Webinar: Overcoming Structural Barriers to Running for & Serving in Office (9/22/21)

Our elected leaders, at all levels, fundamentally do not reflect the US population at large. This lack of reflective democracy has a direct impact on the types of policies that are introduced and passed. The Pipeline Initiative has spent the past three years researching, convening, and investing in organizations dedicated to recruiting, training, and supporting progressive candidates running for office. However, even if the dozens of state/local and national organizations doing this work are fully resourced and aligned under an overarching strategy, underrepresented candidates would have to overcome formidable structural barriers to running and staying in office.

These structural barriers include but are not limited to: the high costs of running an effective campaign, inflexible campaign finance structures, inadequate pay for state and local elected officials, part time state legislatures, distance to capital cities, lack of knowledge, and limited opportunities to enter the pipeline. We must identify and invest in solutions to overcoming structural barriers to running for and staying in office.

Join us for a conversation with Women’s Democracy Lab, Vote Mama Foundation, and Higher Heights Leadership Fund about the long term, painstaking work of overcoming barriers that hamper underrepresented candidates’ attempts to run, win, and serve in office. Structural barriers look different all over the country, but these amazing organizations are taking new approaches to common structural issues that specifically keep women, Black, Indigenous, people of color, young, LGBTQ+, working class, and new Americans from running and staying in office.