Throughout its history, until the 1990s, Congress was an institution filled with white males. Women, blacks, Latino, and Native Americans were rare exceptions and had some notoriety because of it. That has changed and it has had at least some consequences for how social groups are represented in Congress and, to some small degree, has contributed to partisan polarization in Congress.
The Numbers
The number of women and blacks gradually increased in the 1970s and 1980s, but a notable step-increase occurred after the 1992 elections (Figure 8-1). For women, the 1992 elections bumped the percentage of the House that was female to over 10 percent for the first time; five new female senators, including the first black woman, were elected then, setting a record high of six for the number of women the Senate at the time (Figure 8-2). Some headlines referred to that year as the “year of the woman,” but blacks also reached a new high in House seats.
What happened in 1992? The success of women and blacks appeared to be the result of a number of developments. It is important to recognize that Democrats got a much faster start in recruiting women and blacks as candidates. That had been true for years. But 1992 was the year that Democrats and other groups had considerable success in recruiting women and minority candidates. Black representation also benefited from an increase in the number of majority-minority districts drawn after the 1990 census. In the end, the general election went well for the Democrats, including the election of Bill Clinton to the White House, which brought many women and blacks into Congress. Nearly all of the increase in the number of women and blacks was among Democrats.
Since the early 1990s, the number of women climbed steadily in both houses. The percentage of House seats held by women exceeded 25 percent after the 2020 elections for the first time. Women made gains in both parties, but the number of Democrats far exceeds the number of Republicans among congressional women. In 2021, Democratic women outnumbered Republican women 89-29 in the House and 17-8 in the Senate. In early 2023, the number of women in the House rose to 125, almost 29 percent of the 435 House seats, leaving women underrepresented in Congress.[1]
After the 1992 elections, African American and Latinx gains slowed considerably. A major reason was the success of Republicans, who were more likely to field white candidates. Since 2010, however, the trends for blacks and Latinx have again moved upward and more Asian American legislators have been elected. In 2021, black Democrats in the House numbered 56, or about a quarter of the party; there were just two black House Republicans. There were three black Democrats and one black Republican in the Senate that year. The result is that blacks were represented in rough proportion to blacks in the American population (13 percent), while Latinx and Asian Americans were underrepresented. A record six Native Americans and Native Hawaiians were in Congress in 2021, but the number dropped to five in 2023. In 2023, Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) became the first Native American to serve in the Senate in nearly two decades.
Top Party Leaders
The rise of Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) warrants special notice. She broke the “marble ceiling” for women in Congress, as she called it. Pelosi was elected House minority leader in 2003 and then as speaker of the House in 2007. She gave up a leadership post at the end of 2022. Throughout her service as Democratic leader, she also worked hard to recruit women, particularly women of color, to run for Congress and to support their campaigns. Her influence with activists and donors has contributed significantly to the most recent increases in the number of women and minority legislators.
Pelosi has been a role model for many people, particularly with respect to the extraordinary commitment required to succeed in politics. Naturally, she has been interviewed many times about her experience. Let me repeat one story that she related just a few years ago:
When I went to my first meeting as Leader—I wasn’t Speaker yet, George W. Bush was president—but it was my first meeting in the leadership. I went in the room, and there they were: the president, the vice president, the Democratic and Republican leadership of the House and Senate…. When I went into the room, I thought, “This is not like any other meeting I’ve ever been to in the White House. In fact, it’s not like any other meeting that any woman has ever been to in the White House.” Because my power at that table was not derived from the president’s appointment, it was derived from the vote of my colleagues in the House of Representatives. So I had my own power at the table.
And when I sat down at the table, I felt really squeezed in my chair and I couldn’t figure out what it was. And all of a sudden, I realized that in that chair was Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Alice Paul—everybody you could think of, they were all sitting right there on that one chair with me. And then I could hear them say, “At last we have a seat at the table.” And my first thought was, “We want more.”[2]
Vice President Kamala Harris is now at the table. Harris matches or exceeds Pelosi as a well-known high-ranking elected official. Her election to the vice presidency in 2020 puts her closer to becoming president than any other woman—and, in her case, a woman with black and Asian heritage.
No other woman (or minority legislator) has been elected to the top leadership position of a congressional party to be included in such a meeting. If we go down to the second- and third-ranking positions in each of the four congressional parties, there are two women (in mid-2021). In the House, Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is the Republican conference chair. In the Senate, Patty Murray (D-WA) is president pro temper after having served as assistant Democratic leader for three Congresses. There are several women in other party leadership positions so retirements at the top are likely to move one or two of them up the leadership ladder in the next two or three Congresses.
Jim Clyburn (D-SC) is particularly important. Clyburn has served as the third-ranking leader among House Democrats--as Democratic whip when Democrats are in the majority and assistant Democratic leader when in the minority—since 2007. He joined the leadership as vice chair of the conference in 2003 after serving in the House since 1993. At age 81 in mid-2021, about the same age as Pelosi, Clyburn may not move up leadership ranks before retiring. In his post, Clyburn has been the highest ranking party leader for an African-American legislator in history.
