News of Supreme Court decisions and the sweltering heat of Washington, DC are hard to avoid but there have also been some developments related to women's representation that caught my eye this week. I was very glad to see that Gina Glantz and the team at Gender Avenger have updated their tool to track the representation of women on panels and more with a new setting that tracks women of color. Here is an excerpt from the blog about the launch: This week, GenderAvenger is releasing a new version of the GA Tally app that puts more emphasis on the representation of women of color. In this time of social change, our team explored how we could modify the GA Tally to challenge event organizers, best-of list-makers, and conversation hosts everywhere to ensure that the voices of women of color are included all the time. Otherwise, we will continue to have a public dialog that is incomplete.

There were several key primaries this week with fascinating wins and losses for women candidates along with a number of landmark Supreme Court decisions that will dominate the headlines for weeks to come. In the midst of all this news I was very glad to read the latest report from Sarah Bryner from the Center for Responsive Politics who writes about the likely composition of the 117th Congress. While there have been a number of stories about the number of women running, Sarah's report examines the prospects for these women to actually win. It's so important to remember that the power of incumbency, the challenges of raising money, and our antiquated electoral system fortify the status quo:

In RepresentWomen’s 2020 PAC Report, “PACs and Donors: Agents of Change for Women’s Representation,” we found that women often raise comparable sums to men in the same party and in similar races. However, they are more likely to rely on more small-dollar donations than large political action committee (PAC) donations. This grassroots fundraising strategy takes more time and resources for campaigns and candidates, continuing to disadvantage women candidates. PACs are not less likely to fund women candidates because they have a lower chance of winning their race or are less qualified, but because PACs overfund incumbents.

It's been an eventful week in the world of women's representation with some great wins for women candidates in primaries held this week - including RepresentWomen board member Jenifer Rajkumar who will most likely win her primary for the NY state assembly along with ReflectUS ally Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas who maintains her lead as absentee votes are counted according to this story by Ese Olumhense and Christine Chung in The City: Jessica González-Rojas, former executive director of the National Latina Institute, heads the five-way race for the 34th Assembly District in Jackson Heights and Woodside, with 12-year incumbent Michael DenDekker trailing by 16 percentage points. González-Rojas said that while it was too early to claim victory, she hopes the margins will hold as absentee ballots get tallied up by the city Board of Elections. Her campaign had strongly encouraged voters to cast their ballots by mail, she said — adding that she was “shocked” by the Primary Day and early voting turnout of nearly 7,000 people, out of nearly 37,000 active Democrats in the 34th Assembly District.

On June 19th 1865, Major General Gordon Granger led Union soldiers into Galveston Texas and brought with him the news of the end of the Civil War and the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. Two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation and formally ended slavery in the United States, the legal end of slavery was finally upheld across the country. A year following Granger’s proclamation, the anniversary of what had become known as Juneteenth took place for the first time. The Juneteenth celebration which focused on the community of the formerly enslaved peoples in Texas continued to spread and grow over the following years. Widespread celebrations of Juneteenth continued until the early 20th century. Economic downturn coupled with a lack of public education and awareness of the lag between the formal end to slavery and the enforcement of Lincoln’s executive order across the country resulted in decline in the celebrations of Juneteenth.