EMILYs List Statement on Virginia’s Proposed Congressional Map

For Immediate Release
December 16, 2021 

EMILYs List Statement on Virginia’s Proposed Congressional Map

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Laphonza Butler, president of EMILYs List, issued the following statement regarding Virginia’s special master-drawn congressional map:

“Make no mistake: Virginia’s proposed congressional map significantly undermines women’s voices and political power.  Virginia has never had a woman elected governor or to the Senate, and now the three Democratic women incumbents are being drawn into substantially more challenging districts while the men in the delegation got better districts.  It’s critical for Virginia women and families that women hold and gain more positions of political power so that their voices and priorities can be heard.”

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.