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Founded | February 14, 1920 |
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Type | Nonprofit |
Focus | Political education and advocacy |
Location | |
President | Dianna Wynn |
Website | LWV.org |
This article is part of a series on the |
Politics of the United States |
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The League of Women Voters (LWV) is an American nonprofit, nonpartisan political organization. Founded in 1920, its ongoing major activities include registering voters, providing voter information, boosting voter turnout and advocating for voting rights. In addition, the LWV works with partners that share its positions and supports a variety of progressive public policy positions, including campaign finance reform, women's rights, health care reform, gun control. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
The League was founded as the successor to the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which had led the nationwide fight for women's suffrage. The initial goals of the League were to educate women to take part in the political process and to push forward legislation of interest to women. As a nonpartisan organization, an important part of its role in American politics has been to register and inform voters, but it also lobbies for issues of importance to its members, which are selected at its biennial conventions. Its effectiveness has been attributed to its policy of careful study and documentation of an issue before taking a position. [6] [7] [2] : 92, 127–161 [8] Its bylaws do not allow it to endorse candidates or political parties. In the Trump era, the strong response by the league to political polarization and core issues such as voting rights has weakened support for it on the right. [9] [10]
VOTE411.org is a nonpartisan bilingual website in English and Spanish that allows voters to input their address and get candidate and election information tailored to their location. [11] [12] Candidate survey responses to three questions specific to the office are included on the site. [13] The League of Women Voters, including state and local leagues, runs the site which received a 2020 Webby Award. [14]
In 2012, LWV created National Voter Registration Day, a day when volunteers work to register voters and increase participation. [15]
State and local leagues host candidate debates to provide candidates' positions at all levels of government. [16]
The League of Women Voters was created in 1920 as the merger of two existing organizations, the long-established National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the National Council of Women Voters (NCWV).
The founding goals of the National League of Women Voters were to educate women on election processes and lobby for favorable legislation on women's issues. These were the same as the goals of the NCWV, which had been founded by Emma Smith DeVoe after her proposal for such an organization was rebuffed at the 1909 National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) convention in Seattle. When her proposal was ignored, DeVoe founded the National Council of Women Voters in 1911. She recruited western suffragists and organizations to join the NCWV. [17] [18]
Ten years later, prior to the 1919 Convention of the NAWSA (in St. Louis, Missouri), Carrie Chapman Catt began negotiating with DeVoe to merge her organization with a new league that would be the successor to the NAWSA. Even though continuing as the NCWV might have made sense because the goals were essentially those that Catt proposed for the new organization, Catt was concerned that DeVoe's alignment with the more radical Alice Paul might discourage conservative women from joining it and thus proposed the formation of a new league. In founding the League of Women Voters, Catt sought to create a political process that was rational and issue-oriented, dominated by citizens, not politicians. [19] She feared that alliance with political parties would reduce the independence of these organizations and swallow up their concerns in more partisan concerns. In addition, by endorsing one candidate the organization would inevitably lose the support of the opposing candidate. As fifteen states had already ratified the 19th Amendment, the women wanted to move forward with a plan to educate women on the voting process and shepherd their participation.
A motion was made at the 1919 NAWSA convention to merge the two organizations into a successor, the National League of Women Voters. Although not all members of either organization were in favor of a merger, the merger was officially completed on January 6, 1920. For the first year the league operated as a committee of the NAWSA. [19] [20] [21] The formal organization of the League was drafted at the 1920 Convention held in Chicago. [22]
In her presidential address on March 24, 1919, at the above-mentioned NAWSA convention, Catt had said:
Let us raise up a League of Women Voters—the name and form of organization to be determined by the voters themselves; a League that shall be non-partisan and non-sectarian in character and that shall be consecrated to three chief aims:
- To use its utmost influence to secure the final enfranchisement of the women of every state in our own Republic and to reach out across the seas in aid of the women's struggle for her own in every land.
- To remove the remaining legal discriminations against women in the codes and constitutions of the several states in order that the feet of coming women may find these stumbling blocks removed.
