EMILYs List Endorses Two Women For Reelection in Michigan

For Immediate Release
January 11, 2022 

EMILYs List Endorses Two Women For Reelection in Michigan

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, endorsed two women for reelection in Michigan: Jocelyn Benson for secretary of state and Dana Nessel for attorney general. Laphonza Butler, president of EMILYs List, released the following statement:

“EMILYs List is thrilled to stand with Jocelyn Benson and Dana Nessel as they run to continue working to support and defend Michiganders. Secretary Benson has been a powerful force for accessible voting and election integrity. With GOP-led attacks on elections, it has never been more important to elect leaders who will defend and preserve our democratic process, as we know Secretary Benson will do. In her first term, Attorney General Nessel has sought justice for Michigan’s vulnerable communities while holding powerful interests accountable for their abuses. We know that her efforts will only continue when she is reelected this year. Republicans in Michigan are poised to roll back fundamental freedoms, including reproductive rights and voting rights. The best way to defend against these attacks is to reelect these two fighters as secretary of state and attorney general.” 

Jocelyn Benson is an expert on civil rights law, education law, and election law. She graduated from Harvard Law School and served as the dean of Wayne State University Law School. Previously, she was an associate professor and associate director of Wayne Law’s Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. Prior to her election, Benson served as the CEO of the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality and co-founded the Military Spouses of Michigan. She was elected Michigan’s 43rd secretary of state in 2018. 

Dana Nessel graduated from the University of Michigan and Wayne State University Law School. As a prosecutor, Nessel worked to protect vulnerable children and to hold police accountable. As a civil rights attorney, Nessel was a leader on LGBTQ+ issues. She founded the Fair Michigan Foundation and created the Fair Michigan Justice Project, which investigates and prosecutes hate crimes committed against the LGBTQ+ community. She was elected Michigan’s 54th attorney general in 2018 and she lives in Southeast Michigan with her wife and twin sons.

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $700 million to elect Democratic pro-choice women candidates. With a grassroots community of over five million members, EMILY's List helps Democratic women win competitive campaigns – across the country and up and down the ballot – by recruiting and training candidates, supporting and helping build strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, running nearly $50 million in independent expenditures in the last cycle alone, and turning out women voters and voters of color to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect the country's first woman as vice president, 159 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40% of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. After the 2016 election, more than 60,000 women reached out to EMILY's List about running for office laying the groundwork for the next decade of candidates for local, state, and national offices. In our effort to elect more women in offices across the country, we have created our Run to Win program, expanded our training program, including a Training Center online, and trained thousands of women.