butter. first lady sarah polk and margaret taylor and abigail fillmore. first ladies. list president calls forsv more women to run for office. >> thank you so much for that incredible introduction. thank you for that. that was wonderful. thank you to american university washington college of law which

i just found out and i should have known was founded by two great women. i should have known that that was the case. i'm thrilled to be here and thank you all for joining us today. i'm the president of emily's list. now for 28 years emily's list has been focusing on creating a culture of women's leadership and has become the nation's largest resource for women running for office. now women's leadership in our country or the lack there of has become quite a popular topic of conversation these days. now, in fact, jennifer lawless right here at american university just released some new research that found young women were 20 percentage points more likely than men to have never considered running for office, 20 percentage points.

and now we are hearing people asking if women are leaning in enough. so why, why is there this gender gap in leadership? at the end of the day, all of these conversations tend to come back to the same two questions. is the problem the choices that women are making or are women facing system i can limits to the chases they can make? and i'm here to tell you that no matter what the original source of the problem is, you can fix both of those issues by having more women in public office. i'm not only -- not only do women in political office serve as role models for other young women and girls to follow in their footsteps, but they create

a country that is more conducive to developing women into leaders. at emily's list, we recruit, train, support and help elect democratic women up and down across the country. that might seem like a simple proposition. women are running today, women are winning today. but that wasn't always the case and it's still not happening at the rates we need it to. emily's list began in 1985 because three years earlier a woman by the name of harriet woods was running for united states senate in missouri and she was really close in the polls and was coming to d.c. to look for some financial help in the final weeks.

she was looking for $50,000 to run a week of television in the entire state and i can tell you that if you ask clara mccaskill right now, today that much money would get you about two days of television in st. louis. so harriet went to the unions, she went to the political caucuses, she went to the party and they all had the same answer, no. women can't win. and they let her run out of money and they let her lose by just 26,000 votes, less than 2%. so a group of women decided we're never going to let this happen again and they came together to build a network to finance women democratic candidates and that group of women became emily's list. they helped a woman become the first woman to win a democratic

seat in her own rights and we haven't stopped since. our impact is growing but we still have so far to go. in the united states ranks 77th in the world in the percentage of women in elected office, 77%. even iraq and afghanistan have a greater percentage of women in office than the united states. and today in 2013, our congress is less than 20% women. it's clear we have work to do. and no one is going to do it for us. as a young woman, i am honored to take on this challenge for

the next generations of women. i work every day to make sure that women have a path to leadership in politics because i know that it isn't a fight that we can take on our own. let's think about this. men have been building leadership networks in this country for say 250 years. women have really only been building those networks and have had the opportunity to do so in the last 40. and only in the last 30 years have we made changes in the law to open doors and break down those barriers across american society in law and business and journalism. and those networks, they start in rooms like these. they start by getting involved

and supporting each other when we take on challenges and opportunities. when we become the backbone of each other's new ventures and when we build our sisters up. when we recognize that all do better when we all do better. that is when we make progress. our mothers and grandmothers broke down doors for us so that we could get a seat at that table. now our job is to grab our sisters by the arms and bring them through those doors together. because it's not just about taking a seat at the table, it's about taking half the table. that's what emily's list does.

so much progress has been made for women in politics just in my lifetime and in yours. think about this: so emily's list was founded in 1985. barbara became a senator in 1986. nancy pelosi became the first woman speaker of the house in 2007. hillary clinton became the first woman to win a state presidential primary in 2008. these women ran and won in our lifetime. in my lifetime, because i have a few more years on you, we've tripled the number of women who have served in congress, tripled. and this last election cycle we had a historical number of women elected. and we saw the first women elected to the senate from

wisconsin hawaii, north dakota and massachusetts ever. the first congresswomen with combat experience, the first women to the senate, the first openly gay senator and three congresswomen under 40. the 113th congress has the greatest number of women ever. i can probably say that 59% of those women are emily's list candidates. but we are still only at 20%. and we still face challenges. i love to tell the story when barbara was first elected to the senate, i'm serious about this, there was no women's bathroom in the united states senate building. seriously she had to go to the office building across the street to go to the bathroom and

had to ask them to build a bathroom in the united states senate. that was in 1986. just to make this clear, we had mtv before there was a women's bathroom in the united states senate. in this year, the senator of minnesota announced that the women of the senate made history in an unexpected way. there was for the first time a traffic jam for the bathroom at the united states senate. so it is true, our numbers are growing. but men still outnumber us in congress, in the courts, in corner offices and corporate board rooms. and women still earn less than men doing the same job. and that's an issue that republicans have stone called, ignored. opposed called a nuisance and said we'll get back to you on that.

