When the 119th U.S. Congress was sworn in, some newly elected ladies members made historical past.
Emily Randall, from Washington’s sixth Congressional District, is the primary out LGBTQ+ Latina. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Angela Alsobrooks are the primary Black senators to signify Delaware and Maryland, respectively — and the primary two Black ladies to ever serve concurrently within the higher chamber. Sarah McBride, from Delaware’s at-large Home district, is the primary transgender member of Congress. All are Democrats.
However for the primary time since 2011, the variety of ladies serving within the Senate and Home of Representatives declined.Whereas Democrats despatched a document 110 ladies lawmakers to Congress, Republicans elected simply 40 ladies throughout each chambers. (On Election Day, 151 ladies had been serving.) As well as, no less than one Republican, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who was additionally the one girl serving in GOP Home management, is anticipated to resign if she is confirmed as ambassador to the United Nations within the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Kelly Dittmar, director of analysis at Rutgers College’s Middle for American Ladies and Politics, mentioned that whereas the drop within the variety of ladies in Congress is small, “any decline once we’re speaking about ladies’s illustration is successfully slowed or stalled progress as a result of ladies are already so underrepresented in Congress.”
It’s additionally a reminder, Dittmar mentioned, “that we can’t assume that ladies are simply going to repeatedly enhance their illustration previous parity, that we’ve to maintain a spotlight not solely on ladies’s success however ladies’s candidacies, recruitment, and candidate emergence.”
150 women were sworn into the 119th Congress, representing 28 % of the full variety of lawmakers throughout each chambers. Twenty-five of those ladies — 16 Democrats and 9 Republicans — serve within the Senate, holding one in 4 seats of the 100-seat higher chamber. The Home of Representatives has 125 ladies — 94 Democrats and 31 Republicans — who make up about 29 % of the 435-seat decrease chamber, in keeping with a CAWP evaluation.
Among the many non-incumbent ladies in Congress, solely two are Republicans; Dittmar referred to as it a “clear inform” in regards to the standing of girls within the legislative physique.
“It’s all the time going to be tougher to get there [to parity] if Republican ladies’s illustration stays so low. We noticed the difficulty initially of this marketing campaign … by way of the drop in candidacies for Republican ladies that endured,” Dittmar mentioned. “After which we’re going to see it actually starkly because it pertains to their energy, each within the proportion of the caucus, in addition to the proportion of committee chairs, which goes to be zero within the Home for Republican ladies.”
Republicans management each the Senate and Home and, due to this fact, maintain all committee gavels. Some Democratic ladies within the Home function rating members, the highest spot for the minority occasion on every panel.
GOP Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan changed Stefanik because the Home Republican Convention Chair and is anticipated to be the one girl serving in a celebration management function. Within the Senate, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia leads the Republican Coverage Committee, the one girl within the prime function since Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa misplaced her race for Republican convention chair.
Jessica Mackler, the president of EMILYs Checklist, a bunch that works to elect Democratic ladies who assist abortion rights, mentioned the group backed all 19 of the brand new Democratic ladies becoming a member of Congress. These embrace ladies who’re a “first” of some kind, like Arizona’s Yassamin Ansari, the primary Iranian-American Democrat in Congress; Janelle Bynum, the primary Black member of Congress to signify Oregon; and Nellie Pou, the primary Latina to signify New Jersey.
“The views that ladies deliver, whether or not that’s their skilled views, their private views, their background, they bring about that into the halls of energy, and that enables them to place a face and a voice to the best way wherein these insurance policies are going to impression individuals throughout the nation. Our authorities can’t work at its finest if it doesn’t replicate the American individuals as a complete,” Mackler mentioned.
Mackler additionally anticipates that Democratic ladies will play distinguished roles opposing Trump administration insurance policies, a lot of which may have gendered impacts on ladies and LGBTQ+ individuals.
“The views that they’re bringing are going to be critically vital to the fights that we’ve forward of us,” Mackler added.
The 119th Congress: Some history makers, but fewer women overall was first published by The 19th, and republished with permission.
Amanda Becker is The nineteenth’s Washington Correspondent.
