why not get an i.d.? well, the problem is talk about someone who is a season -- i'm getting more close to the season so seasoned -- is that, you know, yout was in the bible. the bible got lost. everybody has it. certificate. you know? so when it comes to that classism, when you look at issues like that, well i have an i.d. so you should be able to have one. the reality is it's not that simple.we know we have to help who have to get an i.d. we're not acquiescing. there is no way the voting rights act doesn't impact all 50

at started now, now, now and organ get those who have to get i.d.s to get those i.d.s and fighting through thee women can push back on the unjust laws that we do so. so it is about rpower, power to assisted vote and all of you. melanie, thank you. thank you. our next moms rising organization. actually i mean she is the executive director and cofounder. please welcome kristen roe. >> thank you. i'm honored to be here today. i'll start out by saying i love soccer. i love watching bothle e ball down the field. i love pulling on each of my five lays of clothing and

standing on the sidelines. i absolutely 100% love soccer. but i'm not a, quote, soccer mom, end quote. as some political commentators have defined me. and neither are the tens of millions of moms across the country just like me. why you might be wondering do i take such issue with the soccer mom? it's because the very idea of the soccer mom when used in the political context brings an image of a mom who is standing on the sidelines, on the sidelines, being left out of an important game. and we modern moms are most definitely in the game. we're off the slinls. unlike the moms of 1996 when the

soccer mom moniker was born because of new technologies today we are now powerfully networked. we are networked moms. watch out. let me run some numbers by you to give you an idea of what i'm talking about. of the 40 million moms in our nation with kids under age 18, 37 million of them will be online by the end of this year. i want to give you an idea of the reach you have utilizing the motherhood framework in this upcoming election. you've been sitting a while so that everyone who is a mom, please stand. just briefly do a little stretch. now would everyone who is ever at any point in their life had a mother take a moment and stand? all right. we have a movement. we're talking everyone with belly bns sit down. who are these network moms? who is online down these days? according to the u.s. census

bureau in 201177% of blacks, 76% of whites and 72% of english speaking hispanic are reading their news online. what we're talking about is a very different landscape than in 1996 when the soccer mom moniker came into the scene. internet use and access has been yronnect to network to create our own news has been asinowy powerful force that cannot be ignored. increased internet access coupled with the new communication technologies likes allows women to reach hundreds, thousands, even millions of other women with a quick click of a button. this has important repercussions for the upcoming elections. it is an unbelievably fast moving tool that accelerates communication, education, organizing, most importantly, impact. what we're talking about here is

women, whose issues haven't been regularly addressed by the traditional media during own me. frankly we don't have to wait for reporters to come to us anymore and cover our issues because we can go now straight to the huffington post for example which now has more readers than the "new york times." we are creating our own blogs and writi aprioty issues and weg to be doing that in the upcoming elections. we can also importantly bring forward critical issues online that have way too long been ignored. those critical issues which actually can also impact the outcome of elections. for example, we can use issues and bring them up like paid sick days where 67% women can know where they stand on paid sick days will determine whether they vote for them. ge candidates stand is important. let me give you a number to back up the idea that many women are reading blogs. 36 million women are now

actively participating in the blogosphere either writing their own blogs or reading their own blogs. that is a significant number. that is a revolution. we women are creating. we are creating a powerful media force. not only have we made our own media through the proliferation of highly trafficked blogs but we're networked together. we can have a being together online and that impact is had on leaders at every level, candidates, and traditional media reporters. the question here, is this changing the political landscape for the election? the answer is, most definitely. take for example the recent case of the komen foundation's near defunneleding of screenings at planned parenthood. there fro women and a domino effect of friends telling friends that the defundin reversed

komen brand will never likely be the same. or take for example the recent internet furor over the absence of women's voices at the congressional hearing on contraceptive coverage. maybe you could have gotten away with excluding women ten years ago but today when you can put a photograph on an internet and have it spread from friend to friend and go viral you cannot do that any more. never again. elected leaders and candi need to take no ignore networked women at your own political peril. but how does that relate to the elections? first let me tell you a tiny bit about moms rising. it's a multi cultural, online and on-the-ground organization fighting to increase economic security for families, to decrease discrimination against women and mothers, and to build a nation where bothies can thri.

one of the biggest hurdles remaining for the modern feminist movement is that we have to break down the maternal wall so that women can even get to the glass ceiling in the first place. it's time to break down that wall. together, we can do this. our members are young mothers to grandmothers. they come from every state in the nation both rural and ural economic diversity of families that is our country. in addition to being a grass roots organization, moms rising is also now a media outlet in our own right with over 650 bloggers and a blogging and social media readership reach estimated at over 3.5 million readers. "forbes" recently named r wen, but a top website for women for the second year in a row. and moms rising, we are ramping campaign. we are ramping up our voter registration, our voter education, and engagement and our get out the vote programs.

