According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 51 percent of Americans are female. Yet, according to the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University, of the 535 members of the United States Congress in 2018, women make up only 106 or 20 percent of its members. Seventy-eight of them are Democrats and 28 are Republicans. On the House side there are 83 voting women (19 percent) with an additional five women delegates representing American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. In the House, 61 of the female voting members are Democrats and 22 are Republicans. On the Senate side there are 23 women out of 100 members with 17 Democrats and 6 Republicans.
Over the history of Congress, California has sent the most women representatives to Congress (41) with New York (28) second. Interestingly, Vermont has never sent a woman to either the House or the Senate.
Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, became the first woman to serve in the U.S. House in 1916. However, she was appointed to fill a temporary vacancy for one day. Rebecca Latimer Felton, a Democrat from Georgia, became the first woman appointed to the Senate in 1922. It was not until 1978 that the first woman, Nancy Kassebaum, a Republican from Kansas, was elected to the Senate without previously filling an unexpired Congressional term, usually of a deceased husband. Barbara Mikulski, Democrat from Maryland, became the first female Democrat elected to the Senate in 1987.
Women are not doing much better in state legislatures. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, only about 25 percent of state legislatures in 2017 were women. Women make up about 40 percent of Arizona's legislature, followed closely by Nevada and Vermont at 39 percent, and Colorado and Washington at 38 percent. On the other end, women in Wyoming, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Mississippi make up less than 15 percent of their state legislatures. About 60 percent of woman state legislatures are Democrats party.
According to Kyung Lah and Alberto Moya of CNN, while the number of women in Congress is increasing within the Democratic Party where they make up about 33 percent of Democrats in Congress, it is decreasing within the Republican Party where women make up just under 10 percent of Republican members.
Does it make a difference that only 23 percent of our Senators are women? Consider that the Senate approves federal appointments to our federal courts and that, according to Americas Quarterly, only "three of the nine justices sitting on the Supreme Court are women. About 33 percent of state and federal court judges in the U.S. are women." The ripple effect is real.
Looking ahead in Congress, according to the CAWP, among the 440 women candidates currently running for the House in 2018, about 75 percent (332) are Democrats and 25 percent (108) are Republicans. For the Senate, there are 32 female candidates compared to 22 Republican candidates for 2018.
Regarding the lack of female Republicans in Congress, Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen says that, "As long as we're seen as a party that's homogenous, not heterogeneous, a party that doesn't invite minorities and women, a party that excludes folks that may disagree with us a little bit, we're not going to be a welcome party for the future."
Regarding the low number of Republican women running in 2018, Ros-Lehtinen blames the current occupancy of the White House as "turning women off," especially young women. At the same time, says Ros-Lehtinen, "It's inspiring Democratic woman to run" and "the rhetoric of the White House is a recruiting tool for liberal women to counter."
The female vote is, of course, important to both parties. According to the CAWP, "The number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every presidential election since 1964." The raw number of registered female voters (about 84 million in 2016) has averaged about 10 million more than the raw number of registered male voters (about 74 million in 2016) for at least 20 years.
Over time, the voice of women, especially today's young women, will be felt at the ballot box. Younger women are becoming more active in politics in recent years. Even at the high school level, we are seeing the next generation of strong women raising their voices on policy. Perhaps, in their lifetimes, they will see a Congress and a state legislature with a majority of women representing their majority status in America.
It would be a good thing for women and for America.
Tom Zirpoli writes from Westminster. He is program coordinator of the human services management graduate program at McDaniel College. His column appears Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.
