More women poised to win elections...
But they still have a long way to go to be fully represented in Congress
(NOTE: This article has been edited and corrected since first posted.)
On Sunday afternoon on Rochester, Rep. John Murtha, who was introduced by Minnesota State Senator Sheila Kiscaden, opened his remarks by saying that when he entered Congress there were only 15 women in the House. Now there are 67, or a little over 15% of the members. Also on the patio with him was Minnesota State Rep. Tina Liebling. Later in his remarks, the congressman acknowledged that when he was growing up "in the Murtha family the women ran the show."
That led me to wonder what the new Congress might look like in terms of male and female faces. Looking at the Top 30 races listed by the National Journal, the following seats could see a gender change in the next Congress:
(Two hotly contested races, New Mexico 01, ranked #9, and Ohio 15, #15, see both female incumbents and challengers.)
If women win all of these contests, this will bring the number of women in the House to almost 80, or about 18% — still embarrassingly small for the self-proclaimed leading democracy in the world compared to the total percentage of women in the population (over 51%), though somewhat better than the less than 4% in 1974 when Murtha entered Congress.
By comparison, 66 countries in the world have legislatures or parliaments with higher percentages of women occupying seats. Countries with the highest percentages include Sweden (45%), Costa Rica (39%), Norway and Finland (38%), Denmark and the Netherlands (37%), and Cuba and Spain (36%). Germany has 32%, Iraq 26%, and the United Kingdom 20%. The entire list can be found on the Inter-Parliamentary Union website.
An excellent resource about women in the U.S. political process can be found at the Center for American Women and Politics.
— LP
(NOTE: This article has been edited and corrected since first posted.)
On Sunday afternoon on Rochester, Rep. John Murtha, who was introduced by Minnesota State Senator Sheila Kiscaden, opened his remarks by saying that when he entered Congress there were only 15 women in the House. Now there are 67, or a little over 15% of the members. Also on the patio with him was Minnesota State Rep. Tina Liebling. Later in his remarks, the congressman acknowledged that when he was growing up "in the Murtha family the women ran the show."
That led me to wonder what the new Congress might look like in terms of male and female faces. Looking at the Top 30 races listed by the National Journal, the following seats could see a gender change in the next Congress:
Rank as of 9/8 | House seat | Current occupant | Possible opposite sex successor |
2 | Arizona 08 | Jim Kolbe (R) | Gabrielle Giffords (D) |
4 | Pennsylvania 06 | Jim Gerlach (R) | Lois Murphy (D) |
5 | Texas 22 | Tom DeLay (R) | Shelley Sekula-Gibbs (R) |
10 | Connecticut 04 | Chris Shays (R) | Diane Farrell (D) |
17 | Virginia 02 | Thelma Drake (R) | Phillip Kellam (D) |
20 | Washington 08 | Dave Reichert (R) | Darcy Burner (D) |
22 | Connecticut 05 | Nancy Johnson (R) | Chris Murphy (D) |
23 | Illinois 06 | Henry Hyde (R) | Tammy Duckworth (D) |
27 | Minnesota 06 | Mark Kennedy (R) | Michele Bachmann (R) or Patty Wetterling (D) |
29 | Vermont AL | Bernie Sanders (I) | Martha Rainville (R) |
30 | Illinois 08 | Melissa Bean (D) | David McSweeney (R) |
(Two hotly contested races, New Mexico 01, ranked #9, and Ohio 15, #15, see both female incumbents and challengers.)
If women win all of these contests, this will bring the number of women in the House to almost 80, or about 18% — still embarrassingly small for the self-proclaimed leading democracy in the world compared to the total percentage of women in the population (over 51%), though somewhat better than the less than 4% in 1974 when Murtha entered Congress.
By comparison, 66 countries in the world have legislatures or parliaments with higher percentages of women occupying seats. Countries with the highest percentages include Sweden (45%), Costa Rica (39%), Norway and Finland (38%), Denmark and the Netherlands (37%), and Cuba and Spain (36%). Germany has 32%, Iraq 26%, and the United Kingdom 20%. The entire list can be found on the Inter-Parliamentary Union website.
An excellent resource about women in the U.S. political process can be found at the Center for American Women and Politics.
— LP
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1 Comments:
Focusing on the 6th Congressional District race in Illinois, see http://republicansforduckworth.typepad.com/blog/ for a candidate's debate that made it clear why Duckworth will win:
1. She wants to get us out of Iraq.
2. She's a veteran and her bland opponent has no service record at all.
3. The District has changed. 60% of Americans, including us here in DuPage county, are opposed to the war in Iraq.
4. She has a natural appeal for women voters and people of color. Her opponent is just another balding white lawyer.
5. She wants to get us off foreign oil and into bio-fuels and flex cars that can run on any fuel.
6. Her opponent has been lying his ass off in direct-mail flyers and getting nailed for his falsehoods in the Illinois newspapers.
Republicans for Duckworth
http://republicansforduckworth.typepad.com/blog/
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