The History of LWV Advocacy
by Marilyn Schmidt
The very creation of the League was a result of decades of advocacy for women’s right to vote. The original mission was to encourage women to register and vote, and be well informed about issues when they did exercise that right. From its very beginnings the League hosted informational and educational meetings for anyone who was voting.
From that mission evolved the study groups, which then evolved into advocacy and action. From its early history the League never spoke as individuals but as a group and only after careful study and consensus by members.
The results of those studies are the Positions on various topics. Advocacy is always based on those Positions, which are reviewed each year and updated to be current.
In recent years the League has often been criticized for what seems to be partisan positions, however, if one looks at our entirety of positions, (many created many years ago), they were mostly “mainstream” and not really all that divisive. It’s only in more recent history that these issues now divide rather than unite many of us.