there are still politicians out there who are trying to make it harder for women to fight for fair pay. and that's to their detriment. emily's list polled independent women voters after the election and 78% of them ranked equal pay as the most important issue. and these weren't democrats and these weren't republicans, these were independent swing voters. so it's easy to is it in rooms like these and think that these issues affect other women. no, not us. that's just what the women of newsweek thought. so about 40 years ago the women at newsweek had to sue the magazine for the chance to be writers. so until that point, women at newsweek had been relegated to lower paying jobs, doing research, clipping stories,

checking facts. they could write, i love this part, they could write but they had to hand their work over to a male colleague to get it published. and only the men could be reporters and editors and only the men got the by lines. so the women gathered their colleagues together in secret and started with just a few and those few became a dozen and dozen became 46. and those 46 women hired the future congressional delegate eleanor holmes norton as their attorney. and they became the first women in the media to sue for employment discrimination under title 7 of the civil rights act. they sued and they won. but their story, like so many others, quickly faded away into

the history books. that was until 2010 when three young women also working at newsweek rediscovered it while they were writing a piece on fairness in the workplace, rediscovered it. and as they read the account of the women who came before them who worked so hard for so little credit, they saw how much had changed since the days when women in the newsroom were actually called news dollies. but they also saw how much hadn't changed. they talked to their colleagues and they heard similar frustrations echoing decades later. men had written all but six of the previous year cover stories. and more women had joined the ranks of the magazines mast head but only 39% of the leadership positions.

and here's the thing, because we are supposed to be living in a society where these battles have been fought and won, it can be harder to push for equality today than it was in the past. and it's not just equal pay. there are still men trying to legitimate access to our late acare.-- to legis ccess to our healthcare. men who let last end without renewing the violence against women act. letting the typically bipartisan bill expire for the first time since 1994. it's pretty clear to me a lot of members of congress just have the wrong priorities and the easiest way to solve that is to elect new members, new women to congress. because i don't know about you, but women have had enough playing defense.

and we aren't satisfied with just holding the line which we want to be on offense. we haven't been on offense for -- we have been on offense for centuries. i was so moved at his inauguration when president obama said the most evident of truth that is all of us are created equal is the star that guides us still just as it guided our forbearers through seneca falls and selma and stone wall. there is a reason that list started with seneca falls. women have been true leaders in -- in thes of freedoms. fights for qequal rights and freedoms. our fight didn't stop there. our that convention it took women 72 more years to get the

semneca vote.-- after falls, it took women 72 more yaers to get the right to vote. it took another 46 years to ensure that women would have access to birth control. and 8 more years after that to make sure women could always have access to safe and legal abortion. and as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of row v. wade, we've seen much more progress. in those 40 years, we've seen the gender wage gap decrease which we've seen women become the majority of college garage --tts and the number of women of college graduates and we've seen the number of women c.e.o.'s of fortune 500 companies from 2 to 21. so 40 years ago a woman had never been on a party's presidential ticket or on the united states supreme court.

almost every woman who had served in congress was filling the seat of her deceased husband. and now today, we have a congress with 98 women. the greatest number in history. and we've fought hard to get there. we have earned our seat at that table many, many times over. and now, now it's our turn to take our place at the head of the table. history has shown us the key to progress for women is getting more women involved in the fight. we need more women to run for office, to lead corporations, to be law partners. and we need to give them the training and the confidence to do so. now i was lucky. my coaching started at home in montgomery with a mom and -- montana with a mom and dad who

made sure i had the confidence to compete and win and lose. i was surrounded by strong women who let me try new things and guided my values and gave me strength. i found mentors and networks i built in the strong women at girl scouts and church and school in a town that knew that it took women and men working together to survive really cold montana winters and bad union strikes and devastating mine disasters. it really took lots to open up opportunities for all those women, laws that i took complete advantage of. i don't think there is a better example of advancing women's leadership than title 9.