- To make our democracy so safe for the Nation and so safe for the world, that every citizen may feel secure and great men will acknowledge the worthiness of the American Republic to lead.” [23]
Carrie Chapman Catt was named honorary chairman of the League instead of president because she insisted that it was for younger and fresher women to lead the new work. [24]
As time passed, women's political organizations did find that political parties redefined issues of concern to them as "women's issues" and pushed them aside. [2] : 93 [2] : 94–96 [25]
Throughout the first part of its history, the League of Women Voters was not welcoming to women of color and its predecessor NAWSA ignored issues involving race due to fears that it would reduce support for equal suffrage.
In subsequent years, due to the increasing influence of women in politics, the league has evolved a more inclusive mission, to "protect and expand voting rights and ensure everyone is represented in our democracy." [26]
The issues of primary concern to the League in the 1920s were extending the Sheppard-Towner Act first passed in 1921, a Child Labor Amendment to the Constitution, and voter education.
The Sheppard-Towner Act, first passed in 1921, provided federal subsidies to those states that provided education in maternity and infant care. It was initially slated for five years, and was twice extended in the 1920s, but finally failed to pass in 1929. [1] [27]
On October 17, 1929, Belle Sherwin, the president of the League of Women Voters, and Ruth Morgan of New York City headed a delegation to ask President Herbert Hoover to support the renewal of Federal aid to the States in maternity and infancy work. [28] It Was later revived as part of the Social Security Act of 1935.
In 1923, a special committee of the national League of Women Voters picked twelve women as the "greatest living American women." They were Jane Addams, Cecilia Beaux, Annie Jump Cannon, Carrie Chapman Catt, Anna Botsford Comstock, Minnie Maddern Fiske, Louise Homer, Julia Lathrop, Florence Rena Sabin, M. Carey Thomas, Martha Van Rensselaer, and Edith Wharton. [29] [30]
At the 1926 convention of the national League, Belle Sherwin, the League president, emphasized education in politics as the right road toward true democracy.
Whether it is possible to develop in this country an education which will qualify citizens to be partners in government is a question to face squarely. For many, education today is either remote and limited to a brief period or is highly specialized for vocational purposes. Education for active citizenship has hardly been tried.
She went on to mention "the modest attempts of schools here and there to teach critical reading of the newspapers and other means of avoiding mob-mindedness." Prohibition and birth control were hot issues that year, but were not included in the subjects for study and legislation during the ensuing year. [31]
In 1926, The New York League together with the Women's National Republican Club established information booths in seven department stores, explaining to women how to register to vote, and installed a voting machine at League headquarters to demonstrate how to vote. The League members explained literacy tests and requirements and hours for registration. A frequent question involved the status of an American woman married to an immigrant. The League also presented a series of pre-election talks, including a talk on "National and State Legislators," "The Judiciary," and "Machinery of Elections." [32]
At the 1929 convention of the League of Women Voters of New York, the members voted for a New York State prohibition enforcement act. They also voted to favor old age pensions and ask the Legislature to give women the right to do jury service, to permit physicians to give contraceptive information to married persons, and to extend the benefits of workmen's compensation for all occupational diseases. [33]
During the 1920s, the League of Women Voters of New York sent an annual questionnaire to candidates for local office, and published the answers in the publication "Information for Voters." [34] In 1929, the questionnaire covered maintaining the 5 cent subway fare, creation of a permanent city planning board, immediate action on a sewage and waste disposal plant, unlimited building heights in certain districts, and reclassification of civil service employees to provide automatic salary increases. [35]
In the 1930s, the League was supportive of New Deal programs such as Social Security and the Food and Drug Acts. [36] [37]
In 1945, the League advocated for the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, and was recognized by the UN as a permanent observer, giving it access to most meetings and relevant documentation. [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44]
In the 1950s, League member Dorothy Kenyon was attacked as a Communist by Joseph McCarthy and president Percy Maxim Lee testified before Congress against Senator Joseph McCarthy's abuse of congressional investigative powers. [45] [46] [47]
In 1960, the League supported the Resources and Conservation Act of 1960 (S. 2549), beginning a long history of environmental engagement. [48] [49] [50]
The league ultimately supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but their efforts came too late to have major impact. [51] After first refusing to oppose discrimination in housing in 1966, the 1968 program included opposition to discrimination in housing and support for presidential suffrage for citizens of Washington DC. [52]
