About - League of Women Voters of Elkhart County

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About the League

Empowering Voters. Defending Democracy.

We never support or oppose any political party or candidate

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization encouraging informed and active participation in government. It influences public policy through education and advocacy. We never support or oppose any political party or candidate. The League of Women Voters has two separate and distinct roles:

Voter Services and Citizen Education
We present unbiased nonpartisan information about elections, the voting process, and issues.

Action and Advocacy
We are nonpartisan, but after study, we use our positions to advocate for or against particular policies in the public interest.

Our Vision and Beliefs

The League of Women Voters of Indiana is a nonpartisan public policy educational organization which:

• builds citizen participation in the democratic process
• studies key community issues at all governmental levels in an unbiased manner
• enables people to seek positive solutions to public policy issues through education and • conflict management.

We believe in:

• respect for individuals
• the value of diversity
• the empowerment of the grassroots, both within the League and in communities

We will:

• act with trust, integrity and professionalism
• operate in an open and effective manner to meet the needs of those we serve, both members and the public
• take the initiative in seeking diversity in membership
• acknowledge our heritage as we seek our path to the future.

History of the League of Women Voters

The League of Women Voters started after women got the right to vote In her address to the National American Woman Suffrage Association’s (NAWSA) 50th convention in St. Louis, Missouri, President Carrie Chapman Catt proposed the creation of a “league of women voters to finish the fight and aid in the reconstruction of the nation.” Women Voters was formed within the NAWSA, composed of the organizations in the states where suffrage had already been attained.

The next year, on February 14, 1920 – six months before the 19th amendment to the Constitution was ratified – the League was formally organized in Chicago as the national League of Women Voters. Catt described the purpose of the new organization:

“The League of Women Voters is not to dissolve any present organization but to unite all existing organizations of women who believe in its principles. It is not to lure women from partisanship but to combine them in an effort for legislation which will protect coming movements, which we cannot even foretell, from suffering the untoward conditions which have hindered for so long the coming of equal suffrage. Are the women of the United States big enough to see their opportunity?" Carrie Chapman Catt

Suffragists parade, New York, 1915.
Library of Congress LC-B201-3643-12

Linda Hanson, LWVIN Co-President at the 2018 LWV National Convention

Maud Wood Park became the first national president of the League and thus the first League leader to rise to the challenge. She had steered the women’s suffrage amendment through Congress in the last two years before ratification and liked nothing better than legislative work. From the very beginning, however, it was apparent that the legislative goals of the League were not exclusively focused on women’s issues and that citizen education aimed at all of the electorate was in order.

Since its inception, the League has helped millions of women and men become informed participants in government. In fact, the first league convention voted 69 separate items as statements of principle and recommendations for legislation. Among them were protection for women and children, right of working women, food supply and demand, social hygiene, the legal status of women, and American citizenship.The League’s first major national legislative success was the passage of the Sheppard-Towner Act providing federal aid for maternal and child care programs. In the 1930’s, League members worked successfully for enactment of the Social Security and Food and Drug Acts. Due at least in part to League efforts, legislation passed in 1938 and 1940 removed hundreds of federal jobs from the spoils system and placed them under Civil Service.

During the postwar period, the League helped lead the effort to establish the United Nations and to ensure U.S. Participation. The League was one of the first organizations in the country officially recognized by the United Nations as a non-governmental organization; it still maintains official observer status today.

See also League History from the League of Women Voters of the United States

Opinion
How the Suffrage Movement Betrayed Black Women

By Brent Staples, NYT editorial board member
This article appeared in the July 28, 2018 edition of The New York Times.

Facing Hard Truths About the League's Origin

An open letter written by Virginia Kase, LWVUS CEO and Chris Carson, former LWVUS President

The League of Women Voters: Creating a More Perfect Democracy (video)

"The world taught women nothing skillful and then said her work was valueless. It permitted her no opinions and said she did not know how to think. It forbade her to speak in public and said the sex had no orators. It denied her the schools, and said the sex had no genius. It robbed her of every vestige of responsibility, and then called her weak. It taught her that every pleasure must come as a favor from men and when, to gain it, she decked herself in paint and fine feathers, as she had been taught to do, it called her vain."