Republicans Turn Against the League of Women Voters

[CatWoman]

The league, long known for focusing on voter registration and other fundamentals, became more willing to speak boldly during the Trump era. Now, some on the right are portraying it as a tool of the radical left.

“The League of Women Voters, while that sounds like a nice organization, they don’t do a lot of nice work,” Catalina Lauf, a Republican candidate for Congress in Illinois, said in a video posted in May on Instagram, explaining her reasoning for refusing to participate in a league-sponsored debate.

The league, she claimed, “peddles Marxist ideology” and is “anti-American.” In an interview with ProPublica, Lauf cited the league’s support for the rights of transgender student athletes as one reason she is suspicous of the group. She also claimed the league has endorsed the defunding of police departments, though that is inaccurate. The league has, however, taken stands in favor of sweeping police reforms that would address brutality and racial profiling.

“They need to switch their brand fast,” Lauf said. “Because their hyperpartisanship is turning off a lot of women who just want common sense.”

Conservative candidates for school board and county supervisor in Wisconsin have fired similar broadsides when declining to participate in league debates. And in Pennsylvania this year, only 30% of Republican candidates completed the league’s VOTE411.org informational guide for the primaries, compared with 70% of Democrats, according to the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. The guide gives voters the candidates’ unedited answers to questions about their qualifications, priorities and stances on certain issues.

https://www.propublica.org/article/league-of-women-voters-gop-trump?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter#1395365

[Ocelot II]

1. LWV has been scrupulously nonpartisan since forever, but it's no longer OK to be nonpartisan.

If you're not overtly and stridently pro-Trump you're a dangerous Marxist.

[herding cats]

2. They did that where I am in 2008.

I was working the election and the R prescient election judge came in and pulled all the material by them explaining the ballot. It was a first I'd ever seen anyone call them partisan or liberal.

[Biophilic]

3. Yup, the world is truly crazy when the LWV is seen as a far left organization.

[Hekate]

4. The culture wars are going to kill us

[Nittersing]

5. Republicans Turn Against Democracy

fixed it

[summer_in_TX]

6. The League did much soul-searching about

itself and it’s relevance coming up to its 100Th birthday in 2019.

It acknowledged a flawed and sometimes racist past, but also concluded that it’s mission of “Educating voters and defending democracy” was still vital, and that this venerable organization with state chapters in all 50 states and many local Leagues that had built up trust through their reputation for nonpartisanship could leverage that to have a positive impact,

As part of it’s soul-searching, it added a co-equal plank to it’s mission, to advocate for diversity and full inclusion. They elected the first black president the League had had, and a CEO whose family is multi-racial.

In response to the rapid erosion of democracy, many did become more involved in lawsuits to counter voter roll purges and other threats to rights.

The suffragettes were very strong, intelligent, activist women, their granddaughters and great granddaughters are too. When things were going smoothly they got a bland reputation, as if they were the nonpartisan questions they carefully construct for Vote411.org (their award winning online version of the printed Voters Guide).

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. The radicalized Republican party wants permanent, total control; you're a member or an enemy.

Roe, Roe, Roe your vote
against theocracy!
Republicans revoke your rights
and kill democracy!

[hamsterjill]

8. Republicans hate women.

Even Republican women hate women. It’s disgusting.

How could any woman in her right mind EVER vote for a freaking Republican!!!!

[MurrayDelph]

10. They especially hate women

that vote.

[Mc Mike]

9. Walt Disney also called the LWV an communist front organization.

The reich wing never changes.