| Chapter 1: | An Introduction to Emily's List |
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another transformative step, expanding its influence at the state level through the Political Opportunity Program (POP).
As the organization expanded and the pool of female Democratic pro-choice candidates grew, the scope of its campaign activities and party adjunct activities expanded as well, leading to the creation of several departments within the organization. As membership numbers have soared, the organization has stayed true to its PAC roots, bundling money to candidates, but has also been able to expand its PAC activity. As members give more money directly to the organization, ELIST has provided candidates with more direct and in-kind contributions from the PAC, and has recently spent considerable sums on independent expenditures. In recent years, EMILY's List has also proven to be adept at the “inside game” of lobbying. In the late 1990s, it began to engage in “traditional” interest-group activity, pressuring legislators to oppose the passage of restrictive campaign finance law.3 In 2005 it filed suit against the Federal Election Commission over the regulation of 527 activities; in late September 2009, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in ELIST's favor (Malcolm 2009).
EMILY's List's successful transformation from donor network to multipronged influence organization has made it the model that many different types of groups and entities have tried to replicate. Yet for the most part, scholars and journalists, while acknowledging the tremendous success of EMILY's List in raising money from contributors, underestimate the scope and importance of the organization. Although EMILY's List is the premier women's PAC, providing candidates with early money is not what led reporters and pundits to refer to Ellen Malcolm, founder and president of EMILY's List, as the “queenmaker” of the Democratic Party (Spake 1988). Rather, it is the additional things that EMILY's List does in combination with its role as a women's PAC—particularly