Leadership
Mayor Barbara Lee (Oakland, CA)
Mayor Lee is the Honorary Chair of Representation Matters. She was elected the 52nd Mayor of Oakland in an historic special election held on April 15, 2025, becoming the first Black woman to lead the city. She served in California’s state legislature from 1990 until 1998, and then served in Congress from 1998 until January 3, 2025. While in Congress, she was the highest ranking African American woman appointed to Democratic leadership. She is a trailblazer who is well-respected for her life-long commitment to fighting for equity, justice and peace. as well as a mentor and role model to women of color candidates running for elected office. She has a deep commitment to ensuring that there will be many women of color in Congress and in other elected office to follow in the path she has paved. Her leadership of this effort exemplifies her unwavering conviction to “lift as you climb.”
“Lift as you climb”
Team Leaders
Dale Schroedel Co-Founder
Dale has spent much of her life committed to issues related to gender, racial and economic justice. She is passionate about electing more women to public office, and particularly more Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color. In 2020, she co-founded Representation Matters as an effort to play at least a small role in addressing systemic and institutional racism by changing the face of power.
Since 2008, she has been a political organizer and fundraiser for projects focused on electing more women, including co-founder of Electing Women San Francisco, Volunteer Candidate Coordinator for Emerge America, Outreach Director for WomenCount, and Programs Director for The 2012 Project. She has worked on multiple campaigns, including Barbara Lee for Oakland Mayor, Barbara Lee for Senate and Hillary Clinton’s two presidential campaigns. She served on the Women’s Committee of Mayor London Breed’s Policy Transition Team and on the Finance Committee and Kitchen Cabinet for Mayor Breed’s re-election campaign. She is Board Chair Emerita of Equal Rights Advocates, and Treasurer of the Board of Emerge’s 501(c)(4) arm, Emerge Action Fund.
Prior to involvement in electoral politics, Dale was a private investigator for 18 years with a specialty in employment discrimination and criminal defense investigations, a contract attorney for Equal Rights Advocates briefly, Executive Director of the National Women and the Law Association for five years, and a psychiatric nurse in major New York City hospitals and institutions for five years. Dale has a B.S. in Nursing (Hunter College, NY), an M.S. in Psychiatric Nursing (New York University), a J.D. (Cardozo School of Law), and is a Licensed Private Investigator. When not fundraising for women candidates or fighting for gender and racial justice, Dale can be found doing jigsaw puzzles, hiking, or walking on the beach – and always networking.
Lisa Honig Co-Founder
Lisa Honig has been an activist from very early on – picketing against housing discrimination at age 6, challenging San Francisco public school’s policy forbidding girls from wearing pants at age 14, marching against the Vietnam War, and protesting the U.S. involvement in El Salvador. She attended Bennington College and Brown University and began a career as a fundraiser and benefit concert producer at Bread & Roses, which took entertainment to prisons, hospitals and other institutions. She then became an independent fundraising consultant and concert producer. Her fundraising efforts included raising funds for several public interest lawsuits such as the Karen Silkwood case and cases fighting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. She co-founded the Grassroots Fundraising Journal, a publication that provided advice for developing grassroots fundraising efforts. She was the first Development Director for Equal Rights Advocates.
In 1988, she got a J.D. at UC Berkeley School of Law and went on to clerk at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. She then practiced primarily employment law for 15 years, specializing in individual and class action civil rights cases, including racial and sexual discrimination and harassment. When she left her law practice, she returned to an old passion of weaving and opened a weaving studio in San Francisco. She has served on many Boards of Directors, including the ACLU of Northern California for several decades as well as the National Board of the ACLU.
After Donald Trump’s election in 2016, Lisa reactivated her bar membership so she could defend people arrested at protests related to the new administration. She co-founded Representation Matters in 2020 to try to change the face of power. She continues to weave rugs and scarves, in addition to pursuing her passions of cooking, reading, and hiking.
Kimberly Ellis Strategic Consultant
An accomplished Bay Area activist with more than 20 years of leadership experience, Kimberly Ellis has helped shape the landscape of progressive and grassroots politics in California and beyond. After running national operations at Emerge America, in 2010, Kimberly was tapped to lead the flagship affiliate, Emerge California, as its Executive Director. For nearly a decade, Kimberly led the organization with incredible success, growing what had been a regional training program into a statewide electoral powerhouse for women, earning her the reputation for revolutionizing Democratic politics in the Golden State. Today, Emerge alumnae have occupied seats from White House Cabinet Secretaries to Congress, Governorships to Attorneys General, and everything in between.
Most recently, Kimberly served as the Director for the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women where she worked at the intersection of health, safety, socioeconomics, politics and gender to reorganize and reimagine the country’s oldest Commission and Department on the Status of Women to meet the realities of a post-Roe America. Under her leadership, the Department doubled in size, tripled its budget through external grants, and expanded the organization’s visibility, brand and impact through initiatives including the Bay Area Abortion Rights Coalition (BAARC), a multi-regional collective of municipal and county governments and reproductive healthcare experts and advocates.
When she’s not helping to elect women to decision-making tables where our lives and livelihoods are being decided, Kimberly enjoys coloring, painting, drinking great coffee and taking photographs of things like ladybugs, buttery croissants and everything in between.
Lindsay Bubar General Consultant
Lindsay Bubar, is the founder of LAB Campaigns, one of California’s leading Democratic political firms. Lindsay has worked with a broad range of clients throughout California for more than a decade, with a commitment to delivering real solutions to our biggest challenges: homelessness, housing affordability, reproductive justice, gender equity, and more.
Notably, Lindsay successfully flipped some of the longest-held Republican seats in Los Angeles County, including CA-25 (now CA-27) in the historic 2018 election and AD40 in 2022, the only state race that election cycle where a Democrat unseated a Republican. Lindsay has led campaigns at the federal, state, and local level, as well as supported state, county, and city ballot initiatives. Recently, this included the most recent successful Measure A, the Los Angeles County homelessness initiative.
In addition to leading electoral campaigns, Lindsay works with nonprofits and organizations to expand their capacity and execute their vision for change. Lindsay served as Training Director for Emerge California and dedicated 10 years to launching and building their Southern California program, training nearly 250 alumnae including Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis, State Senator Sasha Renee Perez, Assemblymembers Pilar Schiavo, Lori Wilson, Rebecca Bauer Kahan, and Los Angeles City Councilmember Katy Yaroslovsky. She also works with HOPICS, a homeless services nonprofit and the California Public Leadership Pipeline, working to build a progressive pipeline in California, among others.
Lindsay resides in Los Angeles with her husband David and their two sons.
Event Hosts
Representation Matters events are co-hosted by community leaders, activists, and donors who have a deep commitment to supporting and uplifting Black women, Indigenous women and women of color candidates for elected office.
Featured Candidates
The candidates featured by Representation Matters are our true leaders. They all have unique stories and have overcome significant challenges and barriers throughout their lives. Their perspectives are invaluable. We honor their service to their communities and their commitment to making this country a more equitable democracy for all. Their courage, passion, and determination inspire us every day. They are changing the face of power and are the hope for our future.
WHAT YOU CAN DO