as you know title 9 eliminated gender discrimination in school sports and opened up so many doors for girls in this doesn't in this country. not only does it advance women's leadership but the very existence of women's leadership has to thank for it. it only exist because of the tireless work of congresswoman from hawaii. as you can tell, i have height, i played basketball for the bulldogs. that was an opportunity that my own mother didn't have. playing sports for me taught me how much fun it is to win and i really do like to win. but it also taught me that you can learn a lot when you lose. and in the world of electoral politics i have to admit i'm reminded of those every day.

sports taught me that loss, political or athletic is not the end of the world. it's just the end of the race. and it made me less scared to take risk and take on challenges. we need women and girls in this country to feel like they can take on risk and try bigger things. and i also saw firsthand the importance of good coaching. getting the right advice at the right moment can change everything. i see that when i'm talking to women about running for office or getting ready to run for office or taking the next step in their political career. at emily's list we are always getting ready for the next class of women candidates. and we're really making sure

that we've got future campaigns ready to go. we've trained last cycle 1300 women to run for office around the country. and in fact, we've already training for 2014. we've training everyone from grandmothers to college garage --tts and from coast to coast. to college graduates and from cost to coastoast to coast. and at emily's list, we have the network to back these women up. now some of you may not know much about emily's list so here is the deal. we recruit and train democratic women to run for office which we help them staff up their campaigns with good strong teams. we provide the political know how, we turn out voters. and we use our nationwide grassroots network of good women and men who are with us in this to raise the funds they need to get the ads on television and gets boots on the ground.

now i've seen that network in action. one of my very first races i worked for this wonderful woman who was running for congress in minnesota. and she was an emily's list candidate. i still remember going to the post office every night to pick up the box and sitting in the campaign office and opening up envelopes with contributions and notes from emily's list members from all over the doesn't tri. and there were checks for $5, $50, maybe more from women i had never met and from places i had never been. and those checks and those notes said we're with you. we believe in you. we've got your back.

over 28 years, that network, our network of grassroots donors have done very big things. through direct mail and online support, we have helped fund the campaigns that have sent 19 women to the united states senate, 100 women to the house of representatives elects 10 governors and hundreds of women to state and local offices. and the emily's list community now has more than 2 million members. and that group of donors helped us raise $52 million to help women candidates in last year's historic cycle. they made the different for women running across the country. now one of my favorite stories is about this emily's list donor and it started about 25 years ago. she was this young mom living in

texas. and she got this letter from this group of women who thought it was a good idea to help women get elected and they asked for a little bit of money and she said this sounds like a great idea which she wrote a check and gave her first contribution to emily's list for about $25. about two decades later, that woman decided to run for office herself. and emily's list was the first place she turned to because she knew what emily's list stood for and what our community, our network could do for candidates which we stood with her every step of the way. and that woman who wrote that $25 check so many years ago. i think you may have heard of her. her name is senator elizabeth warren. that is emily's list. now i haven't always been at emily's list.

but i've been in the biz business -- business for a while as you've heard. i've been backstage at some concession speeches and i've helped make a few opponents give them. when i was that's emily's list. i have not always been that emily's list but i have been in the business for a while. i have seen a lot of polls, i have been backstage at some concession speeches. and i have helped make a few opponents give them. when i was managing campaigns, i did manage some pretty close once. i ran this brutal campaign for a dirt farmer from montana who is now director -- now senator jon tester. i got the call went out franken went run for senate in minnesota. but you may remember his victory came down to 312 votes. i know because he counted them all. the very close race with lots of attorneys involved, by the way. i know i said mary's was one of my first really the first campaign i ran were my own. these were serious campaigns

waged in the very competitive political environment of butte high school. i ran for class president. i lost many times. i decided i needed a new plan. my junior year, i thought i should run for student body president. it was not to my class building -- note entire school. just my class voting but the en tier re scvhoohool. i set out a campaign plan that solely targeted freshman and sophomore voters. this is key, i even got the younger sister of one of my opponents to join my campaign. and i won. and i learned my first campaign must then -- never underestimate the power of a younger sister.

there is a sister then there is sisterhood. we leverage that sisterhood every day at emily's list and we were to elect more women to city councils, state legislatures, congress, governors offices across the country. we do it for a good reason. democratic women have been the most progressive voting bloc in congress for the last 20 years. these women are not just voting on progressive issues. they are the driving force pushing policies that will truly make a difference for women and families across this country and half. from the environment to equal pay, from title ix to access to women's health care, it is clear that democratic women have had a

lasting and profound influence to our legislative outcomes. their impact is felt every day by american families. their leadership changes the conversation at the negotiating tables. senator joe brandt -- sentar gilibrand is a great story. she and women like at the gifford about supplies and personnel -- like senator deferred asked about supplies and personnel and mental health programs for returning veterans and support for military families. they change the conversation. that is a trend that goes back to the very first woman elected to congress. in 1916, jeanette rankin was the

first woman to win a seat in the united states house of representatives. that was three years to four women had the right to vote nationally. before she was ever elected to congress, she was a suffer just and a champion for women's rights -- she was a suffragist and a champion for women's rights. even her own fellow suffragists were concerned that a loss would roll the movement back. she was not scared. she took this on, she was well known, are working. she knew it was the right thing to do. she won. when she was elected to congress, she fought for the creation of the committee on

women's suffrage. when it was created, she was appointed to it. when the committee reported out a constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote nationally, it was jeanette rankin who opened the very first house floor debate on the issue. she looked around that house floor full of men and she said, "how shall we answer the challenge, gentlmen?? she was not afraid of a challenge. her goal in congress was not to just further herself but to bring even more women into the political process. she knew what we all know -- that women's voices at more dimension to the conversation. here is the thing, there is a place for any of your interest in politics.

there is a role for each one of you in my story. this is not an either/or situation. you can do this and you can do anything else you are passionate about. in fact, you must. we must. democracy depends on us to take responsibility for our communities. as women working on expanding this 40-year-old network that we have, it rest on our shoulders to bring each other to the tables of power. some of you may run for office. some of you better run for office. but all of you need to join me

in this cause. we have to capture opportunities for women as quickly as they arise. when there is an open seat, i will tell you emily's fifth -- emily's list is the first one they're looking for a candidate to run. and we have to be the first because it is not as easy to find his women as you might as to find these women w you might think. and because man, no offense guys, they do not need to be asked to run. there is this great piece of research that found that 85 or sense of men who self identify 55% of men who self identified as unqualified still considered running for office. women, we do not work that way.

women, the same research found, need to be asked a multitude of five -- of times before they run for office, it could take up to seven times to be asked to convince somebody to run. consider this your first ask. when you see your smart, well- qualified friends and think she should run for office, ask her. and then asked her again. you need to take on that attitude no matter what field you are in. i will tell you this -- if we don't throw each other's names into the mix, no one will. don't think that it just happens. so how shall we answer the

challenge? we will answer this challenge by working together. this is what our male counterparts do. this is the 150-year-old network they have built, working together. it does not mean a woman is always the best person for the job. that is not what i'm saying here but it does mean we have to think long and hard about which one of our sisters could be. that is what emily's list does

and that is my challenge to each of you. because there is nothing holding us back. but there is also no latter up for us except the one we build ourselves and the one we build together. the women at seneca falls learned that, the women at newsweek learned that, jeanette rankin learned that, i learned that. they knew that when faced with systemic problems, you can't look to someone else for help. you have to look in the mirror. nobody hands -- handed these women the chance to make a difference. nobody guaranteed them a pass for word. they went out and they fought for it. it takes courage to file that lawsuit that will attack the nation's attention. it takes courage to run for office.

