Barbara Anderson was right about only
one thing in her opinion article, “League may be nonpartisan but it
has an agenda” (May 19). The League of Women Voters does have an
agenda. Simply stated, its agenda is to make government more
accountable and responsive to its citizens. As a multi-issue
organization, it is impossible to pigeon-hole the League's agenda and
incorrect to align it with any political party. Its agenda encompasses
a wide range of public policy issues from fiscal policy to affordable
housing, from privacy in reproductive choice to protecting water and
air, from equality in educational opportunity to court reform, and of
course, all areas to remove obstacles to voting.
Everything else in Anderson's article
is wrong. Her notion that the League should reconfigure itself is
absurd. The League of Women Voters is prepared to stack its
principles, procedures, and operations against any other non-profit
including Ms. Anderson's Citizens for Limited Taxation.
The League is an organization that
has stood the test of time and honed its deliberative process for over
85 years. It has secured a venerable place in the history of civic
organizations because of its unsurpassed integrity and credibility.
The League has a reputation that organizations like Anderson's
Citizens for Limited Taxation can only aspire to. The National
Association of Secretaries of State recently chose the League of Women
Voters as the recipient of its 2005 Freedom Award for significant
contributions to the free election process in the United States.
Unlike Anderson's organization, the
League is truly democratic. Its mission -- to promote the informed and
active participation of citizens in government -- remains constant,
even as organizational leaders come and go. The League is not an
organization of one individual's personality. As a grassroots
organization, the League members direct the organization at all three
levels -- local, state and national -- and they are never asked what
their political affiliations are. Is this level of democracy and
transparency true for Citizens for Limited Taxation?
In closing, I must point another
misleading remark from Ms. Anderson when she closed her article with
the words: “good luck ladies.” On behalf of the many men who are
members and leaders of the League of Women Voters, I resent those
narrow words. If Ms. Anderson was a little better informed about the
organization she chose to write about, she would know the League
welcomes all men and women to join its ranks and share in the “great
idea” of our founder Carrie Chapman Catt who wrote in 1920, “Winning
the vote is only an opening wedge, but to learn to use it is a bigger
task.” (Voting is) “a tool to build a better nation to provide for the
common welfare to help humanity upward.”
MADHU SRIDHAR
President
League of Women Voters of Massachusetts
