NOW Reception

You are invited to meet National NOW President Kim Gandy at a cocktail reception sponsored by Nevada NOW and Southern Nevada NOW. Separate reservation required. Check this website in the coming weeks for details.

• When: Friday, January 19 at 6 p.m.
• Where: Alexis Park
• Suggested Minimum Donation: $25
• RSVP to Jessica at 702-285-7950 or NevadaNOW@gmail.com

Kim Gandy was re-elected to her second term as President of the National Organization for Women (NOW) on July 3, 2005. She was first elected President in 2001, after serving as Executive Vice President since 1991 and National Secretary from 1987 to 1991.

As President of NOW, Gandy also chairs NOW's Foundation and Political Action Committees and serves as the organization's principal spokesperson. Gandy oversees NOW's initiatives and campaigns, including: NOW's Women-Friendly Workplace campaign; the Campus Action Network, Young Feminist Task Force, Racial Diversity Program, Save the Courts Initiative and Equal Marriage Campaign.

During her first presidential term, Gandy was one of the lead organizers of The March for Women's Lives in 2004. Gandy was a key organizer of the 1989 and 1992 marches, and her expertise in mass actions ensured that 1.2 million activists made the 2004 march for women's reproductive freedom the largest and most diverse grassroots mobilization in our nation's history.

Gandy also launched a nationwide campaign to educate women on the dangers of Social Security privatization. She was at the center of the first anti-privatization coalition, formed in 2004 with a small cadre of progressive organizations.

In her second term Gandy is focusing on the Supreme Court, including the battle over George W. Bush's court nominees. As the leader of a multi-issue organization, Gandy recognizes the broad impact the Supreme Court has on reproductive rights, affirmative action, sex and race discrimination, violence against women, family and medical leave, lesbian rights and other civil rights protections.

During the 2004 election cycle, Gandy placed political organizers in nine key states to turn out the women's vote, and ran campaigns across the country and in targeted states, resulting in over 7 million voter contacts. She led NOW's "Women Vote" effort, organizing voter registration drives in key states, registering thousands of women and giving visibility to NOW PAC efforts across the country.

Since 1991, Gandy has led the fight against anti-abortion terrorists in NOW v. Scheidler, the landmark racketeering case against clinic violence. The case, in litigation for two decades, reached the Supreme Court for the third time in November 2005.

A long-time activist, Gandy has served NOW at the local, state and national level since 1973, including three years as Louisiana NOW President. She was elected to the NOW National Board in 1982 and held the position of Mid-South Regional Director for four years before being elected to national office. In 1991 Gandy directed the WomenElect 2000 Project, a nine-month grassroots organizing and recruiting effort in Louisiana which tripled the number of women in the legislature, and elected the state's first woman Lieutenant Governor. In the legislative arena, Gandy served on the drafting committees for two groundbreaking federal laws: the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which gave women the right to a jury trial and monetary damages in cases of sex discrimination and sexual harassment, and the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which has dramatically decreased the daily violence at abortion clinics.

Gandy graduated from Louisiana Tech University in 1973 with a B.S. in mathematics. Her NOW involvement inspired her to attend law school, and she received her law degree in 1978 from Loyola University School of Law, where she was a member of the Loyola Law Review and the National Moot Court Team. Gandy went on to serve as a Senior Assistant District Attorney in New Orleans, and later opened a private trial practice, litigating countless cases seeking fair treatment for women.

Currently, she resides in Silver Spring, Md., with her husband Dr. Christopher "Kip" Lornell, an ethnomusicologist and part-time Professor of Music at George Washington University. They have two daughters, Elizabeth Cady Lornell and Katherine Eleanor Gandy.