After losing her re-election bid last November, right-wing former Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave quickly teamed up with the Susan B. Anthony List to launch a new anti-choice project called “Votes Have Consequences” that vowed to target pro-choice politicians for defeat:
Former Rep. Marilyn Musgrave will lead a new antiabortion initiative dubbed “Votes Have Consequences” that will target members of Congress in the 2010 election cycle who support abortion rights.
In a case of supreme irony, Musgrave intends to rip a page from the hardball playbook used by the Defenders of Wildlife. The environmental group was credited with helping to defeat the three-term Republican congresswoman with intense local organizing and a $1.6 million barrage of TV attack ads — a strategy that was roundly criticized by Republicans.
Musgrave and her new boss, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, told the Coloradoan they would mimic the same scorched-earth tactics:
“We need to know that the person that we defeat has a scalp that we can hold up high and say their pro-abortion leadership is why they lost,” Dannenfelser said.
But Musgrave’s ties to the Susan B. Anthony List continues to deepen, as she has now donated $50,000 to a new effort to get young-people involved in the anti-choice movement called the Young Leaders Board … or maybe its the Youth Leaders Board, they don’t seem to be sure:
Today the Susan B. Anthony List Education Fund (501(c)(3)) launched its first project, the Young Leaders Board, a new outreach effort to engage young people in the pro-life movement. Former Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) donated $50,000 from her congressional campaign committee, Musgrave for Congress, to launch the board. Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) will serve as the Board’s Honorary Chairwoman.
I am so pleased to support the Susan B. Anthony List Education Fund’s youth outreach efforts by supporting the new Youth Leaders Board,” said Marilyn Musgrave, Director of Regional Outreach for the Susan B. Anthony List. “As technology advances and sonograms continue to offer compelling visual evidence of the humanity of unborn children, we’re finding that the younger generation is more pro-life. I’m confident the Susan B. Anthony List Education Fund will effectively marshal the energy and enthusiasm found among young pro-lifers to be a voice for women and the unborn for years to come.”
The Youth Leaders Board will be comprised of young pro-life women leaders from across the country. The Board’s early focus will be youth leadership training, with a special emphasis on communications, in order to train effective pro-life spokeswomen. The Board will also permanently integrate a youth perspective into existing Susan B. Anthony new media outreach efforts, like Lia’s Challenge, the organization’s recent YouTube youth video contest.
Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) will serve as Honorary Chairwoman of the Youth Leaders Board.
“One of my priorities in Congress is to encourage women to get involved,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). “Through the use of new media and other communications tools, I look forward to helping the SBA List’s Young Leaders Board reach out to young, pro-life women.”
Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rogers is a member of the House Pro-Life Women’s Caucus. She serves as Vice Chair of the House Republican Conference, making her the fourth-highest ranking Republican and the highest-ranking Republican woman in the House of Representatives. She also works to recruit women candidates for Congress through the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
Former Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave joined the Susan B. Anthony List (501(c)(4)) in March as Director of Regional Outreach to run the organization’s new pro-life voter education effort, Votes Have Consequences.
Once they get this figured out, we hope they let us know because it’ll be a lot easier for us to track this effort if we know which of these two names they actually plan on using.
