Post Primary Update

California’s election on Tuesday saw a record turnout as voters came out in high numbers to cast their ballots for the Presidential primary and the ballot propositions. It was a good night for women in California. The narrow defeat of Proposition 93 means that the pipeline of women candidates running in 2008 will remain intact. More women than men voted and, with the support of California women, a woman won the Democratic primary race.

The excitement of presidential politics continues, but we also need to turn our attention to matters at home and California’s upcoming elections in June. Women’s voices, both as voters and as candidates, are critical to the health of our political future. The CALIFORNIA LIST would like to introduce you to the wide range of female candidates that are running for California State Assembly and Senate. Currently we have identified 25 candidates and we anticipate that there may be a few more – please let us know!

The CALIFORNIA LIST is a grassroots political fundraising network modeled after EMILY’S LIST. Our mission is to help Democratic women candidates run for and get elected to California State government. Currently women hold 27% of the positions in California State government. Running an election in California is an expensive proposition. The CALIFORNIA LIST is helping to lay the foundation to encourage women to run for office and help them over the biggest hurdle – raising the funds necessary to win. The CALIFORIA LIST will continue to help build a “farm team” of women who can be elected to the State Assembly or Senate and who can move up the ladder to become the next Secretary of State, Governor, Senator or President of the United States.

As we kick off our sixth year at the CALIFORNIA LIST, Hillary Clinton’s campaign has drawn attention to the fact that a woman faces many unique and difficult obstacles in running for office and that getting elected is a tremendous challenge, from President all the way down to the local city council. How do voters view female candidates? Does electing a woman matter? CALIFORNIA LIST will be holding our first focus group in late February to help answer these and other questions. We want to take what we learned from this election and use it to empower our women candidates in California with stronger strategies for their own campaigns. We are committed to the importance of women’s voices in policy decisions at all levels of government.

The June primary promises to be as exciting as last Tuesday. Now is the time to hone our focus on what is happening at the state level where we can really make a difference.

The candidates listed below are featured on our website at www.californialist.org. Please note that not all of the candidates listed are endorsed by the CALIFORNIA LIST. We also believe that there may be a few candidates who may yet decide to run for office. We will have a complete list of candidates by March 12th after filing closes.

As we kick off our sixth year at the CALIFORNIA LIST, we are embarking on one of the most exciting new phases for our organization. While we remain dedicated to our mission of electing pro-choice, democratic women, we recognize the need to reach out in new ways to reverse the decline of our women elected officials. Hillary Clinton’s campaign has drawn attention to the fact that getting women elected is difficult. As we watch what is happening to Hillary Clinton, we begin to realize the challenges women face when running for any public office, from President all the way down to the local city council. The CALIFORNIA LIST is needed more than ever and we thank you for your support!

We are on the move planning events in San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego. As we continue to strategies how to increase membership and raise money for candidates, we have formulated the following list of our goals and objectives for 2008:

  • Hire an Executive Director in Sacramento
  • Hold focus groups to create better messaging by engaging a discussion of issues for and by women. Our first focus groups are tentatively scheduled for the last week in February
  • Host candidate forums to introduce the women running for state office in California.
  • Enhance our presence on the web

–> Last year CALIFORNIA LIST began upgrading our online marketing with a web site redesign and we have begun to increase our virtual presence to enhance our state and national awareness. The first CALIFORNIA LIST blog about the importance of Hillary Clinton’s victory in New Hampshire was featured on a variety of California web journals and appeared in the Sacramento Bee! The link to the Sacramento Bee is http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/646036.html. Our objective is to provide thoughtful insight about electing women with weekly web posts. You will find a listing of blog postings on our website and in our Newsroom section.

We hope that you will join our efforts