and our moms vote program wiili to both register and engage voters and importantly also to let women know what identification they need to bring with them to the polls because who changes their name more than any other? it's mothers. right? this is important. this impacts us all. so another thing i want to bring up is that in the busy clutter and noise of modern family life, what is breaking through? what is breaking through for us to hear each other, for us to hear news, and for us to organize? it's the words and actions of our friends and family. and that's breaking through on social media. so while sometimes we flippantly say oh, that's kind of fun. facebook, you're showing what you had for breakfast. it is actually an important powerful political tool. the personal is political. right? that hasn't changed. so how many of us skip reading the papers some days because we're just too busy but then we

find ourselves reading some bizarre link that a friend has posted on facebook which leads us to taking an interesting action that we never would have before? it's pretty much all of us, his right now is to harness that curiosity, to engage voters in the 2012 election. and now that more and mto each these efforts are more and more critical. women and mothers' votes matter. we all know this have to say it again. our votes matter. as a reminder, i want to tell everybody that in the last presidential election, both married and unmarried children helped determine who was the president by voting for obama. 51% of married women with kids voted for obama and 74% of married, unmarried women with kids voted for obama. moms, that's moms -- moms' votes matter. thankfully, the women's movement, we, together with the coalition and a number of groups

working together have an unbelievably new, fast moving tool to unite us and have our impact be maximized're able to in record time. what i want to say is that everyone here should leave and that.sure you've done three everyone here should get your own facebook page, your own twitter handle, and make sure you have access to a blog where you can post your ideas. for those of you who represent organizations, i want to say h engage power of strategic use our own constituencies together and grow the power of the entire women's movement in ways that were previously unheard of, in ways that we're doing through her votes. so at moms rising we've seen first hand how by supporting other organizations we're actually supporting our own niz. we are truly stronger together. we can all leverage these tools together, so right now in this room we are calling on the power

of american women for real economic and health justice for all in the 2012 election. i want to say that i want everybody here to leave this room knowing that media outlet. r youown media outlet. and i want everyone in this room to remember, some elections, el are won or lost by fewer votes than the average person has friends on facebook. every vote matters. we in this room can bring women's voiceswe c end discrimi against women and mothers. we can have an impact, a significant impact on the outcome of the 2012 elections at all levels. it's not time to roll back women's rights as some are suggesting, not naming any names. it is most certainly not time to sideline women. we don't want to be on the sidelines anymore and we are not.

it's time to roll forward. and candidates need to take note that we are rolling forward. we're off the sidelines.olve in 2012 elections. thank you. >> you' about the voter mobilization plans both on the ground and online and in the courtroom. i'd like to now introduce terry o'neill, president of the national organization for women, and we're actually, i think, following going to be able to take a couple questions. so, terry, please join me at the podium. terry o'neill. good afternoon everybody. i am just thrilled to be take

lot of time. i think i want plenty of time for questions and answers. i do want to thank kathy and kristin, the ms. magazine, feminist majority, moms rising are taking the lead in the her votes coalition. they've done an amazing job. thank you. those blog carnivals that her votes is doing are really fun and i encourage all of you, go to her votes.us. get engaged with the blog carnivals. they're really neat. we'll see more of them and more things going on as well through her votes as we approach the election. the national organization for women is engaged for this entire year leading right up to the 2012 elections in a massive voter education and mobilization project because we know that we have to get the word out to women about what is at stake this year. this really is a pivotal year

for women. somebody gwh the women's vote - think, melanie, you gave statistics as to wh 2008. 64% of women voted in 2008 versus 57% of men. in 2010 those mb voting plummeted. that's the word defused by the noted pollster sheechlt sa. she said plummeted is exactly the right word. when women did not get out and vote in 2010, what was the result? the tea party. the tea party. a virtually unprecedented war against women. tea party-elected officials flooded into the united states congress and into the state legislatures. in many states taking over all three governing bodies -- the house, the senate, and the governorship in many states.

