ABOUT THE LEAGUE
MISSION AND VALUES
LEAGUE'S TRUSTED NON-PARTISAN
STANCE
WHAT OTHERS SAY ABOUT
THE LEAGUE
HISTORY OF NATIONAL
LEAGUE
HISTORY OF LOCAL LEAGUE
MISSION
AND VALUES
The League of Women Voters, a non-partisan political organization,
encourages the informed and active participation of citizens
in government, works to increase understanding of major
public policy issues, and influences public policy through
education and advocacy.
The League is non-partisan and does not support or oppose
candidates. Leagues do support issues and legislation but
only after careful member study. League members register
and mobilize people to vote. The League encourages citizens
to participate in complex decision making processes that
result in important public policy.
The League’s National Lobby Corps represents League
positions on Capitol Hill, carrying the voice of League
members to the corridors of Congress and the Administration.
League members serve as official observers and election
volunteers, and conduct civic participation training around
the world.
League's
Trusted Nonpartisan Reputation
The League of Women Voters is the most trusted not for
profit organization in the United States. As such, loocal
Leagues are often called upon to convene community issue
forums as well as host candidate debates.
The League also works at local, state and national levels
to generate democratic conversation among
members, educate the general public and policy makers on
pressing issues, and take concerted action to bring about
social change.
The League structure enables all members
to be community - based activists whose actions, by association,
may well have national impact.
What
others say
- Justice at Stake Survey: The League
was ranked second, just after the Supreme Court, by participants
in a national survey when asked to rate their assessment
of people and organizations of impact.
- First Lady & UN Ambassador Eleanor Roosevelt:
(about joining the LWV) "I was persuaded
that women's suffrage was something that one needed to
obtain many of the things I already believed in."
- Senator John McCain: (R-AZ) "On
DNet, I was able to continually update my positions on
multiple issues enabling voters to read my statements
for themselves. I congratulate the LWV for using the Internet
to reengage the public in the political process."
- The Honorable Representative Barbara Jordan:
"For years the League of Women Voters has been THE
institution concerned about informed participation by
voters. The League has been engaged in educating us for
democracy and because you have been at this for as long
as you have, democracy is strengthened by your presence."
The League of Women Voters has stood for good government
for over eighty years - no individual can take your place
in helping us make democracy work. Join
us!
League
of Women Voters History
- Born out of the women's suffrage movement
that secured the right to vote for women, the League of
Women Voters was founded in 1920. For over 80 years now,
the League's hallmark has been its process of researching
and studying before adopting a position on national, state
or local issues. This thorough way of forging positions
has made the League a credible force.
- When League founder Carrie Chapman Catt,
a feminist who had been a dynamic leader in the suffragist
movement, first wrote of how she envisioned the League
she stated, " Everybody counts in applying democracy.
And there will never be a true democracy until every responsible
and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex,
color or creed has his or her own inalienable and unpurchasable
voice in government."
- Helping to "make the general welfare" was
the primary agenda of the newly formed
League. Agenda items critical to the independence of women
included support for collective bargaining, child
labor laws, minimum wage, a joint federal-state employment
service, compulsory education, and equal opportunity for
women in government and industry. Many of these
items were enacted into laws that are still in force today.
They have been part of American life for so many years
most of us take them for granted. For over 80 years, the
League has arduously struggled for legislation
that improves the quality of life for all persons.
- The League used its grassroots mobilizing and citizen
education skills in backing legislation for developing
the Tennessee river basin as the site of a publicly owned
power facility. It was the beginning of the League's involvement
in environmental concerns. In 1933, Congress, at
the request of President Franklin Roosevelt, established
the Tennessee Valley Authority.
- Since the 1930's, the League of Women Voters has built
a sequence of broad national positions and expanded its
concept of grassroots organizing and citizen advocacy
into the areas of world peace, civil and human rights.
Not long after its founding, the League worked
for U.S. membership in the League of Nations,
the predecessor to the United Nations, and in the World
Court. It mobilized support for global disarmament.
