Meet Amelia Weltner, a member of the 2016 WIN Leadership Academy class who also recently attended Camp Wellstone with a WIN List scholarship. These training opportunities have helped her develop a more confident voice about political affairs.
“I am definitely inspired when I talk to campaign managers, elected women and my classmates,” she said. “Politics has long been a men’s club. WLA offers a great opportunity to get women together to learn, organize and support each other.”
Her letter to the editor published on August 3, called on Governor Nathan Deal to appoint more women to the newly created positions on the state’s highest court. “I loved it when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said the appropriate number of women judges on the Supreme Court would be nine since for more than 200 years the court has been dominated by men,” she said. “There are plenty of well qualified women for these newly created Georgia judgeships.”
Read her letter below:
Looks like we’re about to see some turnover in the Georgia Supreme Court. With the addition of two new justice positions and the retirement of Chief Justice Hugh Thompson, I sincerely hope that Gov. Deal and the Judicial Nominating Commission appoint some women. In the history of the Georgia Supreme Court, there have only been two women to serve … ever.
Currently, Justice Hunstein is the sole woman to six men. There are plenty of well-qualified women serving in the lower courts to choose from. Now can we please make our court look more like our people?
AMELIA WELTNER, ATLANTA
Amelia is proof of the old adage, “Apples don’t fall far from the family tree,” as her grandfather, the late Charles L. Weltner, is a Georgia political legend. His principled Civil Rights advocacy as a Congressman and refusal to endorse segregationist Lester Maddox’s gubernatorial bid earned him the second ever John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award. He later became Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. Even with an impeccable political pedigree, sometimes a young woman like Amelia needs the professional training only Georgia’s WIN List offers and the reinforcement of exposure to other young women like herself who are learning more as they chart their own path in public policy or politics.
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