it takes courage to do things when the path forward does not seem obvious. especially when the path forward does not seem obvious. stop waiting for the past two seem obvious. -- for the path to seem obvious. we have to strike out on an untraveled, knowing that in hindsight our journey forward will seem obvious. you have to find the motivation and the fact that with each new road we pave, we make it easier for the next women to take it. because progress is not made by an individual. and progress is not about advancing yourself and letting

the next women face the same hurdles on her own -- on their own. it is about making your way out and then reaching back and help the next women do the same. i know this -- if we want a woman president and the congress that looks like our country and feels like it belongs to us, we can't just hope that it's going to happen. we have to be willing to make it happen. we all went to the women at seneca falls and the girls at butte high school. beos to every woman who came before us -- we owe it to every woman who came before us and every woman that is going to follow. there is hard work ahead but i know we are up for the task. in every field, we must strive together to move forward together. that is how we build our network, that is how we move our country forward. and that is how we answer the challenge. i'm so glad to have all of you in this fight with me. thank you so much, i really do

appreciate being here today. thank you. [applause] >> some questions and answers from the audience. >> i would be thrilled. absolutely. no questions? i know that is not true. [laughter] >> i am a staffer and i've been getting your e-mails for for some time so it is nice to [inaudible]

as someone who is donated to emily's list, i was wondering if you have any opinion on the movement for fair elections on getting more women to run or making it easier for women to get elected. >> it is a great question. i wish we could be anyplace to say we've got campaign finance coming, reform coming and changes in our election law coming. i hope at least some of the

election law issues will be dealt with in the years to come with the commission the president has set up. on campaign finance reform in particular we have a problem. the problem is that the law set by the supreme court is right now pretty set. that means it is even more important right now for us to expand this network. when we look at the small dollar donors that come through emily's list, we have 2 million women and men who joined together in thousands who are giving their kids as a waitress and donating just a little bit, that is what is making this possible. that is how we are going to have to counter the situation we are in. this is not just for women.

candidates in general are up against huge amounts of money. we had elections last year where the candidate spending was the smallest piece of the election and the super pack spending with the bigger piece. the conversation i have now with women who are thinking about running is how much control do i have over my own election? it is a tough question. we have to figure out a way to engage the american people for that change. it is more important for us to keep the network expanding. sorry for the bad news on that but we're getting there. president obama has led the way on that, to which is been fantastic. it is about the power of individuals coming together and giving up five dollars, that's $50. i was the finance director for howard dean's residential campaign and that was really the first major explosion of online fundraising. it made his presidential campaign viable. nobody knew who this guy was until folks around the country said wait a second, i believe in this governor from the tiny state of vermont.

that was the beginning of it all. the american people can come together. >> i'm a professor here at american. i feel uplifted by having you speak. you mentioned the role of women in this struggle and picking up the challenge. i think -- i am wondering you can speak to the role men have in deconstructing the institutions that have been traditionally closed to women. >> i will not do. one of the things i mentioned, emily's list, all of you guys, we are not just women. there are men supporting. we have a very big increase of men joining emily's list because

there is such a clear recognition that when we have an equal number of women and men sitting at those decision-making tables, we are actually going to get the policies that are best for our communities and families. there is a growing understanding from everybody in the country that that is a big piece. as i challenge the women to think about who was the best for that job, i asked the man to do the same. who are the women you work with, you went to law school with that should be thought of in that mix? i really do mean and everything across the board. it is really important for us to think about how we make our businesses, our law forms and government -- our law firms and

government more representative of our nation. it is women and people of color. we are very far from having anything that looks like our communities. it is important for all of us to think about who can i put in there. you are also going to have to ask. there is a lot of research, i do not know how many have read sheryl sandberg's book yet, you should, it is a great part of this dialogue, but what you see if some of the research she highlighted. women will think i have 60% of the qualifications on this job description, therefore i am not qualified. if i do not have 100%, i am not going to do it. the research also shows that men look at that differently. well, i'll get the other 40% in the job.

i'll get on-the-job training. we do need to think about it a little bit like that. we hire great, young staff who are learning on-the-job. job. how many of us have learned on the job? that is kind of how the world works. so we have to talk to our sisters, men and women, we need to talk to our sisters about saying you can do this and give that encouragement. >> [inaudible] i was curious about your general strategy on getting more women on both parties -- from both parties devote.