In 1969, the League was one of the first organizations in the United States calling for normalizing relations with China. [53] [6]
In the 1970s, after years of opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment as proposed by the National Women's Party, [54] the League offered support to an Equal Rights Amendment. [55] [56]
In 1974, the League began to admit men. [57] [58]
In 1975, a bill entitled "The Indian Law Enforcement Improvement Act" was introduced in the Senate and supported by the League of Women Voters of Nebraska, saying "We support self determination and therefore self government of all citizens, in this case Native Americans." After two days of hearings, the bill was not reported out of committee. [59]
The LWV sponsored the United States presidential debates in 1976, 1980 and 1984. [60] [61] On October 2, 1988, the LWV's 14 trustees voted unanimously to pull out of the debates, and on October 3 they issued a press release condemning the demands of the major candidates' campaigns. LWV President Nancy Neuman said that the debate format would "perpetrate a fraud on the American voter" and that the organization did not intend to "become an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public." [62] [63] All presidential debates since 1988 have been sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, [64] a bipartisan organization run by the two major parties that some argue has established rules with the intent to exclude airing candidates associated with other parties. [65]
In 1998, the League elected its first African-American president, Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins. [66] [67] She served two terms, until 2002, and wrote a book "The untold story of women of color in the League of Women Voters" documenting the history of the League and women of color. [51]
The League fought for the 1982 Amendments to the Voting Rights Act [68] and in the 1990s was important in the passage of National Voter Registration Act of 1993, popularly known as the Motor Voter Act. [69] [70] The act requires states to offer voter registration at all driver's license agencies, at social service agencies, and through the mail. [71] [72] [73] [74] [75]
In 2002, the League supported the Help America Vote Act (with some reservations about the final compromise) [76] [77] and the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act. [78] [79] [80]
In 2014, the League sponsored voter guides including Smart Voter and Voter's Edge in collaboration with MapLight. [81] [ needs update ][ additional citation(s) needed ]
In 2018, the league took an extraordinary step in opposing Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation due in part to his sexual assault allegations and fears around judicial independence. [9]
In 2020, the League of Women Voters supported Native Americans in seeking to remove restrictions on ballot delivery from reservations. [82]
The Native American voting rights group Four Directions filed a suit on behalf of six voters from the Navajo Nation asking the court to extend the deadline for Arizona counties to receive the ballots of voters, because of "lack of home mail delivery, the need for language translation, lack of access to public transportation and lack of access to any vehicle." The court declined to extend the deadline due to lack of standing of the plaintiffs. [83]
The League of Women Voters of Arizona filed an amicus curiae, saying that
Most Arizonans take access to mail receipt and delivery as a given. By contrast, the District Court recognized the painful reality that "several variables make voting by mail difficult” for Native American voters. More specifically, “[m]ost Navajo Nation residents do not have access to standard mail service,” including home delivery, and must travel “lengthy distance[s]” to access postal services—a burden compounded by “socioeconomic factors.” [84]
In 2021, the League of Women Voters of Florida partnered with VoteRiders to get word out to eligible voters about the changes made due to Floria Senate Bill 90, signed into law in May 2021. The Florida League also partnered with the Black Voters Matter Fund and the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans to file lawsuits against the changes. The trial court struck down multiple provisions of the law but the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay reinstating the restrictive law. [85] [86]
After January 6, 2021, the leage called Trump a "tyrannical despot" and advocated his removal by an legal means. [9] This, among other positions such as around transgender rights and police accountability, have led more Republicans to criticize the league and not respond to VOTE411 candidate surveys. [9] Some republican states have been making voter registration more difficult, prompting the league to stop registering voters in Kansas, for example, for fear of its members facing prosecution. [9] Richard Hasen argues that it would be tough to be seen as neutral when voting rights, a foundational issue for the leage, have become a seemingly partisan issue. [9]
The League lobbies for legislation at the national, state, and local levels. Positions on national issues are determined by decisions at the most recent national convention. Members of state and local leagues determine their leagues' positions on state and local issues, consistent with the national positions.
The League was founded by suffragists fighting for the right of women to vote and has always been concerned with issues around voting and representative government. Other issue areas in which the League currently advocates are international relations, natural resources, and social policy.
