A coalition of women’s rights leaders has launched a bipartisan campaign to double the number of women elected to the highest levels of government by 2020. Political Parity held a press conference on January 19th to announce the initiative chaired by Swanee Hunt and Kerry Healey. Healey dubbed the campaign a “grand experiment”. Speaking at the Round Table was Mary Hughes of the 2012 Project, Tiffany Dufu of the White House Project, congressional staffer Tara Setmayer, Debbie Walsh of Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), and Sam Bennett of the Women’s Campaign Fund. The panelists spoke to increasing the overall number of female elected officials over the next ten years by encouraging women to run for public office and by using research to further women’s campaigns. The group intends to turn 2012 into a new ‘Year of Women’. The original “Year of Women” occurred in 1992 when women were elected to office in vast numbers. Currently, women comprise only 17% of Congress. Bennett declared that “Political Parity is today’s Seneca Falls” and will work across party lines to promote women’s political campaigns.
Uncategorized
