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Return to main page As they moved into their new offices in Old Town Alexandria, the leadership of the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA) is confident of success in elections to come.
Although most of the congressional candidates sponsored by the three-year-old political action committee (PAC) were not elected, four of the 13 were just sworn in on Capitol Hill.
Since its founding in 1993, SBA has been committed to getting more pro-life women candidates into office, and it is emerging as one of strongest young PACs in national politics.
"Obviously, this was not the year of the incumbent," said Executive Director Jennifer Bingham. One of the November losers was Rep. Andrea Seastrand (R-Calif.), who lost for reasons unrelated to abortion. However, Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho) came away with an unexpectedly successful re-election bid, after she had been dismissed by most political observers.
Trade unions poured $3 million into the effort to unseat Chenoweth as part of an ineffective strategy to destroy the Republican majority. The congressman quickly became known for her vigorous rhetoric. During the debate over the partial-birth abortion ban, she said on the floor of the House that "partial-birth abortion is murder … cold, grisly and premeditated."
Congressman-elect Linda Wilde (R-Calif.) won her March 23 primary by a 3-2 margin over the state Republican party's favorite candidate. "I credit the Susan B. Anthony List and its generous members for this victory," Wilde said. She had received early support from SBA as her campaign was taking shape, enabling her to pull off the upset victory.
In a sign of its growth, last month the organization completed its move to Prince Street in Alexandria. Before they moved in, their new home used to be mistaken for a condemned building, but today it is a much more pleasant environment.
So pleasant, in fact, that SBA hosted its first open house last month. About 100 people came to eat, drink and contribute to the Northwest Center, a pro-life crisis pregnancy clinic and maternity home located in Washington. Guests came with baby gifts for the mothers and left them under the Christmas tree by the door.
SBA does not directly contribute funds to candidates. Instead, it identifies promising women and notifies its members, who write checks to the candidates themselves. The maximum amount a PAC can give to a campaign is $5,000, and the limit for individuals is $1,000. But if 100 individuals contribute independently, they can give up to $100,000 without breaking federal election laws.
Law firms, among other entities, had been using this tactic to increase their political clout, but it was EMILY's List that turned it into an effective partisan tool. EMILY's List (an acronym for "Early Money Is Like Yeast") is an avowedly pro-abortion lobby dedicated to bringing Democratic women into office. In the last decade, it has become one of the biggest sources of funding for congressional candidates. It outspends better-known lobbies such as the National Rifle Association and the American Medical Association. In 1996, it contributed $6.5 million to candidates, up 5 percent from the 1994 total.
SBA raised less than one-twentieth that amount this year, but President Marjorie Dannenfelser is "very happy with the rate of progress." Dannenfelser points out that they are further along than EMILY's List was when it was four years old.
A plurality of SBA's members live in the Washington area, and the group plans to increase its size in the next two years by concentrating on heavily Catholic areas. Membership is currently about 3,500, and will be 10,000 in 1998 if Dannenfelser gets her way. She said the growth is "an attainable goal." In four years she hopes SBA will direct the disbursement of $2 million.
Dannenfelser's commitment to the pro-life cause began when she converted to Catholicism after befriending some devout Catholics at Duke University.
"My conversion bore some pretty exotic fruit," writes Dannenfelser in an essay in this month's Crisis magazine. After leaving a Washington internship position, she went to work for a pro-life Democrat.
"I was in a position where I had to speak publicly about an issue I would never have brought up in polite conversation previously. Only God's grace could have shoved me to Capitol Hill to promote the pro-life position," she continues.
Dannenfelser is "still convinced that the issue of abortion in our culture transcends party lines _ that each party has a legacy which calls it to affirm the lives of children in the womb and of their mothers." Finding pro-life Democratic women to run for Congress is an elusive task, but SBA is officially bi-partisan and will contribute to anyone who opposes threats to innocent life.