In 1993, the League pushed for the adoption of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires states to offer voter registration at all driver's license agencies, at social service agencies, and through the mail. [71] [72] [73] [74] [75]
The League works with the non-partisan VoteRiders [87] organization to spread state-specific information on voter ID requirements. In 2002, the League endorsed passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which banned soft money in federal elections and made other reforms in campaign finance laws. [88] [89] It was also a major proponent of the Help America Vote Act. [90] [91]
In 2010, the League opposed the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , which removed limits on corporate contributions to candidates. [92] [93] [94] It filed an amicus brief in support of the FEC. [95]
The League supports the DISCLOSE Act, which would provide for greater and faster public disclosure of campaign spending and combat the use of "dark money" in U.S. elections. [96]
The League currently opposes restrictive photo ID laws and supports campaign finance reform in the United States, including public financing of elections, restrictions on spending by candidates, and abolishing super-PACs. [97]
The League lobbied for the establishment of the United Nations, and later became one of the first groups to receive status as a nongovernmental organization with the U.N. [98] The League was active from the beginning in promoting world peace and international organizations. [99]
The League supported the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Kyoto Protocol. [100] The League opposes the proposed Keystone Pipeline project. [101] [ additional citation(s) needed ] In January 2013, the League of Women Voters in Hawaii urged President Obama to take action on climate change under the authority given him by the Clean Air Act of 1963. [102] [ additional citation(s) needed ]
The League opposes school vouchers. [103] In 1999, the League of Women Voters of Florida challenged a Florida law that allowed students to use school vouchers to attend other schools. [104] [ additional citation(s) needed ]
The League supports universal health care and endorses both Medicaid expansion and the Affordable Care Act. [105] [106] [ better source needed ]
The League supports the abolition of the death penalty. [107]
LWV supports LGBT+ rights and has stated that "defending our democracy and ending discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community go hand in hand." [108] It has also supported the rights of transgender athletes. [9]
A national board of directors consisting of four officers, eight elected directors, and not more than eight board-appointed directors, most of whom reside in the Metro Washington D.C. area, govern the League subject to the Bylaws of the League of Women Voters of the United States. The national board is elected at the national convention and sets position policy. [109]
Local Leagues and state Leagues are organized in order to promote the purposes of the League and to take action on local and state governmental matters. These Leagues (chapters) have their own directors and officers. The national board may withdraw recognition from any state or local League for failure to fulfill recognition requirements. [109]
The League of Women Voters has state and local leagues in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, and Hong Kong.
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the United States and its states from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recognizing the right of women to vote. The amendment was the culmination of a decades-long movement for women's suffrage in the United States, at both the state and national levels, and was part of the worldwide movement towards women's suffrage and part of the wider women's rights movement. The first women's suffrage amendment was introduced in Congress in 1878. However, a suffrage amendment did not pass the House of Representatives until May 21, 1919, which was quickly followed by the Senate, on June 4, 1919. It was then submitted to the states for ratification, achieving the requisite 36 ratifications to secure adoption, and thereby go into effect, on August 18, 1920. The Nineteenth Amendment's adoption was certified on August 26, 1920.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an organization formed on February 18, 1890, to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Its membership, which was about seven thousand at the time it was formed, eventually increased to two million, making it the largest voluntary organization in the nation. It played a pivotal role in the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which in 1920 guaranteed women's right to vote.
Carrie Chapman Catt was an American women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920. Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1900 to 1904 and 1915 to 1920. She founded the League of Women Voters in 1920 and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1904, which was later named International Alliance of Women. She "led an army of voteless women in 1919 to pressure Congress to pass the constitutional amendment giving them the right to vote and convinced state legislatures to ratify it in 1920". She "was one of the best-known women in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and was on all lists of famous American women."
Women's suffrage, or the right of women to vote, was established in the United States over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, first in various states and localities, then nationally in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Laura Clay, co-founder and first president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, was a leader of the American women's suffrage movement. She was one of the most important suffragists in the South, favoring the states' rights approach to suffrage. A powerful orator, she was active in the Democratic Party and had important leadership roles in local, state and national politics. In 1920 at the Democratic National Convention, she was one of two women, alongside Cora Wilson Stewart, to be the first women to have their names placed into nomination for the presidency at the convention of a major political party.
Woman's Journal was an American women's rights periodical published from 1870 to 1931. It was founded in 1870 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Browne Blackwell as a weekly newspaper. In 1917 it was purchased by Carrie Chapman Catt's Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission and merged with The Woman Voter and National Suffrage News to become known as The Woman Citizen. It served as the official organ of the National American Woman Suffrage Association until 1920, when the organization was reformed as the League of Women Voters, and the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed granting women the right to vote. Publication of Woman Citizen slowed from weekly, to bi-weekly, to monthly. In 1927, it was renamed The Woman's Journal. It ceased publication in June 1931.
