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EMILY's List Announces Communications Director and New Media Director

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The week before its 25th Anniversary, EMILY's List, the nation's largest resource for women in politics, announced Jen Bluestein will join the organization as communications director and Emily Lockwood has been promoted to new media director. Bluestein has spent almost fifteen years in the political, non-profit, and media sectors. Lockwood has worked in new media since 2003 working for government, political and non-profit organizations and has worked with EMILY's List as Internet Director since 2008. In that position she spearheaded the launch of the new www.emilyslist.org website.

Next week, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senator Barbara Mikulski and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand will help EMILY's List celebrate 25 years of changing the face of power by speaking at the anniversary luncheon on Thursday, April 29th in Washington, DC.

"We are thrilled to have Jen Bluestein join the EMILY's List family and to promote Emily Lockwood to direct our new media programs," said Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY's List. "As we celebrate the past 25 years at EMILY's List and look forward to the next 25 years, these experienced women will help EMILY's List grow our network and make sure our supporters are able to connect with each other help elect more women to office."

Bluestein will officially start at EMILY's List on May 10th.

Most recently, Bluestein worked at Teach for America, as Vice President for its Political Leadership Initiative. She has also served as a Press Secretary for the NYC Department of Education, a spokesperson for the NY State Democratic Committee, and has held leadership roles on numerous electoral campaigns, including Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker's nationally recognized 2002 campaign and former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich's Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign. Prior to joining Teach for America, Bluestein supervised communications, press, policy, research, and advance for Fernando Ferrer's NYC Mayoral campaign.

From 2002-2004 Bluestein served as a consultant to the DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) Foundation, now known as The ONE Campaign, founded by Bono and others to inspire and organize American support for eliminating extreme poverty and global disease. She was also Vice President of Howard Rubenstein Public Relations, where she handled clients from cultural institutions such as the Whitney Museum to media outlets like The New Republic to non-profits like Phoenix House and the Downtown Brooklyn Council, and Vice President of Harper's Magazine.

Lockwood joined EMILY's List in 2008 as Internet Director after serving as the deputy internet director of online organizing for Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. In that position, she developed the strategy for online programs in primary states and managed the execution of the national e-mail program. Previously, Lockwood was with Planned Parenthood Federation of America where she developed and managed the organization’s national online advocacy and fundraising campaigns and directed their national and local blogger outreach. Lockwood got her start in politics working for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In 1985, fed up with being underrepresented in American politics, 25 women armed with Rolodexes gathered in Ellen Malcolm's basement to send letters to their friends about a network they were forming to raise money for pro-choice Democratic women candidates. Its name? EMILY's List -- an acronym for "Early Money Is Like Yeast" (because it makes the dough -- campaign funds -- rise).

At the time, no Democratic woman had been elected to the U.S. Senate in her own right, no woman had been elected governor of a large state, and the number of Democratic women serving in the U.S. House of Representatives had declined. That election cycle, the "founding mothers" of EMILY's List recruited 1,155 members and raised more than $545,000 for two U.S. Senate candidates, including Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, the first Democratic woman elected to the Senate in her own right.

In the 2007-2008 cycle, EMILY's List raised more than $43 million to support its mission of recruiting and supporting women candidates, helping them build strong campaigns, and mobilizing women voters to turn out and vote. Since its founding in 1985, EMILY's List has worked to elect 80 pro-choice Democratic women to the U.S. House, 15 to the U.S. Senate, nine governors, and hundreds of women to the state legislatures, state constitutional offices, and other key local offices.