Radical Leftist League of Women Voters Fakes Nonpartisanship
The League of Women Voters pretends to be a nonpartisan, grassroots organization while promoting leftist causes and toeing the Democratic Party line
The League of Women Voters (LWV) claims to serve all women voters through nonpartisan voter education but falls in line with leftist orthodoxy, often taking stances to the left of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Alabama Sec. of State Wes Allen recently criticized the LWV for data mining and deceiving voters about its partisanship by hiding behind its 501(c)(4) status.
“[Y]ou’ll see a lot of things, like these pre-filled voter registration forms that go out that we get phone calls on,” he told the the Eastern Shore Republican Women on October 10. “It just causes confusion that we have to end up cleaning up in our office.”
The LWV claims over 700 state and local chapters across all 50 states that implement its agenda on the local level. Its League of Women Voters Education Fund (LWVEF) is organized as a 501(c)(3) organization.
It claims to enjoy the confidence of other organizations, newspapers, and citizens because it doesn’t endorse or oppose candidates or political parties. It does, however, endorse ballot measures, legislation, and public policy prescriptions; and these always align with leftist orthodoxy.
On foreign policy it essentially copies the DNC’s platform. It pledges support for “a strong, effective United Nations.” On trade, it backs “policies that reduce trade barriers; expand international trade; and advance the achievement of humanitarian, environmental, and social goals.” It expects the U.S. to “meet long-term social and economic needs of developing countries.” It also supports arms control and suggests it wants to reduce U.S. defense spending.
On climate change, the organization believes that Americans should accept their responsibilities as “global citizens” to prevent it. It supports ending all fossil fuels and urges the U.S. government to adapt its nationwide pollutant reductions to those recommended by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
A Non-Partisan Amicus Brief?
The organization feels so strongly about the issue of climate change that it signed an amicus brief supporting youth plaintiffs in Oregon who filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government for allegedly violating their 5th and 9th Amendment rights by allowing fossil fuels to exist. Even the liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the case for lack of standing.
On the social issues, it adopts left-wing policies and terminology across the board, including referring to pregnant women as “pregnant people.”
It supports the ratification of the feminist Equal Rights Amendment. It supports welfare and wants to pay for it with progressive taxation, relying heavily on the income tax. It opposes the death penalty; and on the 2nd Amendment, wants to limit access to handguns and semiautomatic rifles.
The LWV supports supports amnesty for illegal aliens and an immigration policy based on the employment needs of business owners—an approach driving much of the out-of-control immigration under the Biden-Harris administration.
Trump pierced the veil of the LWV’s fake nonpartisanship
In 2014, Sunshine State News editor Nancy Smith wrote, “Somewhere in the last 15 years, the [LWV’s] leadership decided it was OK to take sides and aggressively alienate half the ‘women voters’ in this country—and many male voters, too.” She praised her local Florida LWV chapter in the 1980s and 90s, opining that the organization subtly changed at the turn of the century.
Local LWV chapters likely maintained some autonomy from progressive dictates before former President Donald Trump caused the Left to lose its mind and take off its left-wing authoritarian mask. But National Review founder William F. Buckley placed the LWV in the same category as the New York Times in his criticism of mainstream liberal bias in the 1950s. Furthermore, the LWV has always supported the ERA.
Since at least the late 1990s, the LWVEF has received generous donations from leftwing George Soros’s Open Societies foundations, the Joyce Foundation—on whose board former President Barack Obama once served—and the leftwing Tides Network.
The mask began to drop when Trump won the 2016 election. The LWV claimed voter suppression rigged the election in Trump’s favor, and it was a partner organization of the anti-Trump March on Washington.
During the Trump administration, many within the LWV felt they could no longer remain neutral as the Left rallied around nonprofits and activists who became increasingly more hysterical in their leftwing radicalism.
In 2018, the LWV invited consultants to help it build up its membership. The consultants criticized the organization for being too white and recommended it adopt more leftist positions.
Whereas before it remained stealthily leftwing, the LWV now became one of many radical activist nonprofits on the Left, indistinguishable from so many who march in lockstep with the Democratic Party.
LWV Becomes A Protest Partner
During the anti-Brett Kavanaugh hearings, LWV’s president was arrested with hundreds of protesters for crowding a Senate office building.
The national LWV even shut down a local Nevada chapter because the chapter's leaders criticized state Democrats for partisan gerrymandering, accusations the LWV lobby frequently at Republican-run state legislatures. “There was always the feeling the league was run by the Democrats,” the disbanded LWV Nevada chapter’s former treasurer told ProPublica. After bowing to the leftwing consultant class, the national organization saw no reason to hide it or allow its local chapters to hide it.
After the January 6 riot, the LWV called Trump a “tyrannical despot” and demanded his removal from office by “any legal means.”
The Washington Examiner reported that in July 2021, President Joe Biden’s White House hosted a Zoom call to discuss boosting voter registration with key Democratic constituencies, including LWV representatives. They were joined by the Soros-backed Open Society Policy Center, End Citizens United, and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, among other radical groups. Topics of discussion included registering illegal immigrants to vote and requiring federally funded public housing to register tenants.
Every election cycle, the LWV tries to continue its tradition of holding neutral candidate forums and debates. In 1976, it even sponsored three presidential debates between Jimmy Carter and then-President Gerald Ford. Many Republican candidates, however, rightly decline or ignore the organization’s invitations, understanding that any debate the LWV hosts will not be neutral because it is not an neutral organization.
This year, in Louisville, Kentucky, among 10 state House, 2 state Senate, and 7 Louisville Metro Council seat races, the local LWV could only convince one Republican to agree to a candidate forum.
Naked Partisanship Undermines LWV’s Legitimacy
Despite protests from LWV leadership that Republicans are hurting the democratic process by refusing to participate, the Kentucky LWV has already waded into a contentious statewide partisan issue by opposing Kentucky’s Amendment 2 vote, which would fund school choice—clearly taking the side of Kentucky Democrats.
University of Kentucky political science professor Stephen Voss told the Kentucky Lantern that for a Republican “to doubt they’d get a fair shake in front of an organization that’s already on record taking positions at odds with their party’s positions on a whole range of issues seems like a pretty legitimate excuse to give.”
The LWV cannot honestly claim nonpartisanship while endorsing every position of the Democratic Party and opposing every proposal by Republicans. As the LWV continues to double-down on its leftwing radicalism, more right-leaning and centrist candidates and voters will continue to shun it.