Women's suffrage was established in the United States on a full or partial basis by various towns, counties, states, and territories during the latter decades of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century. As women received the right to vote in some places, they began running for public office and gaining positions as school board members, county clerks, state legislators, judges, and, in the case of Jeannette Rankin, as a member of Congress.
The Woman Suffrage Party (WSP) was a New York city political organization dedicated to women's suffrage. It was founded in New York by Carrie Chapman Catt at the Convention of Disfranchised Women in 1909. WSP called itself "a political union of existing equal suffrage organizations in the City of New York." WSP was many New York women's first experience with politics and "contributed directly to the passage of a woman suffrage amendment in New York state."
The Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) was an organization founded in 1903 to support white women's suffrage in Texas. It was originally formed under the name of the Texas Woman Suffrage Association (TWSA) and later renamed in 1916. TESA did allow men to join. TESA did not allow black women as members, because at the time to do so would have been "political suicide." The El Paso Colored Woman's Club applied for TESA membership in 1918, but the issue was deflected and ended up going nowhere. TESA focused most of their efforts on securing the passage of the federal amendment for women's right to vote. The organization also became the state chapter of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). After women earned the right to vote, TESA reformed as the Texas League of Women Voters.
The Missouri League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan organization to inform women voters in the American state of Missouri and encourage their participation in the political process. It was founded in 1919 as a successor to the Equal Suffrage League, a campaign for women's suffrage in the state, and appointed Edna Gellhorn as its first president. It is affiliated to the U.S.-wide League of Women Voters and organizes local branches in different parts of the state.
Mary Garrett Hay was an American suffragist and community organizer. She served as president of the Women's City Club of New York, the Woman Suffrage Party and the New York Equal Suffrage League. Hay was known for creating woman's suffrage groups across the country. She was also close to the notable suffragist, Carrie Chapman Catt, with one contemporary, Rachel Foster Avery, stating that Hay "really loves" Catt.
Maude E. Craig Sampson Williams was an American suffragist, teacher, civil rights leader, and community activist in El Paso, Texas. In June 1918, she formed the El Paso Negro Woman's Civic and Equal Franchise League and requested membership in the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) through the Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA), but was denied. Williams organized African-American women to register and vote in the Texas Democratic Party primary in July 1918. She was one of the founders and a charter member of the El Paso chapter of the NAACP, which was the first chapter in the state of Texas. Williams served as the vice president of the El Paso chapter from 1917 to 1924 and remained active in the NAACP until her death. Williams played a significant role in the desegregation of Texas Western College in 1955, which was the first undergraduate college in Texas to be desegregated by a court order other than that of the Supreme Court of the United States. Midwestern University (now known as Midwestern State University was previously ordered to desegregate in 1954 by the SCOTUS immediately following the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.
This is a timeline of women's suffrage in Montana. The fight for women's suffrage in Montana started earlier, before even Montana became a state. In 1887, women gained the right to vote in school board elections and on tax issues. In the years that followed, women battled for full, equal suffrage, which culminated in a year-long campaign in 1914 when they became one of eleven states with equal voting rights for most women. Montana ratified the Nineteenth Amendment on August 2, 1919 and was the thirteenth state to ratify. Native American women voters did not have equal rights to vote until 1924.
Women's suffrage began in Delaware the late 1860s, with efforts from suffragist, Mary Ann Sorden Stuart, and an 1869 women's rights convention held in Wilmington, Delaware. Stuart, along with prominent national suffragists lobbied the Delaware General Assembly to amend the state constitution in favor of women's suffrage. Several suffrage groups were formed early on, but the Delaware Equal Suffrage Association (DESA) formed in 1896, would become one of the major state suffrage clubs. Suffragists held conventions, continued to lobby the government and grow their movement. In 1913, a chapter of the Congressional Union (CU), which would later be known at the National Woman's Party (NWP), was set up by Mabel Vernon in Delaware. NWP advocated more militant tactics to agitate for women's suffrage. These included picketing and setting watchfires. The Silent Sentinels protested in Washington, D.C., and were arrested for "blocking traffic." Sixteen women from Delaware, including Annie Arniel and Florence Bayard Hilles, were among those who were arrested. During World War I, both African-American and white suffragists in Delaware aided the war effort. During the ratification process for the Nineteenth Amendment, Delaware was in the position to become the final state needed to complete ratification. A huge effort went into persuading the General Assembly to support the amendment. Suffragists and anti-suffragists alike campaigned in Dover, Delaware for their cause. However, Delaware did not ratify the Nineteenth Amendment until March 6, 1923, well after it was already part of the United States Constitution.
