• The League is nonpartisan and does not support or oppose candidates.

• League chapters do support issues and legislation but only after careful member study.

• League chapters register and mobilize people to vote.

• The League encourages citizens to participate in complex decision making processes that result in important public policy.

• The League's National Lobby Corps represents League positions on Capitol Hill, carrying the voice of League members to the corridors of Congress and the Administration.
• League members serve as official observers and election volunteers, and conduct civic participation training around the world.

League's Trusted Nonpartisan Reputation:

The League of Women Voters is the most trusted not for profit organization in the United States. As such, League chapters are often called upon to convene community issue forums as well as host candidate debates.

The League also works at local, state and national levels to generate democratic conversation among members, educate the general public and policy makers on pressing issues, and take concerted action to bring about social change.

The League structure enables all members to be community - based activists whose actions, by association, may well have national impact.

League of Women Voters History:

• Born out of the women's suffrage movement that secured the right to vote for women, the League of Women Voters was founded in 1920. For over 80 years now, the League's hallmark has been its process of researching and studying before adopting a position on national, state or local issues. This thorough way of forging positions has made the League a credible force.
  
  
• When League founder Carrie Chapman Catt, a feminist who had been a dynamic leader in the suffragist movement, first wrote of how she envisioned the League she stated, " Everybody counts in applying democracy. And there will never be a true democracy until every responsible and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex, color or creed has his or her own inalienable and unpurchasable voice in government."
  
  
• Helping to "make the general welfare" was the primary agenda of the newly formed League. Agenda items critical to the independence of women included support for collective bargaining, child labor laws, minimum wage, a joint federal-state employment service, compulsory education, and equal opportunity for women in government and industry. Many of these items were enacted into laws that are still in force today. They have been part of American life for so many years most of us take them for granted. For over 80 years, the League has arduously struggled for legislation that improves the quality of life for all persons.
  
  
• The League used its grassroots mobilizing and citizen education skills in backing legislation for developing the Tennessee river basin as the site of a publicly owned power facility. It was the beginning of the League's involvement in environmental concerns. In 1933, Congress, at the request of President Franklin Roosevelt, established the Tennessee Valley Authority.
  
  
• Since the 1930's, the League of Women Voters has built a sequence of broad national positions and expanded its concept of grassroots organizing and citizen advocacy into the areas of world peace, civil and human rights. Not long after its founding, the League worked for U.S. membership in the League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations, and in the World Court. It mobilized support for global disarmament.
  
  
• The League's campaign to uphold civil rights and civil liberties included work to protect the right to individual privacy and an insistence that the government has no right to intrude into certain areas of citizen's lives. During the McCarthy period of the 1950s, this belief inspired the League of Women Voters of the United States to sponsor the "Freedom Agenda" – a nation-wide program of community education and discussion about civil liberties.
  
  
• Civil and human rights issues were embraced by the League in the 1960s and 1970s. The League studied the problems of poverty and discrimination, particularly unemployment, underemployment and inequities in public school education. As a result of a two-year study on these issues, the League built a foundation of support for equal access to education, racial integration in schools, fair employment and fair housing.
  
  
• The 1970s was the decade in which the League overwhelmingly supported ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. The League viewed "equal rights for all regardless of sex" as a fundamental elaboration of its long-term support for equal opportunity in education, employment and housing. The League was on the forefront of ERA ratification efforts at the state and national levels.
  
  
• In the 1970s, the League of Women Voters of the United States began sponsoring televised Presidential debates.
  
  
• In the 1980s, the League affirmed the constitutional right of privacy of the individual to make reproductive choices. In the spring of 1983, the League successfully pressed for the defeat of a constitutional amendment that would have overturned Roe V. Wade.
  
  
• League worked tirelessly and successfully in the 1990s for the passage of the National Voter Registration Act, or "motor voter", as a means of registering more Americans, simplifying voter registration procedures in the states and reshaping government's role in the registration process.
  
  
• In the 2000s, the League successfully secured campaign finance reforms intended to curb the influence of special interests; ensure fair competition by setting spending limits; and closing "soft money" loopholes so that large, unregulated contributions would not be used to circumvent existing campaign laws.
  
  
• Following the Presidential election of 2000, League became more visible in the area of election administration reform. Ensuring that all eligible citizens have the right to cast their votes and that those votes are properly counted continues to be one of the top priorities of the League of Women Voters.
  
  
• The League continues to work hard to make democracy work as we mobilize more Americans to take part in the country's electoral and policy making process. We face the future remembering the words of League founder Carrie Chapman Catt, who said "…no chance, no destiny, no fate can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul."
  
  

What others say...

• Justice at Stake Survey: The League was ranked second, just after the Supreme Court, by participants in a national survey when asked to rate their assessment of people and organizations of impact.
  
  
• First Lady & UN Ambassador Eleanor Roosevelt: (about joining the LWV) "I was persuaded that women's suffrage was something that one needed to obtain many of the things I already believed in."
  
  
• Senator John McCain: (R-AZ) "On DNet, I was able to continually update my positions on multiple issues enabling voters to read my statements for themselves. I congratulate the LWV for using the Internet to reengage the public in the political process."
  
  
• The Honorable Representative Barbara Jordan: "For years the League of Women Voters has been THE institution concerned about informed participation by voters. The League has been engaged in educating us for democracy and because you have been at this for as long as you have, democracy is strengthened by your presence."

The League of Women Voters has stood for good government for over eighty years - no individual can take your place in helping us make democracy work. Join us!