newjerseynewsroom.com

BY SUSIE WILSON

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

SEX MATTERS

For whom is EMILY's List, the national organization dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women to office, named?

Not after someone named Emily, as you might guess.

But – and here's a hint – the first letters of the first and last names of the Jersey native who's closely associated with it are E and M.

Give up? Okay. EMILY's List is not named for a particular woman. Rather, EMILY is an acronym of the following phrase: "Early Money Is Like Yeast." The founding mother of EMILY's List and her friends then added an afterthought: "It Makes the Dough Rise."

Get it?

Ellen Malcolm, who was born and grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, is the founding mother and first president of EMILY's List. Last week, she was honored at a luncheon in Washington, D.C., to celebrate her incredible accomplishments and the many female politicians who have journeyed to political halls of power because of Malcolm's simple, brilliant idea.

As one speaker noted, when the history of American politics in the 20th century is written, Ellen Malcolm's name will be up there next to 19th century suffragette heroines Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

When I sat down at the luncheon last week, I knew a lot about the mission of EMILY's List, which has always been to identify and encourage potential Democratic pro-choice women candidates to run for federal and state office and then raise money – early and often – to elect them. Yet I didn't know very much about the woman who masterminded this enormously successful 25-year effort.

Many publications have named Malcolm to their lists of "Women of the Century," yet she has eschewed celebrity – preferring to focus instead on the women she helps bring to political power. Through them, she shines.

But I did learn one fact about Malcolm that I didn't know: She started EMILY's List in her New Jersey basement in 1985, when she "invited a group of women to come over," recalled a speaker in a video at the event. "This was not a BYOB gathering; it was a BYOR – Bring Your Own Rolodex – party," he added. The 25 women who responded to Malcolm's invitation brought lists of other women's names with them – and the rest is, indeed, history (or should I say herstory).

When I joined EMILY's List in 1988, it recommended only nine female congressional candidates to its 2,000 members and raised $905,000 for them. Today there are nine pro-choice Democratic women governors, 59 pro-choice Democratic women in the House and 15 pro-choice Democratic women in the Senate who have received financial support through EMILY's List. The political landscape has indeed changed in 25 years.

As of 2010, EMILY's List has supported a dazzling array of political stars that includes Hillary Clinton, the only First Lady to have run for the Senate; Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House; Ann Richards, the first female governor of Texas; Carol Mosley Braun, the first African-American female Senator; and Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay woman to serve in Congress. Four former EMILY's List alumnae – Clinton, Kathleen Sebelius, Janet Napolitano, and Hilda Solis – are all members of President Obama's cabinet.

In order to get the results she has achieved over the past 25 years, Malcolm has raised more than $78 million dollars. As one of the luncheon speakers pointed out: "If any man had raised $78 million, he would have had a building named after him!"

Malcolm will now ease into becoming the organization's Chair of the Board of Directors and Stephanie Schriock will replace her as its president. As I listened to Schriock's speech, I decided that she is a chip off the original block: plainspoken, intelligent, and committed to increasing the number of women holding office.

Schriock conveyed a fascinating but chilling fact: women make up 51 percent of our population, but the United States ranks 61st among nations of the world in terms of "participatory democracy." She told us that in order for the U.S. to move up the list to become "a fully participatory democracy," more than 50 percent of Congress would need to be female. I had never before heard the inequality that exists in our federal and state legislatures explained in such stark terms.

In her thoughtful remarks, Malcolm emphasized the size of the task that lies ahead of us. "When I come back to an event like this one in another 25 years," she told us, "I fully expect to see an equal number of women as men in the U.S. Congress." Her words were met with deafening applause.

In the past 25 years, Malcolm has changed the face of power in our nation, and I don't doubt that the numbers of Democratic women in politics will continue to increase under her watchful gaze as chair of the board.

Ellen Malcolm and EMILY's List are one and the same for me: interchangeable, successful, and just terrific.

Now, you wouldn't by any chance have a building that needs a name?

Susie Wilson, former executive coordinator of the Network for Family Life Education at Rutgers University's Center for Applied and Professional Psychology (now renamed Answer), is a national leader in the fight for effective sexuality and HIV/AIDS education and for prevention of adolescent pregnancy. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it