The first women's suffrage effort in Florida was led by Ella C. Chamberlain in the early 1890s. Chamberlain began writing a women's suffrage news column, started a mixed-gender women's suffrage group and organized conventions in Florida.
The movement for women's suffrage in Arizona began in the late 1800s. After women's suffrage was narrowly voted down at the 1891 Arizona Constitutional Convention, prominent suffragettes such as Josephine Brawley Hughes and Laura M. Johns formed the Arizona Suffrage Association and began touring the state campaigning for women's right to vote. Momentum built throughout the decade, and after a strenuous campaign in 1903, a woman's suffrage bill passed both houses of the legislature but was ultimately vetoed by Governor Alexander Oswald Brodie.
This is a timeline of women's suffrage in Maine. Suffragists began campaigning in Maine in the mid 1850s. A lecture series was started by Ann F. Jarvis Greely and other women in Ellsworth, Maine in 1857. The first women's suffrage petition to the Maine Legislature was sent that same year. Women continue to fight for equal suffrage throughout the 1860s and 1870s. The Maine Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA) is established in 1873 and the next year, the first Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) chapter was started. In 1887, the Maine Legislature votes on a women's suffrage amendment to the state constitution, but it does not receive the necessary two-thirds vote. Additional attempts to pass women's suffrage legislation receives similar treatment throughout the rest of the century. In the twentieth century, suffragists continue to organize and meet. Several suffrage groups form, including the Maine chapter of the College Equal Suffrage League in 1914 and the Men's Equal Suffrage League of Maine in 1914. In 1917, a voter referendum on women's suffrage is scheduled for September 10, but fails at the polls. On November 5, 1919 Maine ratifies the Nineteenth Amendment. On September 13, 1920, most women in Maine are able to vote. Native Americans in Maine are barred from voting for many years. In 1924, Native Americans became American citizens. In 1954, a voter referendum for Native American voting rights passes. The next year, Lucy Nicolar Poolaw (Penobscot), is the Native American living on an Indian reservation to cast a vote.
In 1893, Colorado became the second state in the United States to grant women's suffrage and the first to do so through a voter referendum. Even while Colorado was a territory, lawmakers and other leaders tried to include women's suffrage in laws and later in the state constitution. The constitution did give women the right to vote in school board elections. The first voter referendum campaign was held in 1877. The Woman Suffrage Association of Colorado worked to encourage people to vote yes. Nationally-known suffragists, such as Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone spoke alongside Colorado's own Alida Avery around the state. Despite the efforts to influence voters, the referendum failed. Suffragists continued to grow support for women's right to vote. They exercised their right to vote in school board elections and ran for office. In 1893, another campaign for women's suffrage took place. Both Black and white suffragists worked to influence voters, gave speeches, and turned out on election day in a last-minute push. The effort was successful and women earned equal suffrage. In 1894, Colorado again made history by electing three women to the Colorado house of representatives. After gaining the right to vote, Colorado women continued to fight for suffrage in other states. Some women became members of the Congressional Union (CU) and pushed for a federal suffrage amendment. Colorado women also used their right to vote to pass reforms in the state and to support women candidates.
The League of Women Voters of California is a non-partisan organization that is part of the national League of Women Voters. Founded by Carrie Chapman Catt in the 1920s, The league was formed from the National American Women's Suffrage Association. Their stated goals are to encourage "informed and active participation in government," "increase understanding of major public policy issues," and influence "public policy through education and advocacy." The league has over 65 county groups within the state.
