• Press Release

EMILYs List Endorses Hillary Scholten in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District

November 21, 2019

For Immediate Release

November 21, 2019

EMILYs List Endorses Hillary Scholten in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, endorsed Hillary Scholten for Congress in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District. Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILYs List, released the following statement:

“Hillary Scholten is a dedicated fighter for justice and equality and EMILYs List knows she will be a strong voice for western Michigan families in Congress. She has spent her career standing up for people on the margins of society, inspired by her parents and her faith to serve the underserved. Hillary has worked extensively navigating our country’s complex immigration system and knows firsthand how broken it is. When elected, Hillary plans to prioritize increasing funding for public schools, protecting access to affordable health care, and working toward commonsense solutions to prevent gun violence.

“Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District is currently represented by Congressman Justin Amash, a former Tea Party Republican who left his party and will be running in 2020 as an Independent. This is a rare opportunity to pick up a seat from a vulnerable incumbent who no longer has the backing of his national party. Hillary is running a strong campaign and the EMILYs List community is excited to be standing with this champion for western Michigan.”

Hillary Scholten was born and raised in Michigan. She earned a degree in social work and became a case worker for members of the LGBTQ community who faced housing discrimination. Hillary then went to law school and clerked for the U.S Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit before working for the Department of Justice under President Obama. In 2017, she returned to Michigan and joined the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center as an attorney, and volunteered for the Times Up Legal Defense Fund, offering her legal expertise to those whom the system has left behind and ignored. Hillary and her husband live in Grand Rapids with their two young sons, in the same neighborhood where her grandparents grew up.

EMILYs List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $600 million to elect pro-choice Democratic women candidates. With a grassroots community of over five million members, EMILY's List helps Democratic women win competitive campaigns – across the country and up and down the ballot – by recruiting and training candidates, supporting strong campaigns, researching the issues that impact women and families, and turning out women voters to the polls. Since our founding in 1985, we have helped elect 150 women to the House, 26 to the Senate, 16 governors, and nearly 1,100 women to state and local office. Nearly 40 percent of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color. During the historic 2017-2018 cycle, EMILYs List raised a record-breaking $110 million and launched a record independent expenditure campaign. We helped elect 34 new women to the House, including 24 red-to-blue victories; enough seats to have delivered the U.S. House majority alone. Since the 2016 election, more than 50,000 women have reached out to EMILY's List about running for office laying the groundwork for the next decade of candidates for local, state and national offices.