what is the result of that? well, for one thing we have seen the sorry and pathetic spectacle of a panel of men considering contraception and announcing to the world unashamed that contraception is not about women. that contraception is about the religious sensitivity of some extremist religious zealot men. that is what we learned from women not voting in 2010. what else did we see? we saw a man who is so empowered that none other than david frum, a former official in the george w. bush white house declares that this man is the most feared man in the republican party and that man's name is rush limbaugh. this arrogant, empowered man

spends three hours for three days to excoriate a young law student who offered testimony to the united states congress about what birth control actually means for women. one of the things i really loved about watching sandra fluk give her testimony when carolyn maloney arranged to have her be able to give testimony to congress, she was asked, what is your qualification for talking about birth control? this is what she said. i'm a young woman who uses birth control and that makes me an expert in my health care. the thing is when she said that she empowered every single woman in the country to stand up for el have a certain experience and that does make my qualified to have a say in the national policies this country talks

about things that affect . amaz moment of empowerment. one of the consequences of women not voting in01 is the empowerment of the tea party folks. they are so powerful now that did you notice that mitt romney has never, to this day, condemned rush limbaugh's attacks on sandra fluk? day after day when rush limbaugh demands to see videotapes of sandra having sex and mitt romney says the words slut and prostitute were not the words he would have chosen. as somebody said what would you have said, lady of the night? that would have been an okay word? rick san form, the number two candidate for the presidency of the united states and the republican party defended rush limbaugh's abuse of this young woman. that is where we have come to.

that is what is at stake for this year's election. either of those two men could become the nominee for the presidency of the united states and make no mistake the folks trying to defeat president obama are exceptionally well funded and exceptionally well prepared. as melanie said, to suppress our vote. and we have to be ready to let that happen. i want to throw in one thing about the other aspect on the war in women is extremely important. today the house is scheduled to vote. the vote may already have taken place on what is known as the ryan budget. have you all heard about that?s chair of the house budget committee, has come out with a budget for 2013 that medicare, forces people out of traditional fee for service medicare into the for profit insurance system that will cost on average $6,000 more to everyone on medicare.

that's what it will cost if paul ryan has his way. it cuts medicaid as kathy said more than 50% of medicaid dollars go to support nursing homes in this country. and the vast majority of residents of nursing homes are women and make no mistake if those medicaid cuts go through possibly thousands of nursing homes around the country will be forced to shut down. social security. the ryan budget attacks social security and calls for future cuts in social security benefits and the ryan budget also calls for slashing an entire range of social programs like after school programs and head start and family planning clinics. all of those programs would be cut. all of these things disproportionately serve women. and something that we're often not wabe is that all of these programs disproportionately employ women. when you cut theseen ot of work.

so tough on he so-called women because at the state and local level governments are cutting back and cutting back and that means that women are losing their jobs. and today, more than half of women are either the sole source of their family or an essential source of income for their family. families cannot afford for women to lose these jobs. that is incredibly important. the ryan budget does not make all of these cuts so as to not even close. instead what he wants to do is take all the savings from cutting these programs and use the savings to increase military spending and to enhance tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest people in this country. that is what is at stake in the 2012 election. we let another year go by like 2010 and we'll see even worse.

we have to be stop that. weeks ces of good news. ago. the afl-cio executive committee at its annual meeting orul reso support of birth control for women and we were thrilled. but when i was a sentence in their statement about birth control where the executive committee of the afl-cio said w around the country and these ttacks on working families a disproportionate impact on women and we are not to stand for it. that's coming from the labor anh them and 're going to win because we are all going to work together. the one thing i want you all to do as you go back home and work

to organize your communities, organize your friends, get them engaged in voter education and mobilization is this. talk to the candidates. make sure the candidates know how to talk about these issues that so disproportionately impact women. if the candidates are talking about women, honestly if you scratch the surface of almost every issue facing us today, scratch the surface just a little bit what you'll find is a disproportionate impact on women. get the candidates to talk about how this impacts women and you will find that women say to themselves, ooh so that person actually cares about me, actually understands what is m . maybe this is someone not only that i should vote for but someone i should volunteer for and whether i should decide political engagement actually matters in my life. it is not just a football game. it actually matters becausehe

reality of my life and they are recognizing the struggles thatin to mobilize the women. we've got to get the candidates to talk about the women so that we can mobilize them. if we are working together and have -- and recognizing the impact of all of this on women, we will win in 2012 and i look forward to that. thank you so much. >> i want to thank terry not only for today but because she has been doing a magnificent job on "the ed show" talking about the war on women. it's always great, very strong voice. as people are making their way to -- i have microphones set up. we have people lined up. let me say two things. 17% buttons. get them and wear them. this is to remind people that we are only 17% of the united

states congress so that when those hearings are held, when the votes are taken, when the debate is happening we're only 17% of the voices ever heard. it's not enough. we want to say it's not enough cwestantly remind people that we are terribly under represented in the halls of congress and at the decision i'd also like to quickly say if you want more information on some of the key issues at stake we have a book. u can get it on the ms. magazine website. it's called "your voice your vote." it's by martha burke who is here in the room with us. it takes a look at all of these issues and i urge you not only to study up because being able to debate them and talk about them to your networks but also visit the her votes.us website.