Day 2 of RepresentWomen’s 2025 Democracy Solutions Summit highlighted state-level reforms — such as voting rights acts, ranked choice voting, fair pay, and childcare policies — that strengthen democracy and expand women’s political power.
Day Two of the 2025 Democracy Solutions Summit (DSS) — the nation’s only democracy summit featuring exclusively women experts — focused on effective state-level solutions to strengthen democracy and expand representation.
RepresentWomen’s Tamaya Dard, Program & Partnerships Manager, emceed the day, reminding attendees that DSS was created because too many democracy summits feature only men. “Cynthia stopped asking for a seat at the table and built her own,” she said, highlighting how the Summit centers women-led reforms to help women run, win, serve, and lead.
The program opened with insights from the RepresentWomen team:
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Alyssa Bombardier Shaw shared findings from the 2025 Gender Parity Index (GPI), underscoring that most states still receive poor grades on women’s representation and why systemic reforms are needed.
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Victoria Pelletier spotlighted the Women’s Power Collaborative, a unique national platform bringing together advocates, elected officials, and researchers to build women’s political power.
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Batma Taik unveiled RepresentWomen’s new North America Country Brief, which compares systems in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico—showing how intentional reforms, like Mexico’s gender quotas, can rapidly close representation gaps.
Panels throughout the day featured leading experts on state-level reforms, including:
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Voting Rights Acts at the State Level — with Rebecca Mire (Center for American Progress), Candace Baptiste (Legal Defense Fund), and Erica Peresman (Promote the Vote Michigan). They emphasized how state VRAs fill gaps left by weakening federal protections, expanding access for communities of color and language minorities.
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Removing Barriers with Ranked Choice Voting — featuring Jean Massey (FairVote Minnesota), Christina Henderson (DC Council), Michelle Spark (Get Out the Native Vote, Alaska), Brianna Goz McGowan (Delicious Democracy DC), Katie Fahey (The People), and Michelle Whitaker (RCV Maryland). Panelists highlighted how RCV expands opportunities for women, moderates polarization, and empowers communities historically shut out of the process.
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Modernizing State Legislatures — moderated by strategist Celinda Lake, this conversation examined fair pay, childcare policies, proxy voting, and protections against online harassment. Speakers included Sarah Ha (Vote Mama), Lila Stein (Future Caucus), and Marvelous Mwansa (RepresentWomen).
The day closed with a keynote from Stacey Abrams, who underscored the critical role of states in making democracy real:
“It is at the state level that our rights become real… we are their translators, their intercessors, and their advocates.”
With discussions ranging from fair legislative pay and childcare support to state VRAs and ranked choice voting, Day Two made clear: state-level reforms are essential to building sustainable pathways for women leaders and a stronger democracy for all.