| 02/23/2021 2:19 AM UTC |
State legislatures around the country have made little progress in diversifying their ranks during the last decade, with many states losing ground in boosting the representation of people of color and white women.
Even as the share of nonwhite Americans has grown, a POLITICO analysis of data from the National Conference of State Legislatures finds that most state legislatures are lacking in diversity, with nearly every state failing to achieve racial and gender parity with their own population data. Despite efforts to diversify politics, progress in statehouses remains slow and halting. That’s in contrast to the U.S. House of Representatives, where historically underrepresented groups, including women and people of color, are serving in record numbers.
The result is that in many states, the officials elected to legislative office don’t look much like the people they represent — and don’t necessarily focus on policies that matter to their voters.
“The more that the body that is making the laws is reflective of the communities they serve, the more inclined those communities are to be involved,” said Nevada state Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro, a Democrat who is the state’s first female Senate majority leader. In 2019, Nevada became the first — and still only — majority female legislature in the country.
Since women have held the majority in the Nevada legislature, they have passed policies mandating paid sick leave, boosted the minimum wage, put a state equal rights amendment on the ballot and made sure that breast, uterine and cervical cancer were included in a law that provides compensation to firefighters who develop cancer on the job.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 jumpstarted an effort to shift the balance of power in state capitols, especially among Democrats. But most of the gains have been concentrated in a handful of states.
Only six states saw double-digit increases in the number of women serving in the state legislature from 2015 to 2020, the most recent year for which data is available. Nearly twice as many states saw the number of women in the legislatures decline or stay the same. This year, the share of women serving in state legislatures nearly reaches one-third, according to the NCSL.
Despite recent gains, the data show every single state in the country has a legislature that is disproportionately white.
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Arizona stands out as the state legislature with the largest gain in racial diversity between 2015 and 2020: a 10 percentage point increase from 28 percent to 38 percent. Hawaii far and away leads the country in its share of nonwhite state legislators (71 percent). But like 20 other states in the nation, it saw a decrease in nonwhite representation. Five states saw no movement at all, and 21 saw slight movement of 2 percentage points or less.
State Democratic Party leaders blame Republicans for weighing down states’ overall numbers on diversity. New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley was shocked to learn that his state legislature’s share of nonwhite representation dropped from 6 percent in 2015 to 2 percent in 2020.
“In New Hampshire?” he asked. “Really?”
Just one state saw a double-digit jump in racial diversity. A majority of statehouses, however, became whiter or saw no increase in nonwhite representation over the past five years. And of those that did get increasingly diverse, many saw only a moderate improvement in nonwhite representation.
Virginia’s 7 percentage point increase in nonwhite representation is the country’s second largest. Still, the Legislature is slightly whiter than the state’s general population, a gap Democrats attribute in part to partisan gerrymandering.
With control of the General Assembly and the governor’s mansion, Democrats have enacted laws expanding Medicaid and voting rights and decriminalizing marijuana, and both chambers have passed legislation to abolish the death penalty and legalize marijuana.
When Susan Swecker, the state party chair, first came to Richmond as a legislative aide “oh so many years ago,” she said, Democrats had a veto-proof majority in the General Assembly. But white men were the face of the party. That’s no longer the case. “If the General Assembly looks more like Virginia, then you’re reflecting more about what the voters really want, which is what we campaigned on,” Swecker said.
Hurdles still remain high for underrepresented groups. They struggle to be taken seriously by donors and often lack existing networks to tap for fundraising. In many states, nonwhite candidates have to overcome districts that have been gerrymandered to dilute minority representation. But some groups are helping to diversify state legislatures by recruiting and training women and people of color to run for office.
Michigan saw its share of female lawmakers rise by 15 percentage points from 2015 to 2020, gains made largely from a wave of Democratic women winning office in the 2018 election. Because the state has strict term limits — six years for House members and eight years for senators — the party has to constantly recruit and train underrepresented groups to run for office, said House Democratic Leader Donna Lasinski.
Once they reach term limits, women don’t often get to parlay their legislative experience into lobbying or advocacy fields, which are still dominated by men, she said. Now, several groups, including the one that originally advocated for short term limits to create opportunities for female lawmakers, are arguing they should be extended in order to make sure women stay in office.
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Paru Shah, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee whose research focuses on race, ethnicity and politics, said state legislators are becoming progressively more diverse. But, she said, that diversity is largely growing in one party and staying stagnant in the other.
One reason for that is the makeup of each party’s candidate pool. While more people of color are running for office, often as Democrats, the number of white candidates — often white men — is also increasing.
“Yes, there’s more women and women of color and candidates of color running,” Shah said, “but they’re not necessarily gaining seats as fast as we would expect because they’re still going up against a lot of competition.”
There are dozens of people of color serving in the U.S. House. Only 18 of them are Republican voting members. The disparity is even worse in state legislatures, where recent research suggests less than 3 percent of GOP state legislators are nonwhite.
Democrats say they put more emphasis on recruiting and training candidates of color than their GOP counterparts — and they credit Trump’s controversial rhetoric and policies for inspiring a new wave of diverse candidates to seek office.
