Women and the Democratic Party: The Evolution of EMILY's List By ...

over which candidates to support. When Shirley Chisholm, one of the founding members of NWPC, ran for President in 1978, the organization did not endorse her until McGovern and McCarthy “proved unworthy of feminist support” (Giddings 1984, 338). In contrast the WCF was connected to a foundation governed by an executive director and a board of trustees. While this still could cause debate over endorsements, the pool of voices was much smaller and the WCF did not have to get membership feedback or approval on decisions. Not coincidentally, the WCF quickly outpaced the NWPC. By 1978 it was the largest and most powerful women's PAC in terms of receipts.

These women's PACs remained small but important players in electoral politics throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. By the late 1970s, more and more progressive women became engaged in politics at the mass level (the gender gap in voting disappeared in 1980), but at the elite level, women still comprised a small portion of the candidate pool, even with progressive women's PACs there to help.¹³ Table 2.1 shows the receipts and candidate contributions for NWPC and WCF from 1980 to 1984, the election before the formation of EMILY's List. The NWPC acquired the least receipts during this period, whereas the WCF consistently received the greatest amount of receipts. Data on the percent of receipts given to candidates is most surprising. From 1980 through 1984, the NWPC and WCF spent less than 50 percent of their respective receipts on candidate contributions, much less than one would expect from connected PACs.¹⁴

The receipts of the women's PACs were only part of the problem female candidates faced. The cap on PAC donations (FECA mandated that a PAC could only give a candidate $5,000 per election), combined with the high cost of campaigning—in 1982 the average Senate race cost $1.78 million—meant that candidates had to obtain considerable funding from individuals, from