New 'Matriarch' PAC Aims To Send Working- Class Women, Often Overlooked, To Congress
'Newly-Launched PAC Matriarch Aims to Send Working-Class Women, Often Ignored by Political Establishment, to Congress.' "Money should not be a factor for what makes a woman a worthwhile candidate." Common Dreams. 11/04/19.
Working and low-income progressive women whose congressional runs go overlooked by establishment political action groups have a new resource for funding their campaigns: the newly-launched organization Matriarch.
The group—whose founding members include board director Nomiki Konst, a former candidate for public advocate in New York City; former Nevada assemblywoman Lucy Flores; and former California state assembly candidate Jovanka Beckles—shared its overarching mission on Twitter:
"Working-class women who beat the odds to run for office and win are rare. We won't rest until the exception is the rule," the group tweeted.
- The new PAC Matriarch aims to give support and financial backing to the congressional campaigns of low-income and working-class women.
Now more than ever, we need strong, progressive working women at the helm of government," the statement reads. "Domestic workers. Teachers. Home health aides. Food-service workers. No one knows better what it feels like to work for less than $15 an hour. What it means to have no healthcare. What it tastes like when your tap water runs brown. No one knows better the human cost of gun violence, police brutality, and family separation."
"For working-class candidates, raising huge sums of money in a short amount of time—while also working one or more jobs—is often unthinkable. These are the candidates who need and deserve early assistance and infrastructure support, because they are personally connected to the issues they are fighting for."
With more than three dozen progressive women on its founding board—including many former candidates themselves—Matriarch will offer working-class women's campaigns the support and financial backing that larger organizations, like EMILY's List, frequently withhold from candidates who aren't wealthy or backed by rich donors.
Within just days of announcing its launch on social media late last month, Matriarch has already received 1,500 nominations for working-class women's campaigns, according to The Intercept. The group is taking nominations until December 1 and plans to make its first endorsements by January...
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/04/newly-launched-pac-matriarch-aims-send-working-class-women-often-ignored-political