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50-50 in 2020 calls local women to step up for office

  • Local committee organizer Linda Tjaden, also a Floyd County supervisor, and 50-50 in 2020 co-chair Jean Lloyd-Jones, an event speaker, listen to a sectional Friday morning during the campaign workshop offered at NIACC in Charles City. Press photos by Kate Hayden

  • Speaker Valerie Hennings talks to Step Up! participants about the most common backgrounds behind women elected to public office.

By Kate Hayden, khayden@charlescitypress.com

What pushes women to run for elected office? Morningside College professor Valerie Hennings asked a group of women seated in the NIACC Center on Friday.

“Passion about the issues” was one guess. “The perception of support,” somebody added.

“Asking someone to run matters,” Hennings said, nodding.

Hennings was leading one of six sessions in the campaign workshop “Step Up! What You Need to Know Before You Decide to Run,” hosted by 50-50 in 2020. The state organization, co-chaired by speaker Jean Lloyd-Jones, is hosting one local training in each Iowa congressional district this year, Lloyd-Jones said. Charles City’s workshop was the first hosted.

“There are a lot of women that are potentially very good candidates for the state legislature, and they can’t just travel down to Des Moines all the time,” Lloyd-Jones said. “We decided to go out and have one in each of the congressional districts … We hope to do it every year.”

50-50 in 2020 was founded in 2009 with the goal of encouraging more women to run for state and national elected offices — an ultimate goal of equal gender representation.

“We discovered that there were women that were not adequately prepared — they were just jumping into the race, full of enthusiasm and aspiration but not adequately prepared,” Lloyd-Jones said. “We designed this to say, ‘here are the things you need to think about before you decide.'”

Friday’s workshop offered sectionals on campaign data analysis (‘What are my chances of winning?’), daily responsibilities and qualifications of legislators, running a successful campaign and maintaining a career and/or family along with public service. Some of the invited attendees held public office at a county or city level, Lloyd-Jones said.

“They’ve already run a campaign and been successful. They know what it is to be a public servant. It’s a logical step,” she said. “Step up from your local (offices) to your state.”

The workshop was a step to gauge interest in attendees before they sign up for Blueprint for Winning Academy, a three-day workshop in January open to candidates running for the state Legislature, the U.S. Congress or other statewide offices.

50-50 in 2020 offers the campaign training and the mentors — but that’s all. The organization does not offer any funding or political endorsements.

“We are bi-partisan, and we support women of both parties in our training school,” Lloyd-Jones said. “We have two rules: You can’t talk about issues, and you can’t talk about your presidential preference.”

“We concentrate on how to organize your campaign, how to give your stump speech, social media, all kinds of things.”

Lloyd-Jones will speak at another Step Up! training session this year, and said she hopes to see the session results during the next few election cycles.

“If they’re not interested in running this time, we’ll hope to get them interested by 2020,” Lloyd-Jones said. “The next cycle is 2022 … That will be a lot of turnover.”

“We hope the momentum will build and women will start taking this seriously,” she added.

 

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