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While most political campaigns will shut down and disappear for the next 18 months, Pro-Vote will continue to organize. We will promote progressive issues and recruit candidates for the 2010 elections. This work started the day after Election Day 2008, and we will not rest until all Missourians have access to healthcare, superior education, reproductive health services, and are safe from discrimination.
Please consider giving an automatic monthly gift to Pro-Vote by becoming a sustainer or by making a donation today. Use the yellow "Donate Now" button at the top of the page to donate today!
Meet Julie Burkhart, Pro-Vote's new Executive Director
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Julie Burkhart, Pro-Vote's New Executive Director
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Inspired by the feminist movement in the 1970’s, I have dedicated my life to progressive activism. I am very impressed with Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition. By the time you read this, I will have already dug into the work we do at Pro-Vote as the new Executive Director.
I’ve come to Missouri from Wichita, Kansas, where I was able to dedicate myself to the protection of reproductive freedom as the CEO of ProKanDo, Kansas’s largest political action committee. ProKanDo is a pro-woman, pro-choice political organization that supports pro-choice candidates and lobbies at the state level to ensure that all women are guaranteed the right to comprehensive reproductive health care.
Before growing ProKanDo into Kansas’s largest PAC, I worked with Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. In Washington State, I had managed a wide spectrum of political races and worked with the Washington State Democratic Central Committee and the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee. In my spare time, I've stood up for LGBT rights and rallied to stop the war.
I am ready to continue the struggle for progressive values and fight the right wing. I was at ground zero in Wichita during the infamous “Summer of Mercy,” when anti-choice extremists blocked access to women’s health clinics, and will be at ground zero in Missouri as we face and defeat the right wing here! |
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Check out the "What Happening" Page for events, publications, and more!
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Joan Suarez, Interim Executive Director |
We have victories to celebrate! Two key victories demonstrate a core belief at Pro-Vote: progressive candidates win when they run as progressives. Throughout Missouri, only two candidates, Pro-Vote targeted progressives Chris Kelly (Boone County) and Kenny Biermann (St Charles County), unseated right-wing Republican incumbents!
Statewide, both Pro-Vote targeted candidates won — Rep Clint Zweifel for State Treasurer, and Jay Nixon for Governor. We are thrilled that Clint, Pro-Vote’s Legislator of the Year in 2008 & a Pro-Vote targeted candidate since 2002, pulled ahead of his opponent to win the State Treasurer’s race with 50.5% of the vote! Also, Proposition B, creating the Quality Home Health Care council, handily passed with 75.3% of the vote .
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Pro Vote staff, interns and volunteers made all this (and more) possible. And you did too with your generous donations to fund the work we do in recruiting and electing progressive candidates statewide and district, by district.
While we are celebrating these victories, however, we recognize we lost some races, too. Missouri did not become as progressive as we had hoped; we did not turn Missouri from “red” to “blue.” We only made it to “purple.” We must accomplish vital work in 2009 to be ready to win the State House of Representatives 2010! 2010 can be a “turning” year for Missouri — a jump start down a more progressive road. Because 2010 is a census year, the State House will then re-district Missouri. Ensuring progressives control creating the re-districted map that Missouri will use for the next 10 years is pivotal. Due to term limits, 2010 will create more than 50 open seats, offering progressives vital opportunities to capture the State House.
Pro-Vote is dedicated to building progressive capacity to win across Missouri. Pro-Vote’s Board of Directors is ready to support the staff and the program. Volunteers are looking to work on Pro-Vote projects. And we have you---all of you who have so amazingly supported Pro-Vote over the years with your gifts of time and money. |
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