The Democratic Party also has a larger pool to pull from. Just 17 percent of registered GOP voters are nonwhite, according to a Pew Research Center survey, which found that 40 percent of registered Democratic voters are nonwhite.
“Democrats are doing our part,” said Jessica Post, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “Nearly 40 percent of our legislators are people of color. The Republicans are bringing the numbers down overall.”
“That’s not a partisan argument,” Post added. “It’s just statistically factual.”
In Texas, where the state Senate and House are majority Republican, women gained four seats in the Legislature from 2015 to 2020. The Texas GOP lost one woman in the statehouse in November when former Republican state Rep. Sarah Davis, who supports abortion rights, was beaten by Ann Johnson, a Democratic woman, in a Houston district.
There are 13 Republican white and nonwhite women and five nonwhite Republican men and women serving in the Texas Legislature, according to the Texas Tribune. This year every Republican in the state Senate will be white, according to the Tribune.
In 2020, Republicans made an effort to recruit more white women and candidates of color, said Texas Republican consultant Craig Murphy. He believes the party’s message resonates among socially conservative Hispanics who oppose abortion rights and small business owners from all backgrounds. But he said November’s results showed it was largely a status quo election, one that favored sitting office holders. “It was a tough year to beat an incumbent in either party,” Murphy said.
Republican state Rep. Jacey Jetton said that historically the GOP has not put as much effort as Democrats in reaching out to the state’s growing nonwhite population and encouraging them to run for office. “We have to go where people are,” said Jetton, who won an open state House seat in a Houston area district in November. Jetton’s mother is an immigrant from Korea and he has deep Texas roots from his dad’s side of the family. “We have to get out of our comfort zone,” he said.
Candidates of color often have to overcome the myth of electability in which white men are traditionally seen as candidates with the best chance to win. That adds an additional barrier to fundraising for women and people of color. Yet, according to research from the Reflective Democracy Campaign, “[W]hen [white] women and people of color are on the ballot, they win at the same rates as white men.”
But the price of winning can be steep. Whereas members elected to the U.S. House earn an annual salary of $174,000, compensation for state legislators varies widely. Some states pay annual salaries while others are daily rates. New York and California pay six figures. Wyoming pays $150 per day. Meanwhile, state legislators in New Hampshire make $100 per year. That sum, however, is notably more than their counterparts make each year in New Mexico: nothing.
Most states have mileage reimbursement for travel to and from the state capitol from home, and many have per diems. But in states where the salary is low or the job is part time, public service can take away hours from a second job — and opportunities away from potential candidates who can’t afford it.
Median household income for white families in 2019 was roughly $20,000 higher than Hispanic families and $30,000 higher than Black families, according to Census Bureau data.
“In recruiting [for] state legislatures, there’s a number of challenges. Many people take a pay cut to run for state legislature,” Post said, noting the additional burden that’s put on young candidates and candidates of color in states where lawmaking is a part-time job.
“Compensation is an issue,” she continued. “The schedule of [the] legislative session is an issue. Childcare is an issue. Some of those barriers are real just to participate in the legislature.”
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The share of female state lawmakers of all races remained steady from 2001 to 2018, said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. In 2018, the first election after Trump became president, a record number of women got elected to state office.
All of the gains that election cycle were among Democratic women, but two years later Republican women made some gains in statehouses. Still, women serving in state legislatures tend to be overwhelmingly Democratic.
Despite gains, women still remain underrepresented in state capitols.
“This has been the level of office we have been so frustrated by,” Walsh said. “We have not seen the kind of growth we would have expected.”
Women, in general, need more proactive recruitment to run for office than men, Walsh said. So if no one is asking women to run for office, they tend not to run. Plus, women also have to work harder to raise the same amount of money as their male counterparts. States where parties have been more proactive about recruiting women, like Michigan, Rhode Island and Nevada, have seen the biggest gains in female state lawmakers.
Finally, many state legislatures are part-time, meaning lawmakers have to juggle family, their full-time jobs and then a part-time legislature. Because more women are primary caregivers in their family, the extra work for little pay is a tough sell. Plus, female candidates say they have to work harder than their male counterparts to persuade their bosses to give them necessary leave to serve in office.
Voters, however, don’t penalize women on the ballot. Once they are running, women tend to win at the same rate as their male counterparts. And when women are in office, they tend to focus on policies that affect families and children like education and health care, Walsh said.
“That’s not to say they all agree on the solution to the problem,” Walsh said. “It’s all of these different perspectives that matter so that policy becomes more reflective of the general public.”
How is your state doing in representation?
