By Susan Bell
President, LWV of Greenville County

Every year, the LWV of South Carolina presents its League Education and Advocacy Day (LEAD) with the goal of providing information from experts and the opportunity to network with other League members from across the state.

Greenville County was well represented with seven participants:  Susan Bell, Catherine Cuneo, Susan D’Amato, Deb Drucker, Sharda Jackson Smith, Ted Volskay, and Lawson Wetli.

The day began with a retrospective on the midterm election by SEC Outreach Coordinator John Michael Catalano.  John Michael walked us through the challenges of effectively implementing the changes to the voting process in 2022.

Our volunteer lobbyists, Lynn Teague, LWVSC VP of Issues and Advocacy, Janelle Rivers, Education Advocacy Specialist, and Teresa Arnold, Healthcare Advocacy Specialist, gave us a preview of the legislative session and how we can participate in advocating for League positions.  If you haven’t joined in, the three of them do a monthly webinar on the first Monday of the month that provides excellent insight into what is coming up.  You can follow this information on the LWVSC website Advocacy page, including bills they are following and testimony they have provided.

We heard from the powerhouse panel of Leslie Skardon, LWV of Charleston, Allison Terracio, Planned Parenthood, and Wendy Brawley, former state representative for District 70, about grassroots strategies for change and suggestions for developing deeper relationships with your representatives. 

The four state working groups provided programming and updates in breakout sessions and we closed with a great presentation by Andy Brack, editor of Statehouse Report about the importance of the work with League is doing.

The importance of coalitions came up multiple times during the presentations as did the importance of showing up – to voter registration drives, to rallies, to letter writing, to speaking with our elected representatives.

It inspired us to continue our work in support of our mission to Empower Voters and Defend Democracy and we hope you will join us in those efforts this year.