Setting Priorities for ‘Emily’s List’ : * Politics: After raising $1.5 million for 14 candidates in 1990, the women’s donor network--and founder Ellen Malcolm--focuses on 1992.

It was a routine political event--a high-decibel crowd of lawyers, business executives and political activists sipping mineral water, working the room and comparing notes on the ‘92races.

But the recent Democratic fundraiser at the Beverly Hills Hotel had a modern twist. Most of the power guests were women and so was the evening’s star, Texas Gov. Ann Richards, whorecited the story of her legendary victory last year in one of the most bitter, most expensive campaigns in gubernatorial history.

Richards thanked the women who supported her--including 61% of the women voters in Texas--and added a special message:

“No. 1 among those supporters was Emily’s List,” said the governor, leaning intently toward her audience. “I tell you in all sincerity, I would not be the governor of Texas today if it were not for Ellen Malcolm and Emily’s List.”

Emily’s List? The name might sound like a tea party invitation, but the cuteness is deceptive. As a donor network that raised $1.5 million for 14 women candidates in 1990, it is starting to turn heads in political circles. An acronym for Early Money Is Like Yeast-- “it makes the dough rise”--the group was founded in 1985 by feminist Ellen Malcolm and a handful of friends to elect pro-abortion rights, pro-ERA, women Democrats to high office.

Combining financial clout with sophisticated candidate recruitment, the organization is emerging as a political force. The $400,000 contributed to Ann Richards’ $12-million campaign not only made Emily’s List her largest single contributor, but also her timeliest one.

“Women’s races are lost early,” Richards told her audience. “You have to be a player early on. Texas has 19 major media markets and you have to make media buys early. It takes sophisticated crafting and planning. We needed money for focus groups, for polling necessary to shape the message. It takes early money to do all that.”

Political observers also see the new clout of Emily’s List as a social indicator, noting that its $100-a-head reception at the Beverly Hills Hotel recently would have been unheard of a decade ago when the U.S. political landscape lacked both women donors in significant numbers and women governors.

Says founder Malcolm: “What Emily’s List really represents is the growing sophistication of women in the American culture.”

And as her organization starts to make ripples in national political waters, Malcolm, 44, a longtime Washington activist is increasingly being viewed as a power broker, though she disavows the word.

And with up to 100 congressional seats being opened by reapportionment in 1992, Malcolm foresees a “windfall of opportunity” to elect more pro-abortion rights women Democrats.

This month, Emily’s List will kick off the ’92 campaign by recommending former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae), to the Senate. Starting in January, 10 to 15 House candidates will be selected.

Says Ruth Mandel, director of Rutgers University’s Center for the American Woman and Politics: “I see Ellen as a kind of model for something we haven’t seen much of, or don’t have enough of. She fits into a community of women, which has emerged over the last generation, who care about advancing other women and have found a way to do that.”

Malcolm, who inherited a fortune at 21--her great-grandfather was a partner in the company that became IBM--acknowledges that she is well situated to put her ideas into action. “I’ve always been interested, in all my political work, in opening up the system and letting more people participate in it,” she says. “I realized, as the years went by, that because of my financial resources, I had a tremendous opportunity to have an impact.”

Malcolm, who grew up in Montclair, N.J., in a nonpolitical family, is a product of her generation. She majored in psychology at Hollins College in Virginia, where she “got interested in politics because of Vietnam,” and, after graduation in 1970, went to work in Washington for the newly organized Common Cause, the citizen’s lobby. “We had all these volunteers being briefed by lawyers on how every piece of the political process works,” she says. “That’s where I learned my politics.”

She also worked at the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC) where she “started dealing with women’s issues,” and, in the early 1980s, completed an MBA program at George Washington University.

Observes Washington management consultant Jane Pierson, who first worked with Malcolm at the NWPC: “What’s interesting about Ellen is that she was active in the women’s movement, went back to school and got an MBA so she could learn to be a top-notch, good business woman, and in the doing of that, she turned into a leader. I think that is a phenomenon we see all over the place today (among) women in leadership roles.”

That was the combination that led to Emily’s List, which Malcolm unabashedly describes as the “best new idea in politics.” She dreamed up the title, wondering if it sounded too silly, but now thinks it has helped the organization succeed.