- The League's campaign to uphold civil rights and civil
liberties included work to protect the right to individual
privacy and an insistence that the government has no right
to intrude into certain areas of citizen's lives. During
the McCarthy period of the 1950s, this belief inspired
the League of Women Voters of the United States
to sponsor the "Freedom Agenda" – a nation-wide
program of community education and discussion about civil
liberties.
- Civil and human rights issues were
embraced by the League in the 1960s and 1970s. The
League studied the problems of poverty and discrimination,
particularly unemployment, underemployment and inequities
in public school education. As a result of a
two-year study on these issues, the League built a foundation
of support for equal access to education, racial integration
in schools, fair employment and fair housing.
- The 1970s was the decade in which the League overwhelmingly
supported ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
The League viewed "equal rights for all regardless
of sex" as a fundamental elaboration of its long-term
support for equal opportunity in education, employment
and housing. The League was on the forefront of ERA ratification
efforts at the state and national levels.
- In the 1970s, the League of Women Voters of
the United States began sponsoring televised Presidential
debates.
- In the 1980s, the League affirmed the constitutional
right of privacy of the individual to make reproductive
choices. In the spring of 1983, the League successfully
pressed for the defeat of a constitutional amendment that
would have overturned Roe V. Wade.
- League worked tirelessly and successfully in the 1990s
for the passage of the National Voter Registration
Act, or "motor voter", as a means of
registering more Americans, simplifying voter registration
procedures in the states and reshaping government's role
in the registration process.
- In the 2000s, the League successfully secured campaign
finance reforms intended to curb the influence
of special interests; ensure fair competition by setting
spending limits; and closing "soft money" loopholes
so that large, unregulated contributions would not be
used to circumvent existing campaign laws.
- Following the Presidential election of 2000, League
became more visible in the area of election administration
reform. Ensuring that all eligible citizens have
the right to cast their votes and that those votes are
properly counted continues to be one of the top priorities
of the League of Women Voters.
The League continues to work hard to make democracy
work as we mobilize more Americans to take part
in the country's electoral and policy making process. We
face the future remembering the words of League founder
Carrie Chapman Catt, who said "…no chance,
no destiny, no fate can circumvent or hinder or control
the firm resolve of a determined soul."
History of Local league
The League of Women Voters of Florida
was established in 1939. The first program of work included:
- Survey of state and county school systems
- Study of state and local government
- Foreign policy of the United States.
The Winter Park League was one of the
first three local Leagues that established the League of
Women Voters of Florida. It soon became the Winter Park/Orlando
League, and the name was changed to the League of Women
Voters of Orange County in the ‘60s.
A member of the Winter Park/Orlando
was responsible for initiating the League’s first
legislative impact, which occurred during a special session
in 1945 addressing reapportionment. This was best described
in “The First Ten Years are the Hardest”, a
paper by Mrs. Maxine Baker. “This special session
of the legislature in 1945 was the first one to be made
vividly aware of the existence of the League of Women Voters.
Heretofore, only a few legislators had received letters
or been interviewed by League members. But, on this hot
July of 1945, each legislator found on his desk a copy of
a long poem addressed to him on the subject of reapportionment.
The author of the poem, Mrs. Charles (Helen Aubrey) Pratt
of the Winter Park-Orlando League, was introduced from the
rostrum by President of the Senate, Walter Rose. Many Florida
newspapers reprinted Mrs. Pratt’s poem and carried
League-written letters to the editor.
“The League, however, was not
content with merely urging the lawmakers to do their duty.
Mrs. William (Ethel Knott) Melcher, state League president,
spent countless hours actually working out an equitable
plan for senatorial redistricting, which was proposed for
consideration. Although the Legislature, after some fifty
days of battling, adopted an unsatisfactory compromise and
wearily adjourned, they had at least fulfilled the letter,
if not the spirit, of the law requiring reapportionment,
which was more than had been done in twenty years.”
Seven members from Orange County have
served as president of the League of Women Voters of Florida.
The first League member elected to the Florida Legislature
was Beth Johnson, Orlando, who served in both the Florida
House of Representatives and the Florida Senate.
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