EMILYs List Recognizes Disability Pride Month

For Immediate Release
July 1, 2022 

EMILYs List Recognizes Disability Pride Month

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today EMILYs List recognizes the first day of Disability Pride Month, commemorating the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. EMILYs List President Laphonza Butler released the following statement, honoring the start of Disability Pride Month. 

“EMILYs List is proud to celebrate the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. At EMILYs List, we are committed to supporting candidates working tirelessly to ensure that we achieve an inclusive nation for all. While nearly one in four Americans has a disability, Americans with disabilities are underrepresented in elected office. We believe that when women with diverse lived experiences lead, they introduce and advocate for better, more inclusive policies. It is crucial to support candidates who bring diversity of experience to the table and introduce policies that advance equality, accessibility, and inclusivity.

“Amid Republican attacks on reproductive freedom, we recognize and condemn the disproportionate, marginalizing impact that this will have on people with disabilities. We know that bodily autonomy is an integral principle of the disability rights movement, and we are proud to fight for this ideal every day. We are honored to support candidates who are dedicated to constructing an equitable country for all.”

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.