“Women couldn’t begin campaigns because they couldn’t get the start-up money, and they couldn’t get the start-up money without campaigning, so they were caught in a vicious circle,” she told an audience recently.

They were looking for a different approach. The political momentum of the 1970s, with its battles for ERA ratification and surge of new women candidates, had stalled in the ‘80s. The sobering picture, by 1985, was that the number of Democratic women in the U.S. House had dropped to 12 from its 1972 high of 14.

So they cooked up Emily’s List, which is registered as a political action committee (PAC), but is actually a donor network whose members pay $100 per election cycle to belong, and commit to contribute $100 or more to at least two recommended candidates.

Unlike a PAC, though, which receives funds from members then decides which candidates should get the money, Emily’s List sorts through myriad candidates to find those with the best shot of winning.

“They do a good, tough professional job,” says Rep. Maxine Waters of Los Angeles, one of Emily’s winning congressional picks last November. “You can’t just go in there and say you want to run. They want to know the polling data, the registration, where the votes are coming from, who are the opponents, how good is your organization. They are very knowledgeable.”

After the culling process, Emily’s List sends detailed recommendations to its members, who choose campaigns to support. Their checks, written directly to candidates, are channeled through the Emily’s List Washington office for maximum political effect.

The idea pleased women from the beginning, Malcolm says. She began promoting the new endeavor, calling political caucus members in different cities and asking them to assemble a few friends for gatherings once described as “the ultimate Tupperware parties.”

“I had to learn to speak in public, and I was scared to death,” Malcolm says. She was also selling the idea of Emily’s List “on the come”--telling her first audiences that if enough women pooled their money they could elect a woman senator. “I was absolutely convinced it would work.”

And so were her listeners. Cindy Ewing of Santa Fe, who serves on the board of the New Mexico Women’s Foundation, was an early recruit.

“I was living in San Francisco in 1985 and invited to an early meeting,” she recalls. “Ellen explained her ideas about Emily’s List and I thought ‘Well, of course.’ ”

Ewing has been a member ever since and recently organized a group in Santa Fe. “I feel good about what we’ve done,” she says. “We can elect women to local political office, but when they try to get into the big leagues they hit a financial glass ceiling. You can’t get into the old boys’ network because you’re not an old boy.”

At Democratic National Committee headquarters, press secretary Ginny Terzano says that Emily’s List is viewed as a growing asset by the party.

“We know that women still aren’t on an equal footing with men when it comes to raising money,” she said. “They’ve also instituted training, helping candidates from beginning to end, and that’s something the party hasn’t been too good at in the past. We view Emily’s List very positively.”

To date, Emily’s List boasts this track record:

* In 1986, the group raised $350,000 and helped Barbara Mikulski of Maryland become the first woman Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate in her own right.

* In 1988 it helped reverse a 15-year decline of the number of women Democrats in Congress.

* In 1990 its $1.5 million in contributions helped elect two governors, Richards of Texas and Barbara Roberts of Oregon, and three women Democrats to the House to increase the number to a record 20.

Although 20 women Democrats in a sea of 435 U.S. representatives is hardly a tidal wave, Malcolm is staunchly optimistic: “We’re still new--there are lots of people who haven’t heard about us. We have nowhere to go but up.”

Timing has been the key to Emily’s growth, says Malcolm. With an expanding pool of women serving as mayors, attorneys general and state treasurers, “we see a group of experienced women to run in 1992. And women now have the economic power--they have more discretionary income. I used to say we need to teach women how to put zeroes on their checks, but by 1986 we found a group who’d learned.”

She serves as the unpaid president of Emily’s List, which has 3,000 members and a seven-person staff in a converted Art Deco apartment building on Washington’s 16th Street.

Despite her obvious dedication to Emily’s List, Malcolm insists she is not a workaholic. Described almost unanimously as a “private person,” she shares a sprawling house and huge yard with her two dogs--Lily, a miniature poodle, and Jack, a Wheaton terrier.

Does she think of herself as accumulating power? “That’s not the way I would put it,” she says thoughtfully. “I like very much making things happen; finding ways to be creative in a political context. Emily’s List has been a fascinating experience for me personally.”

Nevertheless, if she looks out the big window at the end of her office she can see the White House and it is a pleasing view: “We keep our eye on the long-term goal.”