EMILYs List Statement Honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day

For Immediate Release
October 11, 2021

EMILYs List Statement Honoring Indigenous Peoples' Day

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Laphonza Butler, president of EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, released the following statement honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day: 
 
“EMILYs List is proud to honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day and to recognize Native American history, culture, and people. The historic and systemic racism and oppression faced  by the Native community has  created innumerable barriers to prosperity, including unequal pay and underrepresentation in government. EMILYs List is proud to have supported the first Native women elected to Congress — Rep. Sharice Davids (KS-03) and now-Secretary Deb Haaland — as well as our women making history at the state and local level including Kansas state Rep. Stephanie Byers (HD-86) and 2021 Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award nominee Washington state Rep. Debra Lekanoff (HD-40). In our efforts to elect a government that represents the diversity of this country, EMILYs List is dedicated to helping elect more Democratic pro-choice Native women to every level of government.”

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, 158 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and more than 1,300 women to state and local office. More than 40 percent 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.