Tag: Women Voters

Keeping Score: Biden Issues Mass Pardon for Marijuana Possession; 36% of U.S. Counties Are ‘Maternity Care Deserts’

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in in this biweekly round-up.

This week: National children’s health organizations urge Biden to issue a National Emergency Declaration; pregnant cancer patients struggle to start chemotherapy without abortion access; Biden issues mass pardons for federal marijuana possession; Cardi B is first woman rapper to have two 11x platinum singles; 36 percent of U.S. counties are “maternity care deserts”; and more.

Abortion and Equal Rights Are Driving Young Women Voters—and High Turnout Is Expected

Among young women voters ages 18-29 in the battleground states, abortion and women’s rights are the most important and highly motivating issues in determining their vote—22 points higher than inflation. And youth voter turnout is expected to match or exceed the record set in 2018.

“The overturning of Roe v. Wade has lit a fire under women voters, and especially young women voters, who have the power to determine close elections,” said Katherine Spillar, executive editor of Ms.

Black Women Lead: From the Stage to the Streets

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Our focus is on building the leadership capacity and political power of Black people and women. But we are struck by the complementary activism taking place in the arts to underscore this moment in history and to inspire progress.

Broadway’s Tony-nominated POTUS, Natalie Moore’s The Billboard and Molly Smith’s upcoming Arena Stage production, My Body No Choice, remind us to trust women as we collectively work to get our republic back on track.

The Power of Young Black Women’s Votes

Panelists discussed youth voter turnout and the importance its impact on the fight for equal rights at the Getting out the Vote for Equality Roundtable hosted by the ERA Coalition and the Howard University Political Science Department on Sept. 20, National Voter Registration Day.

“Our vote is really the only way we’ve seen our voice be taken seriously. I personally am tired of seeing Black women get robbed of their justice,” said Nandi Perry of Gen Z for Change.

Busting the Filibuster

If this summer has shown us anything, it is that from now on, women’s rights hang in a precarious electoral balance.

Critical House bills aimed at protecting women’s and reproductive rights are not even close to meeting the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, leaving many across the U.S. without adequate legal protections to access reproductive healthcare—and making filibuster reform that much more urgent. This also makes the midterm races crucial for Democrats, who need to pick up another two senators in support of filibuster reform.

A Nation Without the Hyde Amendment Will Be Safer and More Humane for All of Us

On Sept. 30, 1976, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Hyde Amendment, which barred federal funds from covering abortions with the narrowest exceptions for rape, incest or threats to a patient’s life. As soon as Hyde went into effect, the number of Medicaid-covered abortions in the United States dropped from 300,000 to just a few thousand. 

Abortion, like all healthcare, should be a human right—not merely a benefit of select insurance plans. 

It’s Abortion, Stupid: How Dobbs May Have Cost Republicans the Midterms

Will historical trends in midterm elections be uprooted? Will the party in the White House not face devastating losses in Congress? Is it possible that Republican promises to pass legislation that would ban abortion in every U.S. state could, in fact, help Democrats hold on to their majorities in both the House and the Senate?

“Between guns, abortion and the Republicans’ behavior, people will be concerned enough to go to the polls,” said Roger Craver, cofounder of the government watchdog group Common Cause. “And a big turnout will be very important because that’s what will give Democrats the win.”

In Swing State of Arizona, a Near-Total Abortion Ban From 1864 Takes Effect

On Saturday in Arizona, a 15-week abortion ban—signed into law on July 6 by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey—was set to take effect. But before it could, a late Friday ruling from Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson green-lighted an anti-abortion law from 1864 that supersedes all other bans, outlawing almost all abortions in the state and penalizing abortion providers who provide the service with two to five years in prison. Abortion is now effectively illegal in the state, making it the 15th U.S. state currently enforcing extreme or total bans on abortion.

There’s a little over a month until the midterm elections, and Arizona is a battleground for federal and state elections. Democrats see the extreme law as an opportunity to mobilize voters.

Harnessing the Power of Women Voters

In 2017, a year into the presidency of Donald Trump, three notable women—Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, former Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, and executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Ai-jen Poo—looked to harness the sudden rage and confusion felt by women across the U.S. Garza, Poo and Richards announced the start of a women’s equality organization called Supermajority, a multiracial coalition of women organizing around issues like paid leave and affordable healthcare. The group’s name hearkens to the fact that women make up more than half of the U.S. population. 

These days, Amanda Brown Lierman is the executive director of both Supermajority and the Supermajority Education Fund, a sister nonprofit organization for research, education and development programs that prepare women civic leaders. And Lierman and her team have their eye on the prize: the 2022 midterms.