SPECIAL ARTICLE BY VFA MEMBER *JO FREEMAN
Did Women "2" it Again?
Only if they were
Democrats
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Representative Nancy Pelosi, the minority
leader, gathered Democratic women of the House before the opening of
the 113th Congress on Thursday in Washington. Representative Nancy
Pelosi, the minority leader, gathered Democratic women of the House
before the opening of the 113th Congress on Thursday in
Washington. (photo: Stephen Crowley/The New York
Times) |
In January of 2013, women were 29 percent of the
Democrats and 9 percent of the Republicans in both houses of
Congress. Whereas women increased their presence in the Democratic Caucus
from last year, they decreased their presence in the Republican
Conference in both numbers and percentages.
After the 2012 election, the number of women
Republicans elected to Congress went down twenty percent, from 24
to 20 in the House and from 5 to 4 in the Senate. The number of
women Democrats increased by ten and twenty percent respectively, from 53
to 58 in the House and 13 to 16 in the Senate.
Something similar happened in the state
legislatures. Republican women decreased their presence by 7 to 8 percent
and the Democratic women increased theirs by 3 to 10 percent. As of
January, 2013, women are 37 percent of all Democratic state house members
and 28 percent of Democratic state senators. They are only 18
and 13 percent, respectively, of their Republican counterparts.
Two factors account for this: Women candidates do
well in election years that end in "2." Women candidates win when the
Democrats win.
What’s magical about "2" years is that the first
legislative contests after the decennial reapportionment are held in those
years. New districts create new opportunities. More seats are open — i.e.
have no incumbent — in "2" years than in others, and even incumbents must
appeal to new constituents within their new district lines.
This has been a factor only since the 1960s when the
Supreme Court ruled that legislative districts had to be roughly equal in
population. Until compelled to do so, many states did not change their
legislative district lines, or even those of their Congressional
districts. The members of the state legislatures who were charged with
that duty liked to keep things as they were.
The modern women’s movement also emerged in the
1960s, and by 1972 public awareness was growing about the dismal lack of
women in public office. Consciousness was raised by Rep. Shirley
Chisholm’s campaign for President that year, even though she insisted that
she was not running as the women’s candidate.
The impact of the 1972 redistricting and the
feminist movement could be seen in the 18.8 percent increase in the number
of women sworn in as state legislators in 1973. The numbers were still
tiny, but they continued to rise steeply for the next twenty years.
Women could respond so fast to the opportunities
offered by the 1972 redistricting because they hadn’t been out of politics
in the previous 50 years, just out of sight. Not only were women a
significant majority of campaign workers, but organizations like the
League of Women Voters had been training them to do legislative work for
decades and implanting many with the idea that they could do it better
inside the legislature.
In 1992 the number of women elected to Congress took
a great leap upward, from 29 to 47 in the House and from 2 to 7 in the
Senate. After crawling from two to six percent during the previous two
decades women were ten percent of the 103rd Congress.
Once again, redistricting created opportunity, but
only where women were ready to take advantage of it. In the previous
twenty years women had gone from five to twenty-one percent of state
legislators, a major source of Congressional candidates. The states which
had elected women to the state legislatures in larger numbers began to
elect them to Congress.
This increase was not bipartisan. The 1992 election
brought a big increase in the number of Democratic women, but only a small
one for Republicans. In the 1980s women had been a greater portion of
Republican than Democratic M.C.s.
The "party gap" this created in Congress had emerged
a decade earlier in the state legislatures. In 1981, women were about 12
percent of both the Republican and Democratic state legislators. Their
proportion among the Democrats rose slowly but steadily to over 31 percent
in 2009. Among Republican state legislators the proportion of women rose
more slowly, flattened out in the mid-1990s, and fell as the new century
began. There are fewer Republican women serving in the state legislatures
in 2013 than in 2000. There are ten percent more Democratic
women.
The number of women state legislators peaked at
1,809 before the 2010 elections. When the voters favored the Republicans
that year they reduced women’s presence. Many more Democratic women lost
their seats than Republican women won theirs. They have not yet caught
up.
There are many reasons why Republican women are less
likely than Democratic women to become legislators. Some have to do with
the voters; some with how each party recruits (or doesn’t recruit) its
candidates. The bottom line is that hallelujahs for the greater number of
women in the 113th Congress are coming a bit too early.
The Republicans elected to the state legislatures in
2010 were able to draw districts which will favor Republican candidates
for the next decade. The type of voters who vote in the midterm elections
are more likely to favor Republicans. That means that women’s progress
into elected office will stall unless the Republican Party decides to
practice a little affirmative action, or the voters swing heavily to the
Democrats.
1 Independents caucused with the Democrats, so are
included in computing the percentages.
2 Nebraska has a nonpartisan, unicameral Legislature
so has been left out of these calculations.
3 Cong. Patsy Mink also ran for President in 1972,
but mostly in Oregon so her campaign was not much in the public
eye.
* Jo Freeman has authored three books on women and politics. For more information go to www.jofreeman.com
More articles by Jo Freeman can be found at: http://www.seniorwomen.com/authors/authorpageFreeman.html
Contact Jo Freeman: jfrbc@hotmail.com
Comments to Jacqui Ceballos: jcvfa@aol.com