Descriptive and Substantive Representation
Political scientists usually refer to the numerical representation of social groups in Congress as descriptive representation. An important question remains: Has the election of women and minorities to Congress enhanced the substantive representation of the interests of women and minorities? That is, are there shared interests of women and minorities that are given more legislative attention and action by virtue of more women and minorities serving in the committees and parties of Congress? I can only mention some of the most important factors that must be taken into account in answering these questions.
A place to begin is to ask whether the measurable ideological outlook of women and minorities differs from their colleagues. The answer is—it depends. There are clear differences, of modest size, among House Democrats. Recent Congresses have exhibited such deeply partisan voting patterns that it is somewhat difficult to discern differences within any party. Still, some differences emerge in a recent Congress (115th Congress, 2017-2018). Among House Democrats, women and minorities are more less conservative (more liberal) than their party colleagues (Table 8-1). Blacks, more than women, are distinctly more liberal than other Democrats. Women and minority Republicans show similar less conservative voting behavior, but their smaller numbers make us less confident that the differences are meaningful.
In the Senate, with fewer numbers of women and minorities, it is more difficult to be confident in any estimates of demographic differences. Among Democrats, the estimates are in the predicted direction, but we cannot make much them. Studies that focus on subsets of votes most relevant to group interests tend to show more distinctive behavior for female and minority legislators.
Women and minority legislators have contributed modestly to the increasing partisan polarization in the House. The much larger number of women and minority legislators moving into the House Democratic caucus and their tendency to be a bit more liberal than other Democrats may have made the caucus more liberal than it may have been otherwise. For minority legislators, I hasten to had, this must be qualified—even white legislators from districts with a large number of minority Democrats are somewhat more liberal than other Democrats. However, the growing black and Latinx caucuses, which often has surely increased their representation in party posts and influence on party strategies. Nevertheless, as I illustrated in Note 1, Democrats have moved to the left much less than Republicans have moved to the right in recent decades.
A variety of studies have addressed the distinctive conceptions of who legislators’ represent, the issues they pursue, and their organized activity. Four central themes emerge from these studies:[4]
Group interests are sometimes diverse, more so among women and Latino than among black legislators.
Women and minority legislators feel a responsibility to represent women and minorities, even group members across the nation, which is reflected in the legislation they introduce, their committee activity, and their media and public appearances. Representing a larger social group beyond formal state or district constituencies is often called surrogate representation.
Minority legislators in the House have organized groups that are sometimes influential. The Congressional Black Caucus has been particularly important among House Democrats; the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has not been quite as influential; the Congressional Caucus on Women’s Issues has been even less influential. In major part, these differences reflect the size and political cohesiveness of the groups.
Women and minority legislators must overcome biases about their expertise on issues not obviously associated with their social group. Defense issues, for example, are sometimes cited as being the realm of men.
Final Thought
The descriptive representation of women and minorities in Congress is undergoing change, perhaps frustratingly slow change, that will almost certainly alter the substantive representation of these groups. The biggest challenge is the representation of women, particularly among Republicans. Progress is being made, but it has been disproportionately among Democrats. In 1995, 64 percent of the 50 women in the House were Democrats; in 2021, 74 percent of 120 women in the House were Democrats.
For minority representation, the most important change is likely to be continuing increases in the Latinx elected to Congress. Latinx are the largest and rapidly growing racial minority in the nation and are more underrepresented in Congress than Black Americans. However, Latinx legislators exhibit much for diversity of political views than black legislators. [4] Even with growth, Congressional Hispanic Caucus may continue to lag behind the Congressional Black Caucus in the frequently it mobilizes members to influence party leaders and legislative outcomes.
[1] Sources for Figures 8-1 and 8-2 are: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46705; https://www.brookings.edu/multi-chapter-report/vital-statistics-on-congress; https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/01/09/u-s-congress-continues-to-grow-in-racial-ethnic-diversity/. The Congressional Research Service has an excellent report on the number of women in Congress, their institutional positions, and related political science research: https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R43244.html (accessed May 15, 2021); https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/01/09/u-s-congress-continues-to-grow-in-racial-ethnic-diversity/.
[2] Marianne Schnall, “’Don’t Agonize, Organize’: Why Nancy Pelosi Wants More Women in Washington,” Forbes, October 20, 2018 [https://www.forbes.com/sites/marianneschnall/2018/10/30/insights-and-wisdom-on-womens-leadership-from-nancy-pelosi/?sh=617219b63f06]
[3] For a review of the relevant literature, start with Michele L. Swers and Stella M. Rouse, “Descriptive Representation: Understanding the Impact of Identity on Substantive Representation of Group Interests,” in George C. Edwards III, