Groups want more women in elections
Workshop hosted to encourage running for office, give tips
After she successfully started a parent-teacher organization in 2012 at her fifth-grade son’s Alief school, Candace Ferreira started getting questions about what she planned to do next.
Ferreira has pondered the inquiries for a few years, wondering if her next step is to run for local political office, never quite throwing her hat into the ring.
“I always look for ways to make things a little more efficient, more effective, so it’s just a natural way for me to get involved,” said Ferreira, a stayat-home mother with a background in accounting. “I’m very interested in my community and education.”
Ferreira inched closer to running Sunday when she joined about 40 women for a workshop in downtown Houston aimed at recruiting and preparing pro-abortion rights, progressive candidates for public office. The program took place during the AFL-CIO’s 2018 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Civil and Human Rights Conference in partnership with EMILY’s List, a national organization that supports women in politics.
Participants received tips on getting involved in local politics, deciding whether to seek office and launching a campaign for the first time. Attendees included Houston-area residents interested in community boards and offices, along with union representatives from across the country.
Women hold 106 of 535 seats in Congress, with 79 serving as Democrats and 27 as Republicans.
Muthoni Wambu Kraal, vice
“We are now at a point in time where we need to once again focus on the state and local structure. A lot of those have been robbed of resources.” Muthoni Wambu Kraal, vice president of national outreach and training for EMILY’s List
president of national outreach and training for EMILY’s List, said her organization has seen a spike in interest following the 2016 election of President Donald Trump. His history of misogynistic comments contributed to candidate Trump’s double-digit loss among female voters.
About 26,200 women have contacted EMILY’s List since the 2016 election to inquire about running for office, the organization reported this month. In October 2017, conservatives formed their own network, Winning For Women, to support female candidates, reporting that “tens of thousands” of members have signed up.
Wambu Kraal said potential Democratic candidates need to turn political activism into Election Day victories on the local and state level, where Republicans have made enormous gains in the past decade.
Since the 2008 election, Democrats have lost nearly 1,000 seats in state legislatures, 74 seats in Congress and seven gubernatorial offices, according to the Associated Press and federal data.
“We are now at a point in time where we need to once again focus on the state and local structure. A lot of those have been robbed of resources,” Wambu Kraal said. “The winds are changing again. We’re seeing a restructure and refocus on what these state and local offices do, as well as who holds these offices.”
Liz Shuler, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, said she believes more female union members could become effective political candidates if they’re encouraged to run. Polls conducted in 2017 by Gallup and Pew Research Center show public support for labor unions has rebounded in recent years, with about 60 percent saying they approve of them or view them favorably. Fewer than 50 percent of respondents voiced support for labor unions in the early 2010s.
“We often say union members are the best people to run for office because we’re in the trenches in the workplace,” Shuler said. “There are so many different issues that they’re naturally prepared to run for office.”
Organizers hoped to inspire potential activists and candidates like Asia Truss, a member of a government workers union in Columbus, Ohio. Truss said her union is largely male-dominated, and she hopes to employ lessons from the workshop to push for more female representation in her union leadership.
“I’m one of those people in the back, taking it all in, but I never really speak up,” Truss said. “I want to be able to have a voice to help someone else run.”