Interviews with top names in arts and politics.
Stephanie Schriock
The new president of Emily’s List talks about her job getting pro-choice female candidates elected to public office, her political past, and the future of technology in campaigns.
By Rebecca Foerg-Spittel
March 10, 2010
Stephanie Schriok is the new president of Emily’s List. (Point Blank Public Affairs)
Stephanie Schriock is the new president of Emily’s List, an organization that has been dedicated to electing women with strong pro-choice stances for more than 20 years. Schriock is only the second president of the group; Ellen Malcolm, who founded Emily’S list in 1985 during the height of anti-choice President Ronald Reagan’s presidency, retired last month. Previously, Schriock was campaign manager for Democratic Senators Jon Tester and Al Franken, after her stint as the finance director for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004.
Campus Progress talked with Schriock recently about the mission of Emily’s List, the importance of technology in get-out-the-vote efforts, and tough campaigns.
Campus Progress: What first drew you to Emily’s List?
Stephanie Schriock: Well, when I started in politics, my very first paying gig, which was so exciting, was with a wonderful woman who was running for Congress in the 1st Congressional District of Minnesota, by the name of Mary Rieder. I’d gone to graduate school but then came back and became her finance director. I knew very little about fundraising, but Emily’s List came on board in that race and not only helped me learn how to fundraise and train, but also supported her financially. Though she did not win, I learned a great deal and it was just a wonderful experience.
So, what do you feel is so important about a mission to get pro-choice female candidates elected?
I looked around Congress… Women only represent 17 percent of Congress. Seventeen percent! And as you go further out, it’s seventeen percent of mayors in the major cities, and 24 percent of state legislators are women in our country. To be honest, I just looked at those numbers and said, “Wait a second here.” You know, my success—my personal success—has been because women like Ellen Malcolm really said enough is enough twenty-five years ago. At that time, no Democratic woman had been elected in her own right to the Senate, and that was only twenty-five years ago! Emily’s List is responsible for 80 pro-choice women in the House since that time period and 19 Senators. While that’s good, that’s just not good enough.
You’re only the second head of Emily’s List, are you feeling pressure to measure up to your predecessor, or are you just sort of doing your own thing?
Well, it’s such an honor for me to take on this opportunity. So, is it so much pressure? No, it’s really more of an opportunity to work with someone like Malcolm, who has really changed for all of us how politics has worked. So it’s very exciting, and I’m really looking forward to trying a lot of new things and really looking to engage women and men around the country to join this effort and to build an even larger nationwide community dedicated to electing pro-choice women.
There was lot of fallout from Senate candidate Martha Coakley’s campaign loss to Scott Brown in Massachusetts, with Emily’s List supporting Coakley. How do you plan to do things differently?
That race, for all Democrats, was a wake up call. Coakley has served Massachusetts incredibly well as Attorney General, and will continue to do so. But we … need to make our case to the American people on why we should be elected to office and how we will continue to work for change in this country. All of our victories in 2008, that is not the end of the story. President Obama is not the end of the story. It’s just the very beginning. Emily’s List is taking a step back to just look at what happened, all of the factors around that Massachusetts race. We’re working with some other groups to do a study about that, so we can learn from that, and take those lessons on how we communicate, particularly with independent voters…
When you joined the Al Franken Senate campaign, things really weren’t looking good for him as a Democratic candidate in Minnesota. There seemed to be a lot of resistance. So what attracted you to the campaign, or to him as a candidate, that made you join as a campaign manager?
Well, first, Al Franken is just an incredibly big-hearted Minnesotan who’s just a really great person and dedicated to making life better for Minnesotans and people around the country. I mean he’s just a really good guy. So that was the easy part of that. I knew that with Franken’s heart that we could mount a campaign to move Republican Norm Colman out of there, and that’s what that was about. I would do it again in a split second.
Campaign managing seems like a unique job in that you’re balancing a lot of loyalties, and you have an unusual relationship with the candidate. What do you think is the most important thing that campaign managers do or should remember in their jobs?
I think it’s the same thing as with so many things in life. You get good people around you and then you let them do what they do best. That goes from the candidate herself, to the staff, and all the way through. I’ve always looked at it this way, and come to Emily’s List with the same view. When you bring good people together and you allow them the room to do good things, and you provide them with the resources that they need, you can do almost anything.
You’ve used technology in campaigns. What do you think the importance of online organizing is in terms of modern politics?
I think it’s critical. Not just in politics but in life. I will go check my Facebook page this evening and I’ll have notes from political friends, but I’ll also have notes from high school friends that I haven’t talked to in ages, and then I get a picture of someone’s new baby, and then there’s an event tomorrow night—it’s how we’re communicating. I think it’s a place candidates and organizations need to take time to really understand, to just be part of that community, that larger community, because we have to go where people are. I think it’s very exciting. We’re going to take that and really increase it and start building that community.
You’ve been in politics a long time. What advice you would give to young people interested in being politically active?
Just do it. I had so much fun in high school and college. I ran for class president a number of times in high school, and I lost a number of times. My junior year, I decided to run for student body president of the high school because it was the entire school that voted and not just my class. I got along with my class, I don’t want to make it sound terrible, but I knew I needed a larger group of people to campaign to and finally won. You know what, you just need to keep running, and keep running and you don’t always win, sometimes you lose, but from that you learn something.
By just getting involved, you will run into amazing people. In fact, one of the state legislators I met in college was the reason I got the job with that first campaign, Mary Rieder. I just say get involved and just keep trying new things because there’s such an interest in working together to make change in this country and I love it.
Rebecca Foerg-Spittel is an editorial intern with Campus Progress.
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You are in favor of eliminating the unwanted child that has not yet been born. How do you equalte that to eliminating those who have been born but are also unwanted, Like old, infirm, and mentally ill? Why is a female who is willing to abort her child the most qualified to lead our people? To see the birthing of any animal, but particularly a human, is the greatest spiritual experience.
Let us pray.
Jack
— Jack Foster - Mar 13, 12:10 PM - #How can you smile so nicely knowing that you support the killing of innocent babies in the mother’s womb? This is murder whether you wish to believe it or not!
— Joanne - Jun 21, 10:18 AM - #