EMILY's Friends : The Emerging Relationship between EMILY's List, Organized Labor, and Women Candidates in U.S. House Elections, 2002-2008
This paper seeks evidence of a similar partnership between organized labor and women's PACs on behalf of women congressional candidates. I examine the electoral and fundraising activity of EMILY's List and AFL-CIO's PAC, the Committee on Political Education (AFL-CIO COPE) in the four most recent House election cycles (2002–2008). I find that EMILY's List and AFL-CIO work in cooperation, not competition, on behalf of preferred women House candidates. The endorsement of a woman candidate by EMILY's List, measured by the receipt of a hard money contribution, significantly increases the likelihood of the woman also receiving funds from AFL-CIO. I attribute the willingness of AFL-CIO to work in partnership with EMILY's List to important demographic and organizational changes within the union (Asher, et al. 2001; Francia 2006). That EMILY's List and AFL-CIO cooperate on behalf of women candidates raises intriguing possibilities for Democratic women candidates and provides one explanation for the growing party gap between Democratic women and their Republican counterparts in Congress