EMILY’s List Backs Griego in Mayor’s Race

Former Deputy Mayor Linda Griego’s late-starting mayoral campaign got a boost Tuesday from a major national fund-raising network that has played a key role in electing women to state and federal offices.

The endorsement by the 24,000-member, Washington, D.C.-based EMILY’s List, is the first by the group in a mayoral campaign, said President Ellen Malcolm. She declined to estimate how much the endorsement could mean in donations to Griego, the only woman among the prominent contenders to succeed retiring Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.

Last year, the group raised more than $500,000 for Barbara Boxer’s U.S. Senate campaign in California, and more than $400,000 for Texas Gov. Ann Richards in 1990.

In all, riding a wave of concern over issues such as sexual harassment and abortion rights, EMILY’s List--which stands for Early Money Is Like Yeast (It Makes the Dough Rise)--funneled more than $6 million into women’s campaigns last year. It was the largest single source of congressional campaign funds and helped elect a dozen women in the House and four in the Senate.

“This is an important race to us, and we are going to be working hard,” said Malcolm, who visited Los Angeles last week to meet with Griego and size up her prospects. “When we recommend a candidate, it’s a person we think . . . has a good chance of winning. Nobody has got this race locked.”

Other prominent mayoral candidates have been aggressively courting women’s votes and money.

But the EMILY’s List recommendation could gain Griego, a Latina and businesswoman, new credibility, as well as a stream of donors from across the country.

“I’ve sort of been an unknown quantity here,” Griego said. “(This) does help in fund raising, and it does help in (obtaining) endorsements.”