>> the question was why they only work with democrats and what is a strategy to change that? i'll answer from two directions. the the first, the reason that emily's list is clear in its mission which is to elect democratic women to office, that we believe that the democratic party has and continues to support the policies that provide opportunities for women and families across the board. so that our our commitment to ensuring that women advance across all sectors and we feel the democrats have a better set of policies, particularly on economic issues but also important on healthcare issues. but you're right, we are never going to get to 50% of congress with just democrats. that is impossible. emily's list might be good, but we are not that good. we need the republican party to

do more. to do more about the lack of women's leadership. they have a handful of women coming up but the numbers, the proof is in the numbers in congress right now. we are continuing to see the lack of discussion by the republicans on this issue, just like we are continuing to see the lack of discussion about policies that affect women's lives in the republican party. they gave this big report about what happened in the election, an election that had a gigantic ender gap in the democrats favor, and they still have not changed any of their policies related to women and families and welcoming care about.

and they have the same polling we do. but they are not moving in that direction. i'm concerned and i hope that those republican women, particularly those pro-choice republican women, the same women involved in fighting for the era in the 1970's, come back, find their voice input pressure on the republic party -- find their voice and put pressure on the republican party. we have to change this. >> i am also a staff member at the journal here. i was wondering what you thought you mentioned a lot of areas where women are not equally represented. what do you think is the biggest challenge him a whether it is politics or gaining this ceo positions? >> i think the challenges are

equal everywhere. when i talk about the fact, when i say we have to grab each other's arms and push, we have to do it across the board. there are policies that need to be changed across the country that allows women and families it is not just women. there are men who are desperately looking for better family-friendly policies in this country to be more involved in their children. so we need to change some policies, definitely. but we also need to do -- to encourage our workplaces to look for opportunities to advance women's leadership. that is in corporations, law firms, politics, across the board. if you look at the numbers, i made the point that we had to

bang women ceos 40 years ago and now we have 21 of the fortune 500 companies. we are further behind on that front, we have 20 women in the senate area we have a long way to go. as you look at the upcoming leaders, there are good women and fairly senior roles that we need to encourage and put pressure on wherever we are to give this woman a chance to take the top job. it really does matter. we were looking at this at emily's list going into the next

few years. as one top job a woman has never had in this country, the one of president of the united states, and casey did not get that. and we thought -- in case you did not get that. and we thought how important it is to have women's executive leadership in the united states. i'm still there are conversations going on in corporate worlds and talking about partnership. we also need to talk about mayors running across the country. we have great women running in new york city and l.a. in wendy gruel. those cities have never elected women mayors. we have to explain why this matters and it does matter. then we have a whole chunk of governorship in the next two years, 38 that will be up for election and the next two years. we need to make the case that women in music second spots, it is not unusual -- women in these executive spots, it is not unusual. i wanted to be normal. we have to break through these barriers so will make it to 2015 and 16 and into the next presidential campaign, we can be

prepared nationwide to say it is our time to see a woman executive in the white house. there will be a woman running in 2016. i do not know who that woman is but there will also be women running in 2020 and 2024 and 2028. this is going to happen. we are going to elect a woman to the president of united eight. -- the united states. when that happens for the first time in our history, what that will do to inspire women and girls across the united states

and maybe even more so, the women and girls across the world to see a woman president of the united states. to me, that could change the dialogue on everything. it is really important that we think about doing this. we are going to have great women in line to do it. we will need your help on this because it is going to be a big ceiling to crash through. and it is time. >> and the executive editor of the journal of gender, social policy and the law. my question is, you talked about socializing women being more willing to put themselves out there and run for office.

