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League of Women Voters Gets Hip to Get Out the Vote
By Karen West

Wrestling, tattoos and MTV are not normally associated with the venerable League of Women Voters.

But growing old has not affected the 84-year-old grassroots organization. It has broken out of its comfort zone this election year to partner with, among others, World Wrestling Entertainment, Rock the Vote, and Minneapolis-based Smart Women, which markets such products as “Take Politics Personally” tattoos and “Take Note & Vote” notebooks.

The unlikely partnerships are part of the League’s effort to increase voter registration and Election Day turnout among the nation’s youngest voters, 18-to-30-year-old men and single women.

While the nonprofit League has been viewed by some as a staid group of mainly older women, it has evolved over the years into a powerhouse of democracy with an infusion of younger women – and men – taking up the voter education cause.

“Time was when the League was perceived as an outgrowth of your local book club – many people reading many things, espousing many good thoughts but more like your grandmother trying to get you to read non-fiction when you were driven to something more exciting,’’ says political consultant Cathy Allen. “But they are now mainstream … the money they have attracted is increasing substantially.’’

With more than 120,000 members nationwide – 2,200 in Washington state – the nonpartisan organization promotes citizen involvement by sponsoring free monthly public forums, conducting voter registration drives, publishing nonpartisan election guides, moderating candidate debates and studying hot-button political issues.

“They are the roots of today's woman's political movement,’’ Allen says. “The League has grown past its singular role of simply informing voters of what's really happening. They have become the Good Housekeeping seal of approval for good ideas, issues, initiatives, focused priorities, and bond/levy proposals.”

The League has spread to just about every city in America. In Washington state, there are 23 local Leagues, including Seattle, King County, Thurston and Snohomish counties. The Seattle League has grown to 856 members, one of the largest in the country. Originally a women's organization, the League began to admit men in 1974. Today, men make up about 10 to 15 percent of the League’s membership.

Gone are the “book club” and “tea party” images of the League. Today’s modern activists host “Smackdown Your Vote” wrestling events and pass out tattoos (albeit temporary) during voter registration rallies across the country. Smart Women Founder Julie Hellwich, who has taken her “2004 Elect to Make a Difference Tour” on the road, lauded the League for its grassroots approach to democracy.

“They are giving women tools to make good decisions,’’ says Hellwich, who teamed up with League members in Seattle last month for a “Get Out The Vote” rally. Her company is donating $1 to the League’s Education Fund for every election kit it sells.

Last month, the League stepped up its nationwide voter education campaign to include forums on new election procedures and tips on how to be prepared at the voting booth.

While the League’s wrestling partnership often evokes chuckles, the “Smackdown Your Vote” campaign is a serious effort to register 20 million 18- to 30-year-olds to the polls in 2004 – an increase of two million over the election turnout in 2000.

Messages like: “Have an impact,” “Make a difference,” “Let your voice be heard,” are shouted by young people in a WWE-funded Public Service Announcement, featuring National League President Kay Maxwell. The segment is being shown across the country on television stations encouraging young people to register and vote.

“Smackdown Your Vote” is a collaboration of the WWE, the League and other non-profit, nonpartisan groups, including Youth Vote Coalition, Rock The Vote, Harvard Institute of Politics, MTV's Choose or Lose, New Voters Project, the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, Close Up and the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

In addition to targeting young voters, the League is focusing more heavily this election year on single women. In the 2000 election, less than 50 percent of single women 18 to 54 were registered to vote, according to Seattle League President Nancy Eitreim. And only 50 percent of those registered voted.

Although the League neither supports nor opposes candidates for office at any level of government, it is wholeheartedly political, working to influence policy through education advocacy.

“Keeping those two things separate is sometimes difficult,’’ Eitreim says. “But after 85 years, voters have come to respect the work of the League at election time. They understand that we are able to produce information around elections that is fair and balanced.’’

In June, the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, a national civic research organization, awarded the League of Women Voters the 2004 Civic Change Award. In making the announcement, Alma Powell, Pew Partnership’s national advisory board chair, said: “The League of Women Voters has made this country better for more than eight decades … Its voice of wisdom and reason has raised the level of our civic conversations and given future generations the tools to create a better America.”

While the League focuses on voter registration during an election year, it also takes on everything from education, to gun control, to reproductive choice, to the Equal Rights Amendment and the Clean Air Act.

Last year, the national League’s top priorities included election reform, campaign finance reform, reproductive choice, clean air and oil drilling in the arctic wild lands. This year, the League reaffirmed election reform and campaign finance reform as its top issues.

