Kansas State Rep. Christina Haswood Nominated by EMILYs List for 2022 Gabrielle Giffords Rising Sta
For Immediate Release
March 22, 2022
Kansas State Rep. Christina Haswood Nominated by EMILY's List for 2022 Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, announced that Kansas state Rep. Christina Haswood is a nominee for the ninth annual Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award.
“Kansas state Rep. Christina Haswood is a brave trailblazer committed to improving the lives of her constituents,” said Laphonza Butler, president of EMILYs List. “Haswood has a distinguished record of advancing opportunity, representation, and equality in the United States. She is one of three Native American members and among the youngest members of the current Kansas Legislature. Haswood, a member of the Navajo Nation, has worked tirelessly to give a voice to indigenous people so often ignored in the American political arena. She has sponsored impactful legislation, including designating Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day and equipping the attorney general to coordinate training for law enforcement agencies on missing and murdered indigenous people across Kansas. She has also utilized her background in public health to address her constituents’ health and safety concerns throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. EMILYs List applauds Rep. Haswood’s efforts to advocate for justice and is honored to nominate her for the ninth annual Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award.”
EMILYs List endorsed Rep. Christina Haswood in July of 2020 in her successful bid to represent Kansas House District 10. In 2021, Rep. Haswood spoke on an EMILYs List panel and training session entitled “Young Women Leading the Way.”
About Rep. Christina Haswood
Christina Haswood is one of the youngest members of the Kansas Legislature and is one of three Native Americans in the current legislature. Haswood has multiple post-secondary degrees in public health, which prepared her to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic throughout her district. She proudly serves as a representative of her Native American community and has sponsored legislation to create meaningful change by redesignating Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, supporting reproductive rights, and reforming Medicaid.
About the Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award
Named in honor of the dedicated and courageous Gabrielle Giffords, the Rising Star Award celebrates an extraordinary woman serving in state or local office. The award honors a woman who demonstrates the sort of commitment to community, dedication to women and families, and determination and civility that have been the highlights of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ career, in and out of office. Previous Rising Star Award recipients include former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams in 2014, former Boston City Councilwoman Ayanna Pressley in 2015, former Colorado House Speaker Crisanta Duran in 2016, Philadelphia City Councilwoman Helen Gym in 2017, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in 2018, California Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo in 2019, former Ohio House Minority Leader Emilia Sykes in 2020, and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo in 2021.
The Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award winner will be chosen with community input. Online voting can be found here.
Kansas state Rep. Christina Haswood is nominated alongside:
- Vernetta Alston, North Carolina state representative
- Kate Gallego, Phoenix mayor
- Cecelia González, Nevada state representative
- Tishaura O. Jones, St. Louis mayor
- Bee Nguyen, Georgia state representative
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.