it seems like there is this underlying problem that american culture believe that the five women -- that american culture really vilifies women carried -- women. this is especially true for women of color. how do we change society? how do we change the dialogue and get past that? >> that as a future question -- that is a huge question. i'm not going to suggest i have the answer. i have little bits of suggestions we can do. i think part of it is continuing to make inroads. the tone of she is too aggressive, the use of the words i'm going to use that word, now that there are 20 women in the

united states senate, i think there is a change about that. first off, not all women are the same. we are 51% of the population. to think that we are a special interest group is absurd. we kind of are the majority of the united states and of the world. so i think part of it is getting more women in their because then it becomes more normal. of course there are lots of women here and act differently because they come from different places and represent for people. but that is not all of the answer. we do have a culture that use pushing out this same sort of thing. we've got newspapers and tv journalists and entire news structures that like the controversy story.

the controversy story right away is fed by so and so said she's too aggressive, let's put that out there. we have a 24-hour news system that we cannot change. i think we just have to keep doing what we are doing. but i tell our candidates all the time who deal with this, you have to ignore it. the truth is more and more voters in this country don't see it like that. the more women that they see in leadership positions, the less likely they are going to see it the way that it is pushed out. i think we are on the right path, we just have to keep going down that road. i wish there was an easier way. but chains all the movies and all the tv -- no. not going to happen -- let change all the movies and all the tv -- no. not going to happen. >> it has been a lot of criticism about my generation

born post-roe. do you anticipate that being a problem for emily's list? how do you think that will affect things 10 years from now question mark is that a concern? like -- >> first off, the premise is even wrong. i hear that all the time, too. i just turned 40 so roe v wade and i are roughly the same age. i remind the mothers and grandmothers of the movement that you did not want us to have to go through that, that is what

you fox so hard -- why you fought so hard. we are under attack right now are particularly reproductive rights as i'm sure you talked about and read about in texas, alabama, virginia. this is very disconcerting, particularly for two generations who probably, i do not want to speak for you but i hope this was a fight to be one and we were moving onto other fights -- this was a fight we won and we were moving onto other fights. as i look forward in getting women to run for office, the pure mission of emily's list is to elect pro-choice democratic women. the democratic party in their platform is pro-choice. begin a have to many issues with many women who come to us -- we

do not have many issues with women who come to us who are not. we have so much generate -- energy that i think we will see it grow. it will not be based just on the issue of choice it on the issue of women's leadership. i'm counting on a partnership with the millennial generation to push a lot of this old thinking out the door. just as we are pushing out the door the question on whether or not marriage equality should exist. i really believe we can do that this next phase and say this -- let's move on. let's talk about moving forward and not sending us women back to the 1950's. please do not put me in the kitchen.

you do not want me in the kitchen. it will not be a good anchor it it will not be a good thing. [laughter] there is a huge opportunity to work together. whatever wave of the women's movement is coming next, let's ake it about all of us moving and taking charge of our communities, of our states, and of our country and together get the policies that we want moving forward not ackward. i think we will see a good time, i really do. >> my name is peter. i am a member of the law review. i wanted your thoughts -- senator portman put his views on marriage equality -- flipped is views on marriage equality. where are the women around men

and the legislator hearing the voices around him? there must be women in those families that don't feel the same way. how do you unsilence those voices? >> that is a really good question. let me start with the fact that i think we are up against -- he republican party the last couple decades have think of themselves -- have anchored themselves with an anti-choice genda driven by the very

conservative christian coalition. what that means to the elected republicans is that is the core f small dollar donors. so it is money, and the core of activist, which you need particularly in primaries. the problem right now of why we saw it backwards movement in the last three years is that

there has been this taking over the republican party from the far right, particularly on this issue, that are holding everybody to a place where they cannot move. they cannot even talk about it. they seem to not be able to talk about it. f they could, the republican national committee would be addressing it right now because they just lost an election, the largest gender gap ever. how we start changing that conversation, coming together and trying to energize all of those independent women and those moderate republican women, the olympia snowe's of the world, to say enough already. we have to start voting again on this issue. i think that as part of the conversation. planned parenthood of looking at the center -- looking at it is really scary.

