The Maryland NOW Political Action Committee (PAC) is formally made up of the PAC Chair, the PAC Treasurer, and a representative of each of the state’s member chapters. This PAC makes endorsements in Maryland state races, meeting and making the endorsements in the primary and general elections for the organization in every election cycle.
However, this decision-making work by the PAC officers and members doesn’t take into account the tremendous amount of administrative work involved for the PAC to be able to actually consider those endorsements. As we have become more and more active, PAC administration has become a much larger part of our work.
What is PAC Support?
This committee is largely responsible for the administrative work of the PAC. This group must decide what communications/marketing platform we will use to communicate with the candidates. For each cycle it is important to look at our questionnaire and rewrite any questions which aren’t relevant to our process or need to be updated. The committee also reviews last cycle’s endorsement list to see which incumbents we may want to again support for the 2022 primary. This cycle the primary will be held on Tuesday, June 22, 2022. The general election will be held on Tuesday, November 8th.
As a state PAC, we cannot endorse in any federal races, such as for U.S. House and Senate. But our National NOW PAC can endorse in these races and we are asked for any input we might want to have for Maryland Congressional Districts and for U.S. Senate races in Maryland. This might also involve research and polling members in any of Maryland’s Congressional Districts for their thoughts.
The PAC’s overall strategy looks carefully at races around the state — outside of the large population centers — where women are running and face special circumstances in working to get support from their local political establishment. Some are experiencing really strong opposition from conservative Republicans in their areas. As a state-wide organization, we focus carefully on areas where we might also want to build Maryland NOW. Questionnaires are sent and returned to be reviewed for consideration.
This is a huge undertaking that must be completed in a relatively short space of time. The filing deadline for this coming cycle is February 27th, 2022.
For any political junkie, this is a “dream” committee. Please consider joining us to work with the PAC during the 2022 Election Cycle. Write us here to tell us about your interest. Work is beginning NOW!
