Hillary Clinton Visits Houston To Raise One Million Dollars To Elect Progressive Texas Women To Office
HOUSTON, April 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Annie's List, the Texas organization committed to helping progressive women run for public office, gathered more than 2,500 supporters in Houston today to honor Houston philanthropist Amber Mostyn and hear former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton address a sold out crowd about the opportunities for future women leaders. The noon luncheon packed the largest hotel ballroom in Houston and raised close to $1 million dollars before the doors even opened, helping beef up the Annie's List war chest designed to elect more Democratic women around the state.
"Women have to be persistent and keep raising their hand to run, and when we do, we can make an impact. This work is hard, but it is vital. And when we work together, we can accomplish anything," said Patsy Woods Martin, Executive Director of Annie's List.
The Annie's List enormously successful fund raiser comes at the same time when the group will be endorsing a crop of new candidates for the upcoming midterm elections. The candidate pool will include women contenders for races from the county level to statewide office.
"Annie's List is creating a pathway to a blue Texas, and the women we help elect are impacting millions of lives in the state every day," said luncheon honoree and Annie's List former board chair Amber Mostyn. "We are extremely honored to have Hillary Clinton in the Lone Star State committing her time and energy to electing strong, Texas progressive women."
In its 13-year history, Annie's List has successfully supported 10 of the 20 Democrats currently in the Texas State House of Representatives, and has won critical elections turning counties and district boards into Democratic strongholds.
Despite all odds in the 2016 election, Annie's List candidates won 29 of the 34 races they ran. And, in places like Houston, Anne Sung's election to the HISD school board created a Democratic super-majority now serving 215,000 children in the Houston area.
Annie's List identifies contestable races, trains women to run and support their campaigns with need fundraising dollars. Earlier this week, the organization held a "Preparing to Run" training in Houston, teaching women what it means to run for office and the basics of how to build a campaign, a key step in creating candidate and campaign staff pipelines.
Background
Since its founding in 2003, Annie's List (named after Annie Webb Blanton, the first woman elected to statewide office in Texas) has directly contributed $4.5 million, trained thousands of women to run for office and women endorsed by Annie's List have won over 100 races up and down the ballot, across the state.
In 2015, the Annie's List team completed a new strategic plan to guide the organization through 2020. A strategic and enhanced focus on local races is one primary outcome of the planning. In the 2015-2016 election cycle women endorsed by Annie's List won 20 seats in the State Legislature (7 new women in the Texas House), and 9 Texas candidates for local office in some of the biggest regions of the country.
Post-election, Annie's List has seen unprecedented numbers of supporters signing up online, trainings for women to learn to run for office have been sold out, and a surge in activism through existing and pop-up communities working for progressive change, and specifically for equal representation in the halls of power.
Annie's List holds the following principles, where by electing progressive, pro-choice women, Annie's List promotes an agenda which:
- Protects reproductive rights for women
- Provides affordable and accessible healthcare for all Texas families
- Creates equitable economic opportunities, wages and working conditions for women
- Prevents violence against women and children and assists those who do become victims
- Supports quality public education for all children
More information about Annie's List and our programs can be found here: annieslist.com.
CONTACT: Margaret Justus
281-250-8253 or
Marjorie Clifton 202-510-5275
SOURCE Annie’s List
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