Prepared Remarks by Melita Easters, Georgia WIN List Executive Director
Saturday, December 6 – The Westin @ Jekyll Island Beach Resort
The drive from Atlanta to the Georgia coast reminds all of us Georgia is geographically the largest state East of the Mississippi and truly diverse in EVERY way! The drive also reminds us of the challenges faced by rural areas – especially how few hospital signs we see and what happens to rural areas when industrial development is not properly prepared for.
These days, I think we all rue the day when anyone passed along the wish: “May you live in interesting times…” Current headlines are not the “interesting times” any of us ever wished for!!
Dorothy Parker may have had the right idea when she answered her door with “What fresh hell is this?” because that thought runs thru my mind every morning before I scroll thru devices for the headlines from my most trusted news sources …
Let’s face it, both political parties have seen better days. The stock market is wobbly, and this holiday season will not be as happy for many Georgians when compared to other recent years.
If there is a silver lining to current dreadful news, I believe we are on the cusp of a 2026 political landscape similar to that in 2018 when a record setting number of women from both sides of the aisle were elected both in Georgia and nationwide. This will be a VERY good thing because women bring the kinds of talents to public service which our state and nation desperately need at this moment in time.
As the Keb Mo and Roseann Cash song goes, it is past time for the stale, pale, males who have been in charge… to “Put a Woman – or lots of women – in Charge…”
Women NEED to be in ALL the “rooms where it happens” if our country is to recover from it’s current crisis. We need to return to days when the Constitution is followed, and the rule of law is obeyed and respected. Democracy must be restored and protected for future generations.
Women from both political parties know how to “ger ‘er done” by finding solutions to complicated problems and crafting compromises across the political divide. Women are accustomed to cleaning up the messes made by others – whether the mess is made by over-stimulated two-year-old toddlers way past their nap time or greedy billionaires with an overdose of self-esteem who are asking for lucrative government contracts and even bigger tax breaks.
Generally speaking, most women choose to seek political office because they hope to make the world a better place for their children and grandchildren. This means women are more likely to pursue family friendly policies with an eye for their impact on the next generation.
By contrast, most, not all, men are more likely to pursue political office for power, prestige, and the opportunity to enhance their own net worth. Most elected men, and currently in Georgia the power is held by Republicans I label as “stale pale and Male,” who prioritize tax breaks for the wealthy, incentives for industry no matter the impact on the environment and rolling back safety regulations which protect consumers.
One of the most egregious examples of such policies are the current incentives Georgia provides for gun manufacturers who are producing the very weapons used in most school shootings. Do any of us truly want to see our tax dollars or tax abatement incentives being used in this way?
Currently, Democratic women legislators outnumber their Republican women colleagues three to one. But you know where Republican women are really outnumbered – in their own party – It’s simple, irrefutable math! Republicans hold a majority in both chambers and yet there is only one Republican woman in the 56-member Senate and only 20 Republican women in the 180 member House!
While we are talking numbers… women of both parties hold 28.2 percent of congressional seats and 33.5 percent of legislative seats nationwide. Here in Georgia, women hold 34.3 percent of legislative seats.
We know on both sides of the aisle, when women vote, women win. Women not only outnumber men in the general population and amongst registered voters, but Black woman voter turnout is the highest level of participation amongst all groups tracked. The WIN in the Georgia WIN List name represents the fact our mission is to elect “Women In Numbers!”
When our founders first met, Georgia’s ranking for the percentage of women legislators (from both parties) was 32nd in the nation and now we are 24th – tied with New York and ahead of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Georgia WIN List helped elect the first LGBTQ woman in the South Rep. Karla Drenner in 2000 and several others who followed her. Georgia is a leader for the percentage and number of Black women legislators.
Throughout American History, women have never been afraid to speak truth to power … even when power does not listen or heed their words.
What if all of us – as young women – had learned of Sojourner Truth’s bravery and courage? How I wish I had read her “Ain’t I A Woman” speech much earlier? I am grateful there are children’s books these days which beautifully tell her story which I have read to my five granddaughters!
The video snippet so many of us remember seeing – even though it happened well before we were born – from the McCarthy era is the iconic question Boston lawyer Joseph Welch asked Joe McCarthy on June 9, 1954: “Have you no sense of decency?”
Buried as a footnote to history is the speech from four years earlier on June 1, 1950 delivered by Maine’s Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith. The United States could have been spared from a divisive era which rivals our own if only her colleagues had listened to her call for an examination of the tactics used by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Her prescient words from 1950 could easily be used in current headlines when she described “the leak of vital secrets to Russia through key officials.”
Senator Margaret Chase Smith delivered her remarks as a Republican opposed to Democrats like Joe McCarthy, but cautioned she did not wish to see, “the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny – Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.”
