Updated March 23, 2013
In preparation for President Obama's fifth State of the Union address on Tuesday evening, download AAUW's State of the Union Bingo cards so you can play along with your friends during the speech! As the president lays out his broad agenda for the next year and his second term overall, you can track his discussion of issues pertinent to women and families. The president is expected to discuss taxes and spending, job creation, immigration, gun violence prevention, education, and climate change. AAUW hopes to also hear a discussion of our priority issues, particularly equal pay, women’s health care, and access to higher education. Download the AAUW State of the Union Bingo cards today!
- from AAUW's Washington Update for February 8, 2013.
Advocates for the Equal Rights Amendment have submitted a "We the People" petition to the White House to encourage the Obama administration to support efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The Equal Rights Amendment holds that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” The amendment was passed in 1972, but fell three states short of the 38 states that needed to ratify it to go into effect.
AAUW is committed to passage and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Let’s reach our goal of 25,000 petition signatures: Be sure to sign the petition before February 10th and encourage others to sign it as well!
- from AAUW's Washington Update for January 18, 2013.
On Friday, President Obama announced that "Organizing for America," the grassroots campaign structure that helped him win reelection, will re-launch as "Organizing for Action," a nonprofit group that will help mobilize Americans to take action in support of the president’s agenda. As the president wrote in an email to supporters, "We’ve got to keep working…on making meaningful progress on the issues we care about — immigration reform, climate change, balanced deficit reduction, reducing gun violence, and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act…I’m not going to be able to take them on without you."
Remember to use AAUW Action Network to contact your members of Congress and the president about these important issues.
- from AAUW's Washington Update for January 18, 2013.
Amid back-to-back meetings with gun-safety and victims groups, gun owner groups, and gun retailers, Vice President Joe Biden announced that he intends to deliver recommendations from his gun violence task force to President Obama on Tuesday. In the same remarks, Biden suggested that his task force might be able to find consensus on universal background checks, limits on high-capacity ammunition magazines, and additional resources for the federal government to research gun violence; he did not mention an assault weapons ban.
AAUW advocates freedom from violence and fear of violence in homes, schools, workplaces, and communities and supports coalition efforts to keep our schools safe. AAUW will promote the establishment of meaningful gun violence prevention in the United States by encouraging states and branches to initiate discussion in their communities and to contact lawmakers on the issue.
- from AAUW's Washington Update for January 11, 2013.
With the death of Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) on December 17, two major changes were made to the Senate leadership: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was sworn in as Senate President Pro Tempore, and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) was announced as the new chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, making her the first woman to chair this powerful committee. As Senate president pro tempore, Sen. Leahy will preside over the Senate in the vice president’s absence, and he is third in line to succeed the president if necessary, after the vice president and speaker of the House.
The late Sen. Inouye had represented Hawaii since it became a state in 1959; Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie (D) appointed his lieutenant governor, Brian Schatz, to replace Sen. Inouye for the rest of his term (through 2016).
- from AAUW's Washington Update for January 4, 2013.
This week, House Democrats announced that three members, including two women, will join the Ways and Means Committee for the 113th Congress: Reps. Danny Davis (D-IL), Linda Sanchez (D-CA), and Allyson Schwartz (D-PA). All three members lost their positions on the committee when Republicans gained the majority in 2010, but now they have been reappointed to fill Democratic vacancies that have opened up. In 2009, Sanchez became the first Latina to sit on the Ways and Means Committee, and she will return as the only Latina. The Ways and Means Committees has jurisdiction over taxes, Social Security, Medicare, and other major programs.
AAUW is proud to see women taking leadership positions in important congressional committees. AAUW knows that women wield great power in American politics and strongly supports and encourages women’s representation in policy decision-making on both sides of the aisle.
- from AAUW's Washington Update for December 14, 2012.
As the selection process continues for the committee leaders and members in the 113th Congress, Democrats announced this week that Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) will serve as the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, becoming the first woman to hold that position. Democrats also announced that Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) will retain her spot as ranking member of the Rules Committee and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) will move into the ranking member slot on the Financial Services Committee since the current ranking member, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), is retiring. In the Senate, reports surfaced this week that Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), is expected to serve on the Senate Banking Committee. One of the chief responsibilities of the Banking Committee is implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Warren used to lead.