Percent in 2015
Decreased since 2015
Increased since 2015
| State | Pct. nonwhite state pop. Pct. nonwhite reps. in state leg. Pct. women in state leg. |
| Alabama Ala. | 34% 23% (-2%) 16% (+2%) |
| Alaska Alaska | 39% 13% (-1%) 38% (+10%) |
| Arizona Ariz. | 45% 38% (+10%) 39% (+3%) |
| Arkansas Ark. | 28% 12% (+0%) 24% (+4%) |
| California Calif. | 63% 46% (+7%) 31% (+5%) |
| Colorado Colo. | 32% 20% (+3%) 47% (+6%) |
| Connecticut Conn. | 33% 17% (-9%) 33% (+5%) |
| Delaware Del. | 38% 14% (+5%) 24% (+0%) |
| Florida Fla. | 46% 32% (+2%) 30% (+5%) |
| Georgia Ga. | 47% 29% (+1%) 31% (+8%) |
| Hawaii Hawaii | 78% 71% (-6%) 32% (+3%) |
| Idaho Idaho | 18% 3% (+0%) 31% (+3%) |
| Illinois Ill. | 39% 29% (+3%) 36% (+4%) |
| Indiana Ind. | 21% 10% (-2%) 24% (+3%) |
| Iowa Iowa | 14% 0% (-6%) 29% (+6%) |
| Kansas Kan. | 24% 9% (-1%) 28% (+3%) |
| Kentucky Ky. | 15% 7% (-2%) 23% (+6%) |
| Louisiana La. | 41% 26% (+2%) 18% (+6%) |
| Maine Maine | 7% 3% (-9%) 29% (+0%) |
| Maryland Md. | 49% 38% (+4%) 39% (+8%) |
| Massachusetts Mass. | 28% 14% (+5%) 29% (+3%) |
| Michigan Mich. | 25% 19% (+4%) 36% (+15%) |
| Minnesota Minn. | 20% 8% (+4%) 32% (-1%) |
| Mississippi Miss. | 43% 29% (-1%) 17% (+0%) |
| Missouri Mo. | 21% 13% (-1%) 25% (+0%) |
| Montana Mont. | 14% 9% (-6%) 30% (-1%) |
| Nebraska Neb. | 21% 4% (-4%) 29% (+9%) |
| Nevada Nev. | 51% 31% (+1%) 52% (+19%) |
| New Hampshire N.H. | 10% 2% (-4%) 34% (+5%) |
| New Jersey N.J. | 45% 28% (+2%) 30% (+0%) |
| New Mexico N.M. | 63% 42% (-7%) 37% (+10%) |
| New York N.Y. | 44% 32% (+6%) 32% (+7%) |
| North Carolina N.C. | 37% 23% (+1%) 25% (+3%) |
| North Dakota N.D. | 16% 1% (+0%) 21% (+2%) |
| Ohio Ohio | 21% 19% (+5%) 27% (+2%) |
| Oklahoma Okla. | 34% 7% (-12%) 22% (+9%) |
| Oregon Ore. | 24% 1% (-4%) 40% (+9%) |
| Pennsylvania Pa. | 24% 10% (+1%) 27% (+9%) |
| Rhode Island R.I. | 28% 13% (+0%) 38% (+11%) |
| South Carolina S.C. | 36% 26% (+2%) 16% (+2%) |
| South Dakota S.D. | 18% 5% (-1%) 24% (+3%) |
| Tennessee Tenn. | 26% 16% (+0%) 16% (-2%) |
| Texas Texas | 58% 36% (+1%) 24% (+4%) |
| Utah Utah | 22% 6% (-4%) 24% (+9%) |
| Vermont Vt. | 7% 3% (-2%) 40% (-1%) |
| Virginia Va. | 38% 23% (+7%) 29% (+12%) |
| Washington Wash. | 31% 11% (+2%) 42% (+9%) |
| West Virginia W.Va. | 8% 2% (-1%) 14% (-1%) |
| Wisconsin Wis. | 19% 8% (+5%) 27% (+2%) |
| Wyoming Wyo. | 16% 4% (+1%) 16% (+3%) |
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How we did it
To gauge the number of women and people of color serving in each state's legislature, we used data from the National Conference of State Legislatures' 2015 and 2020 demographic research. This research uses multiple methods for discerning lawmakers' ethnicity and gender, including their personal and official websites, membership lists for national minority-caucus organizations and the Women's Legislative Network of NCSL.
The NCSL breaks out race and ethnicity statistics for legislators who it has classified as Black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, Native American or multiracial, in addition to a separate count of state legislators who are white. Our reporting mainly focused on legislators who are people of color as a whole, but we also looked at individual race/ethnicity group trends in some states.
Importantly, the NCSL data was released before the November election, so it does not reflect lawmakers who were newly elected in 2020.
We compared states' gender and race/ethnicity diversity levels, as well as their trends from 2015 to 2020. For the 49 states where lawmakers run as partisan candidates, we also analyzed whether there were more Democrats or Republicans in these bodies and which party gained more seats over this five-year period — and whether diversity levels changed more substantially in one of those partisan groups than others. (Nebraska's legislature is nominally non-partisan, so we didn't include it in these categories. The state was included in all our other analysis.)
Finally, to measure how closely a state's legislature mirrors its population in racial/ethnic diversity, we compared the number of residents of color in a state with the state’s total population, using figures from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Specifically, we used the five-year averages released in 2014 and 2019. These were the most recent five-year releases that represent totally distinct survey periods, and data collected in 2014 and 2019 describe the electorate that would have voted for the lawmakers who were in office when the NCSL conducted their surveys a year later.