Young people continue to be underrepresented in our democracy, and COVID-19 has severely curtailed traditional youth voter registration efforts. As a result, Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project is using digital tools to reach potential voters and providing the information they need to navigate the 2020 election and beyond. Rachel’s Network is providing Student PIRGs a grant to help enable this work.
In January 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), but the federal government refuses to enshrine it in the US Constitution. Rachel’s Network, along with founder Winsome McIntosh’s McIntosh Foundation, have filed a legal brief supporting three states in their lawsuit against the federal government for failing to uphold the ERA.
For 20 years, the women in our network have used their voices and resources to uplift other women and contribute to solutions. It’s gratifying to see what’s possible when we work together for positive change. Read our 2019 Annual Report here.
Are women more likely to support and champion environmental legislation? Rachel’s Network has been seeking answers to that question in our When Women Lead report. Previous iterations of the report analyzed the voting records of federal legislators going back to 1983 using League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Environmental Scorecard data. This year, we’ve extended our data to 1972, the year that LCV first began keeping records of Congress’ votes on the environment.
In response to impacts COVID-19 has had on the operations, financial security, and well-being of the women in our extended community, our organization launched the Rachel’s Network Community Resilience Fund in April 2020 to provide small, unrestricted gifts directly to nonprofits and women environmental leaders.
Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen, one of the country’s leading environmental lawyers, has joined Rachel’s Network as a liaison. As head of the nation’s premier public interest environmental law organization, Abigail leads a staff of over 400, with more than 130 lawyers, in fourteen offices across the country. She has litigated many precedent-setting cases that have held polluters accountable and cleared the way for clean energy nationally.