AAUW is proud to see women taking leadership positions in important congressional committees. AAUW knows that women wield great power in American politics and strongly supports and encourages women’s representation and voice in policy decision-making.
- from AAUW's Washington Update for December 7, 2012.
Even though the 113th Congress will not begin until January, both parties have indicated that their House and Senate leadership will remain largely unchanged. In the House, Republicans re-elected Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) as speaker, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) as majority leader, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as whip, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced that she will stay on as minority leader and Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and James Clyburn (D-SC) will remain in their positions as No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) beat Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) in the race for the No. 4 slot, chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, making her the highest-ranking Republican woman in Congress.
In the Senate, Democrats re-elected Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) as majority leader and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) as whip, and Republicans re-elected Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as minority leader. Senate Republicans also elected Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) as minority whip; he will replace retiring Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) in this role.
- from AAUW's Washington Update for Novemver 16, 2012.
Next week, the AAUW Action Fund will launch the “It’s My Vote: I Will Be Heard” campaign. The nonpartisan get-out-the-vote effort will mobilize women voters for the 2012 election, with a focus on millennial voters. The campaign targets this group of women – ages 18 to 31 – because the group is as numerous as the baby boomers, but has not established a consistent pattern of voting. The campaign will include voter education trainings across the United States, public service announcements, and more to deliver the message that elections matter for women and girls. All of the information about the campaign is anchored on the new AAUW Action Fund website. Stay tuned, and get excited!
- from AAUW's Washington Update for February 10, 2012.
AAUW's Elect Her initiative acknowledges the necessity to build the pipeline of women running for office to diminish the long-standing political leadership gender gap. This initiative consists of a full continuum of programming to empower women from high school onward to view themselves as political candidates. Learn more by reading the Elect Her FAQ.
- from AAUW's Washington Update for May 14, 2010.
The Center for American Women and Politics recently released Poised to Run, a report on the factors bringing women to public office. According to the report, the majority of women who run for public office do so due to recruitment from an outside source, typically from a political party. Research also suggests that while no prior public office experience is required for a woman to run, campaign resources are essential for any woman looking to win a seat in public office.
- from AAUW's Washington Update for February 19, 2010.
According to a study from Stanford University and the University of Chicago researchers, women are more effective lawmakers than men. According to Politico, the study, which focused on the performance of House members from 1984 to 2004, found that on average, women representatives introduced more bills, attracted more cosponsors, and brought more money to their districts than their male peers did. The researchers accounted for things like representatives' seniority, party affiliation, majority/minority status, and priorities when making their comparisons. Women currently hold just 17 percent of the seats in the House and the Senate.
- from AAUW's Washington Update for September 18, 2009.
On Tuesday, the House passed (voice vote) a bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). S. 614, which unanimously passed the Senate in May, was authored by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and would authorize the creation of a gold medal to commemorate the service of the first women to fly planes for the United States Military. Women who chose to fly airplanes for the United States, beginning in World War II, were denied military status, often killed in the line of duty, and flown back to their families without funeral expense payments, gold stars, or American flags on their coffins. Their service has been commemorated in the Smithsonian and in national, state, and local flight and Air Force museums, and has now been officially recognized by U.S. Congress.
- from AAUW's Washington Update for June 19, 2009.
The Center for American Progress released a report this week that highlighted the large generational rift in cultural values between "millennials" aged 18-29 and the American population over the age of 30. Those surveyed were asked a variety of questions concerning their social, political, cultural, and issue-specific values, beliefs, and ideologies. While Americans over 30 rate "liberty" and "justice" as the two most important political values, 48 percent of young people said "opportunity" and 41 percent picked "equality." The report also concluded that millennials take race and gender equality as givens and generally display little interest in fighting over the divisive social issues of the past.
The most important millennial issues, the report found, are socio-cultural ones, excellent news for women's and civil rights organizations like AAUW looking to attract new members and effect positive social change for women and underrepresented minorities. To find out more about how millennial ideology matches up to AAUW policy, read our 2009-2010 Federal Policy Agenda.
- from AAUW's Washington Update for May 22, 2009.