Part 2: Clare Oumou Verbeten and Stacey Abrams Share Insights About Women Winning

 

Bring Equity to Decision-Making Tables

Prior to introducing keynote speaker Stacey Abrams at the Women Winning fundraising event and celebration in June, Senator Clare Oumou Verbeten shared her own “women-led story.”

Eleven years ago, said Verbeten — who is currently 31 years old — she was engaged in politics with Women Winning and was paired with a newly endorsed candidate who “talked about being raised by a single mom, and relying on Medicaid and food stamps as a child. That was what made her such a fierce advocate for children. That year, in 2015, she was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives. Yes, I’m talking about our lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan.”

Seven years later, Verbeten said, “I ran for office, and discovered that a Black women had never served in the Minnesota Senate. I ran for racial justice. I ran to build a community where we all feel safe. I represent the community where Philando Castile was killed 10 years ago, and frankly, I was upset seeing Black people continue to be killed by police.”

Seeing other women step up and win — especially that year, in 2022 — was a profound experience for her. The creation of pathways for women to lead at every level “reminds us that our voices belong in every room where decisions are being made,” she said. “That kind of representation doesn’t happen on accident. It happens when you invest in us, invest in us early, encourage us to run, and stand by us.”

 

Protecting Mothers

As a young mother, Verbeten said, “I found out I wasn’t allowed to bring my baby on the Senate floor. This is an actual rule that was enforced. Babies are not allowed; guns, on the other hand, were totally fine.” After she brought her son to work one day, they were removed from the Senate floor. It made other political moms angry, so they worked together — regardless of party — “and we changed that archaic exclusionary rule.”

Verbeten also noted that she had life-threatening medical care failures; it was the fierce advocacy of doulas that saved her.

As she detailed in a Minnesota Senate news release: “Throughout my labor, medical staff ignored me while I was in pain; they confused my medical chart with another patient’s and insisted I had a condition I didn’t have; and when they determined I needed an emergency Cesarean section, the medical team went silent for hours while I waited for care. My doulas bridged those gaps in care that could have cost me my life. They pushed back on staff’s mistakes with my chart; they tracked down my medical team when they left me for hours; and they helped me file a complaint to hold those providers accountable for their failures. Every patient who needs the support of a professional doula should be able to access their services. A doula’s help is lifesaving, joyful work. If we want to end the biases and racism that put Black and Indigenous parents, and parents of color, at heightened risk during childbirth, we need to ensure access to the advocates who create that change.”

At the WomenWinning event Verbeten said: “Unfortunately, my story is not unique. It’s the story of Black women and American Indians across the state who make up a disproportionate amount of maternal deaths. When I returned to the Senate as a new mom, I got to work on improving maternal health.”

Although her bill to require insurance to cover the cost of doulas did not pass in 2026, she said, “That’s why we’re here today — to elect champions for reproductive justice. Reproductive justice is the right to have children, and it’s the right to not have children. It’s the right to care for the children that we have in safe and sustainable communities. It is the right to survive childbirth. We need leaders who will fight for reproductive justice for all — for immigrants, for queer people, for all of us.”

Verbeten then introduced Stacey Abrams of Georgia — the first Black woman to serve as House minority and the first Black woman to receive a major party nomination for governor. “She keeps making history, and we know she’s not done yet, right?”

What’s Wrong with DEI?

Georgia’s Stacey Abrams gave a powerful speech at the Women Winning fundraiser June 8, indicating that the faction of people who took power in January 2025 “want people to forget what democracy is supposed to do.” She outlined the steps that White House loyalists have taken, as well as the steps for voters to take democracy back.

She said one of the first steps of an authoritarian government is to go after anyone who is telling the truth and scapegoat the most vulnerable, putting anyone they don’t like under the DEI umbrella. “Diversity means all people. Equity means fair access to opportunity. Inclusion means respect for belonging.”

Attacking DEI raises questions: “Do you not believe all people should have the opportunity to reach their fullest capacity? Are you afraid of competition? Why does inclusion frighten you? DEI is not just about Black kids going to Harvard, which is what they would have you believe.”

She continued: “They go after immigrants who remind them that they didn’t do this alone. They go after everyone who reminds them that we are in this together, that democracy is about shared power.”

How to Protect Freedom

Abrams outlined ten steps from the authoritarian playbook. Step nine “is when state violence becomes normalized,” leading to “step 10, when you end democracy forever.”

“But I’m here to tell you, if there are 10 steps to authoritarianism, there are 10 steps to freedom and power.” A key step is to organize. “That’s a bit of a given with you guys [in Minnesota]. … When you were assailed, you fought back with rapid response. You mobilized to serve.”

Another step is her favorite one — “apparently yours as well. Disrupt. Enough said. You all have been the most disruptive community they could imagine.”

It also matters “that you elect people at every level of government who refuse to let [the government] be used against you. … You can’t build a pluralistic democracy that doesn’t respect your Muslim neighbors, your Jewish neighbors, your Christian neighbors, your atheist neighbors. You cannot have democracy that doesn’t respect difference, and they know this. They know that DEI is how we win.”

Another step is to “engage the folks who don’t think they should be in this room. In 2024, 90 million Americans [skipped] the election.They’re not apathetic; they’re despondent, because they live in communities that never change.”

Abrams said she has learned that “if you want to hold power, you share power. So we’re going to commit, share, organize, mobilize, litigate, disrupt, deny, engage, elect. … We get to be visionaries who see the future and hold people accountable. It is how we demand health care, childcare, justice.”

Find photos from the event here

 

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