Date: Fri 23-Apr-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

Ed-Ink-League-Women-Voters

Full Text:

ED INK: The League's Demise

The Newtown League of Women Voters slipped quietly into history this week with

an announcement by the league's president, Judy Holmes, that the organization

has disbanded. Once considered the bedrock non-partisan political organization

in town, the league fell on hard times in recent years, losing membership

mostly to the workforce. The organization had, for the past half century,

attracted women with energy, intelligence, and time, who elevated the town's

civic awareness on important issues of the day. Newtown is still rich in women

with energy and intelligence, but fewer and fewer of them have the time to

devote to an organization as committed to the thorough examination of public

issues as Newtown's LWV.

Newtown will be diminished by the lack of the league, yet the causes of its

demise reflect some positive trends in this century. The League of Women

Voters was founded in the United States in 1920, an outgrowth of the women's

suffrage movement. While it's original purpose may have been to educate women

on issues of the day so that they could more fully partake of the rights and

responsibilities of democracy, its non-partisan stance and its facility for

raising the level of discussion on all issues, and not just women's issues,

earned it the respect and support of all people who were serious about

political awareness and good citizenship. The organization has been so

successful in its original purpose that women now practice their politics not

from the benches of league meetings, but from the seats of power in federal,

state, and local governments.

The League of Women Voters' contributions to Newtown have been immense. Its

many local projects, from producing some of the best publicly available maps

of the town to underscoring the local need for zoning, have raised Newtown's

consciousness of itself. Its candidates' forums and "Voters' Guide," published

annually in The Bee until last year, made it an integral part of the local

electoral process. We thank the Newtown League of Women Voters for all its

contributions to our civic life. Its membership may have disbanded, but its

example of good citizenship will shine forever in our history.