Those Four Horsemen run rampant today and create the headlines which fill us with dread each morning when we are brave enough to even look at the news!! And, frighteningly, increasing numbers of our fellow citizens are now not even bothering to keep up with the news!!
Our recent government shutdown brought to mind headlines from the government shutdown of 2013 and the role of women to reach a compromise. I had to Google those headlines for the details! Back then, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine took the lead. She was joined by Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Democrats Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Patty Murray of Washington to hammer out the bi-partisan compromise which eventually ended the stalemate.
At the time, the late Senator John McCain of Arizona joked, “The women are taking over!” Susan Collins said: “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that women were so heavily involved in trying to end this stalemate. Although we span the ideological spectrum, we are used to working together in a collaborative way.”
Let me emphasize the phrase: “Women are accustomed to working together in a collaborative way.” Frankly, our country would be a much better shape these days if women were fully in charge instead of holding only one third of Congressional or legislative seats nationwide!
With Georgia continuing to be a key battleground state, the work of Georgia WIN List is more crucial than ever. 2026 will be Georgia’s most competitive and expensive election cycle in history!!
If anyone asked 25 years ago why getting WIN List up and running was so important to me, I would have talked about leaving a brighter future for my two high school age daughters, and protecting their opportunities for success and their options for bodily autonomy and family planning. After all, Democrats were firmly in control of state government back then, and we saw the good old boy network as our biggest challenge.
My how things have changed! Republicans have now enjoyed a trifecta of state power for more than two decades. My two daughters have families of their own and I have eight beloved grandchildren – five of them girls.
The need to protect democracy for the next generation and to put women in the rooms where decisions are made and policies are crafted, has never been greater. For the sake of the next generation women need to have greater percentages of seats at both the state and national level. More women are needed on both sides of the aisle so that when they join forces to craft bi-partisan solutions to the problems which face our nation the women have greater leverage and power to pass legislation.
Of course, I will join many of you in working to see that as many of the newly elected women in 2026 as possible are pro-choice Democratic women. We are on the cusp of great changes for Georgia at both the state and Congressional level. Four of our 14 Congressional seats are at play in Georgia next year. Further, for the first time in seven decades, all four of the top statewide constitutional offices are up for grabs – the governor is term limited, and the next three – the lieutenant governor, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State – are all running for governor! All four spots have not been vacant at the same time since the 1940s!
With so many seats at the top of the ballot open, ambition then propels what I call a down ballot fruit basket turnover. We already know more than two dozen legislators are either retiring or running for higher office in 2026. In the 56-member Senate, six attorneys, four Republicans and two Democrats, who are lawyers are seeking higher office – creating a legal brain drain which includes both the Chair and Vice Chair of the powerful Judiciary Committee.
Further, more than a dozen currently serving women legislators on both sides of the aisle already have announced primary or general election opponents. The document I use for tracking Georgia’s 2026 political landscape has already grown to 50 pages.
We know Women In Numbers elect Women In Numbers. It’s in the WIN List DNA. Even when headlines during our first 25 years – and there have been many of those – have sent send us into despair, we have remained hopeful, because there is strength in our numbers. As the classic Helen Reddy song from decades ago reminds us – we are ready to roar. We are strong… We are invincible…
WIN List women move into 2026 with the accumulated wisdom of 25 years of recruiting, training, electing and re-electing women. There is long way to go before women have full equality of representation in the halls of power. But, there is great strength in our network and great strength in our collective efforts.
We must persevere as role models for our daughters. We must persevere in our efforts to create the world we want to see for our children and our grandchildren.
In 2026, WIN List will work to re-elect our previously endorsed Democratic women who choose to run again and we will also work to build a strong bench — a new generation of women leaders who will follow in your footsteps in the coming years. Or, as your colleague Senator Nan Orrock always says, WIN List will be helping elect your “reinforcements!”
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While prepared remarks concluded with the paragraph above, a question was asked about the WIN List flagship training program: WIN Leadership Academy. WLA has more than 370 graduates among the more than 2,300 women who have attended some form of WIN List training during our 25 year history.
The first class of the WLA program in 2012 included Congresswoman Nikema Williams, long before she ran for the state Senate and later the Congressional seat she now holds. Other graduates during the early years of the program included former senator and AG nominee Jen Jordan, PSC nominee Lindy Miller and Labor Commissioner nominee Nicole Horn. More recently, The Rev. Senator Kim Jackson, Rep. Karen Lupton and Senator Kenya Wicks are graduates of the program.
While the program is specifically geared to prepare women for legislative service, graduates also serve as judges, district attorneys, mayors, city council members and county commissioners statewide. Further, graduate also serve on many appointed boards and commissions.
