Pro-choice does not equal progressive....

It turns out that pro-choice Democratic women elected with bundles of checks from thousands of contributors to Emily's List, the high-profile feminist national PAC, have been voting less-than-progressively on non-Choice issues.

...In the 107th Congress, for example, Dianne Feinstein (CA) and Hillary Clinton (NY) voted against bankruptcy protection for the poor. Who knew? Emily's List also helped finance the election of Senator Debbie Stabenow (MI) so that she could vote against food safety and for the nuclear industry; for Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both from Washington State, who cast numerous votes for Fast Track and nuclear subsidies as did now-former Senator Jean Carnahan (MO) who also voted to open ANWR for oil drilling.

The votes of several women who were first elected with the support of Emily's List should put them in good standing with the Republican right. Once in Congress, Blanche Lincoln (AR) and Mary Landrieu (LA) were 'delisted' for violating their agreement with Emily's List and casting ballots against abortion choice. A glance at their voting records, however, gives ample evidence that their support from a "liberal" and "progressive" PAC, as founder and president Ellen Malcolm describes Emily's List, was always questionable. Mary Landrieu, who bragged during the 2002 election cycle that she voted with President Bush 74% of the time, cast votes against food and workplace safety, against fuel economy standards, and in favor of the John Ashcroft confirmation and federal subsidies for nuclear power. Blanche Lincoln voted against campaign finance reform, against food and workplace safety, against consumer bankruptcy protection, against fuel economy standards, but for nuclear power and Fast Track. By the next election each had a well established name in her state, and voters returned both of these women to Washington without the support of the PAC that had helped place them in Congress to begin with.

According to this piece on Common Dreams, it seems that Emily's List does not track any aspect of candidates' agendas beyond reproductive rights, and therefore sometimes ends up endorsing the less progressive candidate in a race merely because she is a female.

As a one-time contributor to Emily's List, I am dismayed.