EMILY’s ‘Yeast’ Rises to Toasty Occasion

Four years ago they could have held it at a picnic table, if they’d bothered to hold it at all.

On Tuesday, even the ballroom of the Washington Hilton wasn’t enough to hold the celebrators, and the spillover went to five other rooms, as 4,200 people joined the victory dance.

The Democratic women’s fund-raising group known as EMILY’s List--the biggest single source of Senate and House race political action committee money in the November election--showed its 24,000 members what their $6.2 million helped get: more than a dozen women in the House and four in the Senate.

EMILY’s List--which stands for Early Money Is Like Yeast (It Makes the Dough Rise)--in one year took “women’s politics beyond the bake sale,” said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, until this election the sole Democratic woman senator.

“Some women spend their lives waiting for Prince Charming to come,” she added. “I spent my life waiting for Dianne and Carol and Barbara . . .” She referred to new Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Carol Moseley-Braun and Barbara Boxer.

California’s Boxer--who like Mikulski has endured her share of short jokes--took the microphone with one of her own: “It’s great--I’m standing on Barbara Mikulski’s box. Already the sharing has begun.”

EMILY’s List founder Ellen Malcolm also was lauded by Boxer, who received a good piece of EMILY’s List’s cash. “Without you and your vision,” she said to Malcolm, “and what you brought to this country, I don’t think many of us would be here today.”

California’s senior senator, Feinstein, sounding a more solemn note, reminded the audience that the state is “30 million people strong, and in some tough straits . . . the electioneering is over, the talking is over and the doing is about to begin.”

Among the things that need to be done, she said, “women can show we can balance the budget as well as men.”

“Better! Better!” cried many in the audience.

“Better,” Feinstein amended.

The luncheon, which raised $750,000 for the PAC, was introduced by California Treasurer Kathleen Brown. As they ate, guests watched a video of images of 1992’s women election winners, over the jingling soundtrack of the sardonic song “Money” from the musical “Cabaret.”

The audience hissed at the brief shots of the then-all male Senate Judiciary Committee, and cheered at pictures of Anita Faye Hill, who accused then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, an issue that galvanized women across the nation.