The National Council of Women Voters, founded in 1911, was a nonpartisan organization intended to educate women voters and support the suffrage movement. The council was founded by Emma Smith DeVoe. At the 1909 conference of the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA), DeVoe proposed the formation of a national organization for women in states where they had voting rights. She envisioned this being an organization not only to advocate for women who could vote at the state level, but to eventually succeed NAWSA once suffrage was settled law. The motion was voted down, so DeVoe formed her own coalition. In 1919, a national convention of NCWV and NAWSA voted to merge the two organizations. The merger was made official in early 1920, resulting in the formation of the League of Women Voters.
The National League of Women Voters (NLWV) was established in 1920...Rather than directly entering electoral politics, the NLWV dedicated its efforts to educating newly enfranchised women, studying national legislation and social policy, and participating in local civic matters.
Anticipating the difficulty of integrating former suffragists into partisan American politics, Catt called for a successor organization to the NAWSA that would train new women voters in electoral procedures and further the interests of women within the platforms and administrative structures of political parties.
The League of Women Voters' work includes get out the vote efforts, often shortened to GOTV. These are concerted efforts to register voters and increase voter turnout during elections. ... As part of their GOTV efforts, the League of Women Voters was designed to educate voters on the issues and candidates on their ballots during each election cycle.
The organization has won the respect of both political parties for its scrupulous nonpartisan-ship.
The Women's Joint Congressional Committee is a well set up piece of machinery which functions for a combined membership of organized women numbering literally millions. Mrs. Maud Wood Park, then President of the National League of Women Voters, took the lead in carrying out the idea by calling the other women together to discuss it...the National League of Women Voters... was planned definitely as a non-partisan political organization of women.
Last summer, the league (in New York) registered 18,000 new voters in 80 communities where enrollment was below 30%.
The league from the national to the local level spends a lot of time on advocacy work. An issue is intensely studied -- for years sometimes -- and a consensus is reached among members. The league then discusses, urges, and "we lobby like crazy," according to Percy Lee Langstaff, president of the Connecticut League.
A look at the decline of civic engagement, and how nonpartisan organizations like the League of Women Voters can help save and promote democracy.
The League's advocacy work is issued based, and we arrive at our positions based on careful study and input from our members in communities across the country. We never derive our positions from politicians, and even when candidates or parties support the same issue, we never endorse them.
Webby People's Voice Award for Government & Civil Innovation: VOTE411 - Election Information You Need
this was the first town-hall forum on Social Security in the nation's history.
The league came under the scrutiny of Sen. Joseph McCarthy during Lee's tenure, when the senator searched for Communist infiltration of American government and organizations.
Miss Dorothy Kenyon...was accused of having an affinity for Communist-front organizations by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy ...She later appeared at a hearing and challenged Senator McCarthy as an "unmitigated liar."
The League was founded in 1920—just months before the ratification of the 19th Amendment—by American suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt. Catt was a complicated character, a political operative, and by modern standards, yes, racist.
Dr. Jefferson-Jenkins has also been deeply involved with the League of Women Voters for many years. She was elected as the 15th national president of the League of Women Voters in 1998; the first woman of color to hold the position
In 1998 Dr. Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins of Colorado Springs, Colorado, was elected the first African American President of the National League of Women Voters.
A coalition of 60 voter and civil rights groups lobbied hard for the Senate measure with letter-writing and telephone campaigns. "Persistance has paid off," Susan S. Lederman, president of the League of Women Voters, said today.
Working closely with a civil rights coalition, LWV helped draft and pass the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which established provisional balloting, requirements for updating voting systems, and the Election Assistance Commission.
Lloyd J. Leonard, legislative director of the League of Women Voters of the United States, expressed doubts about the compromise.
It lobbied strongly for the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, cosponsored by Senators McCain and Feingold and passed in 2002.
On March 27, 2002, the League's five-year campaign for the McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan bill reached fruition when the President signed the legislation into law.
good government" organizations such as Common Cause and The League of Women Voters of the United States argued ... to distinguish "unlimited speech" from "unlimited money.
The Untold Story of Women of Color in the League of Women Voters explores ways in which these women have been marginalized and recognizes how their contributions will positively influence the organization as it moves into its next 100 years.
A look at the decline of civic engagement, and how nonpartisan organizations like the League of Women Voters can help save and promote democracy.
Through a judicious selection of documents from the papers of the League of Women Voters of the United States in the Library of Congress, Stuhler reveals the rich history of an organization designed to serve the public interest.
This is NAWSA's final report. With the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, its work came to a close and the association was reorganized as the League of Women Voters.
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