Posted on 12/12/2003 6:56:32 AM PST by Jeff Gannon
WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- The League of Women Voters, that venerable group established shortly after women's suffrage was won over 80 years ago, has undergone extraordinary changes in the past three decades. But the public image that persists is one of a "little old ladies' club" that works the polls on Election Day. Some are claiming the group's political agenda is a far cry from that of a middle-of-the-road voter education advocate.
A review of the "Where We Stand" section of the League of Women Voters website reveals political goals well beyond that of female voter recruitment. Its comprehensive policy manifesto includes positions supporting abortion, campaign finance restrictions, gun control, reduced defense spending, and prohibition of oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Taken point by point, it bears remarkable similarity to the Democratic Party platform of 2000.
On the issue of campaign finance reform, LWV teamed up with other liberal groups such as Public Citizen, Democracy 21, U.S. PIRG, and the Public Campaign Action Fund. LWV's pro-abortion activism includes being a primary sponsor of next year's "March for Choice" along with the Feminist Majority, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the National Organization for Women and Planned Parenthood Federation of America. President Kay J. Maxwell is a former board member of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut Public Policy Fund.
LWV has been a leading supporter of the controversial Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) a treaty that has never been ratified by the Senate. Critics of the treaty say its approval would cede decision-making authority on issues of family law, parental rights, religious exercise, education, abortion regulation, employment pay scales, quotas in educational institutions, workplaces and elected offices, and homosexual privileges to a committee of the United Nations.
The League's national lobby corps is presently working Congress on issues of clean air, reproductive choice, Title IX and ANWR. The group celebrated victory when the Supreme Court upheld most of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation on Wednesday.
The LWV once hosted nationally televised presidential debates every four years, but ceased doing so following the 1988 primaries as the result of a dispute with Commission on Presidential Debates.
In a statement, the organization said, "The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the presidential debates ... because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public."
The group announced this week that it will sponsor a Democrat Primary Debate on February 15, 2004.
Copyright © 2003 Talon News -- All rights reserved.
A bear s***s in the woods..
It should be something like League of Marxist Women Voters!
I always thought taking the vote away from women was a joke. But these hate-mongers are causing me to reconsider that view.
Republicans to spurn LWV voter forums- Gutsy Upstate GOP calls a spade a spade
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