we have to talk to women voters around the country and we did this with great success last year about whether that's fake and what really does happen when the wrong people are making the laws -- about what's at stake and what really does happen when the wrong people are making the laws. e need to mobilize our membership and women across the country to get involved in supporting candidates who will upport them. started at emily's list three years ago. i had no idea that -- the storm that was going to come shortly

after 2010. it has gotten so bad, we have folks who without question and the republican party talk about reproductive rights and say here can be no exception, even in cases of rape and incest. while i was running campaigns in the 1990's that was understood as an exception and now it is the line. the republican party has really moved right on this effort democrats, it is an opportunity to talk to women across the country. and not just women. men get this. this -- these are their sisters, girlfriends, wives. we have to keep pushing forward. there is going to be more more conversation about this. it would be interesting to see what happens when one of these laws that just went into effect becomes a case which will

happen and is already happening nd will be shortly -- slowly but surely making its way to the supreme court. they want to see if they can make a challenge here. though the weight has been in the law for 40 years -- roe v wade has been in the law for 40 years. ok. harley -- come on down. -- are we, come on down? >> i am a professor. d.c. value -- do you see value in places where they do not have chance of winning, like in the nebraska. > i'm curious about that one

too. this is what we look at. it is all about resources and ow many resources do we have as an entity, emily's list, or a party to focus question mark you start playing on the margins and go after the districts you can get the new leave those district behind that you have no chance in getting. the problem in doing that is hen there is no conversation about the issues. this happens on both sides. it is really trying. politically speaking, we don't have the resources to play in safe states. were districts. -- or distrcits. -- or districts. f we had a strong democratic

woman to run for the united egg senate and nebraska, we should talk afterwards, we would take a look at the viability of the candidate, the campaign about the numbers are, is there a path to victory and an issue playing to move independents and republicans question mark --and republicans? can you get it done? the state the big problem is the redistricting of congressional and legislative seats. his is a huge problem. there have been seats that are so gerrymandered that it would

take a gigantic scandal for whoever is in that district to lose their seat. so much so that you get in here then you win it and the problem is someone who is not scandal ridden will run against you in the next election and you lose the seat. e are talking about seats that are 38% democratic performance, 40%. those are almost impossible to win unless something really does happen. a lot of house seats on this country, on the democratic column, and the republican column, and then the group, here is fewer and fewer.

you will not see a huge swings in the house of representatives and the next eight years. you will pick up a few here and there. we might be able to pick up 18 and get the majority back. because there are all these safe seats. the other problem is that no one has a resource -- the voters in there are all republicans or all democrats. on top of it, it is a great way to protect incumbents. who are the incumbents? in most places, they happen to be, some of them really good people, but they are typically white men. how do you as an outsider, a woman or a person of color, get into those seats even when they re safe seats? we are better off in this country and in our democracy

with more competitive house seats. if we had more competitive house seats in mississippi and alabama, where we actually talked about the issues every two years, we actually have a shot at a statewide race down the road after a couple campaigns because we have been talking about what both parties stand for. we are not close to that now. one of the things we need to think about for the future of diversifying our congress and legislatures is this issue -- how do we handle redistricting in this country? i don't have an answer but this is something all of you should be involved in. because it is getting worse and

worse and it is not good for the country. with that, should we -- more questions? well that's great. thank you also much. it was really a pleasure. i look forward to reading the journal. it sounds like you have a fantastic set of panelists and peakers throughout the >> a look at the advancements nd challenges of arab women. >> on the next "washington

journal" a political round ble on the issues facing congress. a look at the state of the u.s. ousing market. and the latest developments on north korea. live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on -span. >> where is the predict ability. what are the insurances that this committee and the senate has as to where you'll be given the background and the history? >> a fact that as a teenager and in my early 20's that i was a socialist hardly indicates instability. because winston churchill says any man who is a socialist before he's 40 has no heart and

after he's 40 has no head which i think that kind of evolution is common in people. >> of those two characters you saw, one was the ion sign the of the law and the other was the ion sign the of the senate. >> he was one of the toughest to lobby on anything which he did his homework. he studied. bork was smarter than any in a lot of ways. he taught anti-trust law. he wrote the book at yale. they were passing like two trains. never did they come together on anything. >> more with former deputy assist tonight president's nixon and ford sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's q&a. >> the last two years have seen