Emily’s List has endorsed former West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel to challenge Rep. Allen West, R-Fort Lauderdale, in his upcoming reelection bid. Emily’s List is a progressive organization that works to get Democratic and pro-reproductive rights candidates elected to public office.
Frankel is the term-limited mayor of West Palm Beach who also served as a Democratic state House member.
According to the Palm Beach Post, “Frankel said she expects to raise $4 million for the race. West raised more than $6 million for his campaign last year.” The Post also described her as a “fiery liberal.”
The Post asked Frankel about West:
“Allen West’s record’s going to speak for itself,” Frankel said. “I believe the focus needs to be not on talk radio. The focus needs to be on working people — on people paying their mortgages, on people getting jobs and that should be the focus of Mr. West and the rest of Congress.”
Emily’s List put West “on notice” last April. The group includes conservative freshman representatives who meet a “special criteria” on their “on notice” list. These representatives have to 1) be exceedingly anti-choice and anti-woman for such a short amount of time in office, and 2) there has to be a Democratic woman angling to take the seat.
It also helps that West’s reelection is facing some problems. Recently, it was announced that West would be getting special help from the National Republican Congressional Committee. The committee created a special program that would give financial backing to a handful of freshman Republican congress members believed to be particularly vulnerable in their upcoming election.
West was openly against abortion rights during his campaign and has maintained that during his short time in office. Emily’s List noted that West voted for H.R. 1, which “would cut funding for prenatal care, completely defund family planning, make it harder for low-income women to afford a college education, and wreak havoc with Social Security and Medicare.”
Most recently, though, West went after progressive women. West claimed that Liberal women “neutering American men,” were to blame for the country’s debt.
West gave a speech last April to a conservative Christian women’s group called Women Impacting the Nation. In the speech West said:
We need you to come in and lock shields, and strengthen up the men who are going to the fight for you. To let these other women know, on the other side — these Planned Parenthood women, the Code Pink women, and all of these women that have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness — to let them know that we are not going to have our men become subservient. That’s what we need you to do. Because if you don’t, then the debt will continue to grow.
Another Democrat has already thrown their hat in the race. Fort Lauderdale businessman Patrick Murphy has launched a campaign to run for West’s seat. He was able to raise $350,000 within three weeks of announcing his candidacy.