While protecting a person’s right to vote will always be high on the League’s agenda, Eitreim points out that the group is a political organization. Discussion groups, which are free and open to the public, meet monthly throughout Seattle and the Eastside.

This year, forums were held to discuss everything from King County governance to the state tax system to international relations and local economic development.

Eitreim, who has been described as a moxie leader, admits she got involved with the League of Women Voters nearly 30 years ago because the meetings offered babysitting. “A friend of mine invited me to a meeting and said they had babysitting…I said, I’m there.” But she was immediately hooked by the young activists and intellectually stimulated by the political discussions.

Promoting democracy and educating people is also what attracted State League President Judy Golberg to the League more than 25 years ago. Volunteering for the League was a natural progression for Golberg, who served on the school board in Richland, Washington, for eight years and learned about politics during dinner table discussions as a child. Her mother was a Montana state legislator and her father was a Supreme Court Justice in Montana for more than 20 years.

She says the League's work is based on the belief that citizens who have well-researched and unbiased information will make wise decisions for their communities and their nation. Echoing the popular sentiment that “if you don’t vote, somebody else will,” Golberg urges people to vote this year no matter what legal election system is in place.

“Don’t allow a few people to make your decision for you,’’ Golberg says. “Saying you won’t vote just gives someone else’s vote more strength.’’

Golberg’s advice has deep roots. It’s the same message the League was spreading more than eight decades ago, but is still relevant today. The League started out as a “mighty political experiment” in 1920 – the same year women won the right to vote.

Its founder, feminist Carrie Chapman Catt, envisioned a group that would “finish the fight” begun by passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. “Winning the vote is only an opening wedge…to learn to use it is a bigger task,’’ she said as she unveiled the League at the convention of the National American Suffrage Association.

That “bigger task” was an organization to help 20 million women use their new voting power to shape public policy. She described the League as “a union of all intelligent forces within the state to attack illiteracy, social evils, industrial ills.’’

Eighty-four years later, the League is working harder than ever to get the vote out, taking action and educating others on political issues. During a speech earlier this year, National League President Maxwell reminded League members of Chapman Catt’s goal to remove legal discriminations against women, so that other women wouldn’t have to surmount these roadblocks.

“We in the League of Women Voters today are the inheritors of that monumental struggle – that monumental vision – of truly extraordinary women … Since the beginning, Leagues nationwide have opposed threats to basic constitutional rights and fought to secure equal rights and equal opportunity for all.’’

Highlights of the League of Women Voters’ 84-year history

1920 – Carrie Chapman Catt founded the League of Women Voters during the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The convention was held only six months before the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, giving women the right to vote after a 57-year struggle.

The League of Women Voters of Washington was founded the same year with 52 charter members. In 1921 the Seattle League of Women Voters elected its first president.

The League’s first major campaign was for passage of the Sheppard-Towner Act, a bill that provided federal aid for maternal and child care programs. It was designed to alleviate the high maternal and infant death rates in the U.S. of the 1920s.

The successful campaign marked the League’s first effective use of grassroots organizing, working in coalition with other organizations on a legislative issue, and citizen education for the purpose of galvanizing citizens to action.

1930s – The League tackled a government corruption issue, organizing a national, coordinated attack on political patronage in federal and state government jobs.

1940s – The League supported measures to curb inflation, including taxes on a pay-as-you-go basis. The Overseas Education Fund was established.

1950s – The League advocated a First Freedom Agenda and sponsored community discussions of individual liberties.

1960s – The League's involvement in world affairs included its call for the U.S. to normalize relations with the People's Republic of China and an end to U.S. opposition to China's membership in the Untied Nations.

1970s – This was the decade in which the League overwhelmingly supported ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

1980s – The League affirmed the constitutional right of privacy of the individual to make reproductive choices.

1990s – This was the beginning of one of the League’s most broad-based League-initiated, grassroots campaigns. Take Back the System was a voter empowerment campaign to encourage a cynical and disillusioned electorate to re-involve itself in the country's political system. As a result, 1992 marked the end of a 20-year decline in voter participation.

21st Century – The League is committed to standing up for citizen's concerns on issues from health care and campaign finance reform to environmental protection, and to create a substantially greater participation in democracy, including women and minorities.

For more information on the Seattle League (which includes the Lake Washington region), to download the Seattle/PI League of Women Voters’ Voters Guide, or to learn the League’s positions on local initiatives, visit www.seattlelwv.org.

©2004 Caliope Publishing Company