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= Liuba Grechen Shirley = Liuba Grechen Shirley is a former Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives, having run in New York's 2nd Congressional District against Rep Peter King in the 2018 midterm elections.

Early life
Liuba and her family have called Long Island home for five generations. Her mother, Katherine Grechen, is a public school teacher and single mother. Liuba’s grandparents were Russian immigrants who moved to Amityville in the 1940s to build a better life for their children. Her grandmother, whom she was named after, opened a small wool and yarn business, and her grandfather helped build the first lunar module to land on the moon. Liuba’s family taught her the value of hard work and the importance of community, and she and her husband are now raising their two young children in Amityville.

Economic Empowerment
Liuba has spent her career leading organizations to empower working families both at home and abroad. She has forged partnerships between nonprofits, government, and businesses to tackle issues including economic development, access to health care, paid family leave, and government transparency. She has worked with farmers, diplomats, healthcare workers, government leaders and entrepreneurs in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. Liuba has led delegations to Capitol Hill to lobby for strong American leadership at the UN, has fought to make the use of international aid funds more accountable and less corrupt, and has worked to help restore economically depressed communities around the world.

Women's Rights
Liuba has focused specifically on women’s economic empowerment working on projects for Women Deliver, PL+US: Paid Leave for the US, Vital Voices, Global Health Visions, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Liuba served as a UN Women’s Empower Women’s Global Champion for economic empowerment. Together with UN Women, she launched the #IAmParent campaign for Parental Leave.

Liuba's Work in Her Community
Liuba founded a grassroots group called New York’s 2nd District Democrats to engage Long Islanders in the political process. At first, she thought the group would mostly attract Democrats alarmed by Donald Trump’s policies — but the group has actually welcomed many independents and even some Republicans who want new leadership in NY-02. Liuba holds an MBA with specializations in Management, Economics, and Social Innovation from New York’s University’s Stern School of Business, and a BA in Politics and Russian from NYU.

Contours of the race
On May 4th, 2017, Representative Peter King voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would have immediately ripped healthcare away from 74,000 people in New York's 2nd Congressional District. This decision spurred Grechen Shirley, who had been politically active through her work founding New York's 2nd District Democrats, to seek the Democratic nomination for New York's 2nd Congressional District. This race focused on expanding affordable healthcare to all through a Medicare for all approach (which Grechen Shirley advocated for), paid family leave, gun reform, environmental protections, and new representation in Congress, as Grechen Shirley frequently noted King's 25-year incumbency.

Petitioning the Federal Election Commission
Grechen Shirley also made childcare a central part of her 2018 campaign, most acutely highlighted by her petition to the FEC, asking for candidates to be allowed to use campaign funds for childcare. The Federal Election Commission approved Grechen Shirley's request to use federal campaign funds to cover the childcare expenses for her two children incurred while she is campaigning, which has affected federal races across the country. Appearing before the FEC with her 2-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter, Liuba Grechen Shirley, a New York Democrat, requested the $22-per-hour childcare expenses she incurred as a result of joining the race for the 2nd Congressional District seat be covered by campaign dollars.

The FEC swiftly approved a draft of a subject advisory opinion that concluded the expenses for Grechen Shirley wouldn't exist had she not sought office.

FEC Vice Chair Ellen Weintraub said that although there have been previous requests regarding childcare expenses, Grechen Shirley is the first female candidate to petition on the matter.

Election Results
Thanks to Democratic enthusiasm and a fundraising advantage, Grechen Shirley came the closest any Democrat has come to unseating Representative King, though she was not ultimately victorious. King defeated Grechen Shirley 53%-47% in the 2018 midterm election. This was King's most competitive race, having defeated previous challengers by double digits in this pivot county district.

Off heels of competitive race, Grechen Shirley founds PAC to help Democratic moms
Based on her experience as a working mother running for office, Liuba Grechen Shirley founded Vote Mama––a PAC dedicated to fundraising, mentoring, and endorsing Democratic moms in races up and down the ballot.

Grechen Shirley notes that even after the swearing in of a historic 116th Congress, our representatives are overwhelmingly male, wealthy, and older than 50. She notes not only a need for more women in Congress, but specifically a need for more mothers, whom she advocates for as having a better, more intimate understanding of the issues fellow working mothers face. Women, and particularly moms of young children, face unique challenges when running for office. Especially in those critical early months, moms face increased scrutiny from donors, establishment institutions, and the public. There are many PACs that focus on electing women— but Vote Mama is the only one focused solely on electing moms.

Because of the cultural and structural hurdles moms face, many choose to wait until their children are grown before running for political office. Because they wait to get started, it’s harder for women to achieve leadership positions at the same rates as men. Speaker Pelosi, who waited to run until she was 47, has said how important it is for more young women to be in Congress “so that their seniority would start to count much sooner.”

In our political system, fundraising is unfortunately still the number one way many determine candidate viability. Vote Mama seeks to increase the political power of moms by stepping in to disrupt the systems that hold women back through direct financial support, mentorship, and endorsements.