EMILY’s List Celebrates 2012 Milestones

I was honored to attend the EMILY’s List 2nd Inaugural Brunch over the weekend to not only celebrate the re-election of President Obama, but also the historic victories for women this election cycle.  Thanks to EMILY’s list, during the 2011- 2012 election cycle, we “elect[ed] a historic number of candidates – the only pro-choice Democratic woman governor in the country, 19 new women to the House, six Senate incumbents, and three new Senators – all the first women to represent their states in the Senate. And this cycle, women we’ve helped elect include the first Hindu and first female combat veterans to serve in the House, the first openly gay Senator, and the first Asian American woman to serve in the Senate.”

The inaugural brunch was electric and after the video below I was so inspired and pretty much ready to draft myself for Congress in the next election cycle.

Check out the video with the newest members of Congress applauding their win and reflecting back on the gender gap that carried so many Democratic candidates to victory in November.

Transcript After the Jump.

Strength in Numbers Video Transcript

NEWS COVERAGE: Ohio for President Barack Obama, which means you are looking at the President of the United States, Barack Obama.

SCHRIOCK: It’s amazing! What a win!

 

MADDOW: Last night the Republicans got schlacked, and they had no idea that it was coming.

 

SCHRIOCK: Voters were talking about jobs…

 

WARREN: How kids pay for college…

 

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Making sure we could rebuild the economy from the middle-class out…

 

SCHRIOCK: And instead, these guys…

 

NEWS COVERAGE OF AKIN: If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

 

MCCASKILL: What?

 

SCHRIOCK: Legitimate?

 

WARREN: I’ve never heard rape have some kind of modifier in front of it.

 

NEWS COVERAGE OF MOURDOCK: Even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.

 

BALDWIN: Unbelievable.

 

WARREN: I kept thinking, “Am I in some kind of time warp?”

 

DUCKWORTH: This man is completely out of touch.

 

NEWS COVERAGE: The Fair Pay Act.  Thirty-six Republican senators voted against it.

 

WARREN: Is this 1952?

 

FRIESS: Back in my days they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives.  The gals put it between their knees.

 

GABBARD: Seriously?

 

BALDWIN: These guys are off in some other world.

 

NEWS COVERAGE OF PELOSI: Right now, as we gather here, five men are testifying on women’s health.

 

NEWS COVERAGE OF MALONEY: Where are the women?

 

NEWS COVERAGE OF PELOSI: Where are the women?

 

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: We’re right here.

 

BALDWIN: I’m here.

 

NEWS COVERAGE: Wisconsin made history.  Tammy Baldwin. She’s now the first openly gay person ever elected to the Senate.  Tammy Duckworth, veteran, helicopter pilot, she is going to Congress.

 

DUCKWORTH: Ta-da! I’m here.

 

NEWS COVERAGE: Tulsi Gabbard won in a landslide.  Gabbard and Duckworth are also the first female combat veterans elected.

 

GABBARD: I’m here.

 

NEWS COVERAGE: Hawaii elected its first female U.S. senator, Mazie Hirono.

 

HIRONO: I’m here.

 

NEWS COVERAGE: Democrat, Elizabeth Warren, heads to Washington as the first female senator from Massachusetts.

 

WARREN: We’re here.

 

NEWS COVERAGE: Claire McCaskill was just declared the victor of the Missouri Senate race.

 

MCCASKILL: And we’re not going anywhere.

 

SCHRIOCK: Women and men voted for a record number of EMILY’s List candidates.

 

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: EMILY’s List was indispensible.

 

DUCKWORTH: EMILY’s List was there at the very start of my campaign sitting at my kitchen table.

 

MCCASKILL: Knowing there was this army of women out there.

 

GABBARD: Only through our strength in numbers…

 

DUCKWORTH: Strength in numbers…

 

SCHRIOCK:  Strength in numbers…

 

GABBARD: …was I able to pull off an impossible win.

 

HIRONO: It’s great to have twenty women in the Senate.

 

MCCASKILL: You know what would be better? Fifty.

 

HIRONO: Yes.

 

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: We need you.

 

WARREN: Please come join us in the Senate.

 

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Don’t think you can hide.

 

DUCKWORTH: I don’t even have legs and I ran!

 

GABBARD: We need more women in the House.

 

MCCASKILL: More women governors.

 

WARREN: More women in state legislatures.

 

GABBARD: But, wait a second…

 

SCHRIOCK: There’s another race coming in 2016.

 

BALDWIN: 2016.

 

SCHRIOCK: You know what I’m talking about.

 

— Patriotic music plays in background —

 

GABBARD: Now is the time.

 

BALDWIN: The voters in the United States are ready.

 

MCCASKILL: Oh yeah. We’re ready…

 

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: For a woman president.

 

DUCKWORTH: It’s time for a female president.

 

HIRONO: It’s about time.

 

SCHRIOCK: But we still have a lot of challenges ahead of us.

 

MCCASKILL: We have so much more to do…

 

WARREN: We’ve got to work on the economy…

 

BALDWIN: The need for good paying jobs.

 

MCCASKILL: We’ve got to get our fiscal house in order. We’ve got to continue to invest in education.

 

DUCKWORTH: The needs of our men and women in uniform.

 

GABBARD: Protect Social Security and take care of our kapuna.

 

WARREN: We’ve got to be able to level the playing field.

 

GABBARD: There’s so much more that we can do together.

 

SCHRIOCK:  I’m telling you, it’s our time!

 

DUCKWORTH: We are on fire.

 

BALDWIN: This is just the beginning.

 

WARREN: So, it’s the first day that I’ve worn this. (Points to congressional pin) Thank you, EMILY’s List. You made this happen.

 

BALDWIN: Thank you all so much.

 

SCHRIOCK: Thank you!

 

HIRONO: Thank you, everybody!

 

GABBARD: Thank you!

 

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you!

 

MCCASKILL: Thank you!

 

WARREN: Thank you.

 

MCCASKILL: From the bottom of my heart.

 

DUCKWORTH: Because of you…

 

BALDWIN: We made history…

 

SCHRIOCK:  Because of you…

 

GABBARD: Because of you, EMILY’s List…

 

HIRONO: We won.

 

GABBARD: We won.

 

SCHRIOCK:   We won.

 

— Photographs of Amy Klobuchar, Carol Shea-Porter, Cheri Bustos, Kirsten Gillibrand, Debbie Stabenow, Ann McLane Kuster, Elizabeth Esty, Joyce Beatty, Louise Slaughter, Kyrsten Sinema, Lois Frankel, Grace Meng, Julia Brownley, Lois Capps, Michelle Lujan Grisham, Suzan Delbene, Maria Cantwell, Maggie Hassan, Dina Titus, Gloria Negrete McLeod, Dianne Feinstein, Ann Kirkpatrick —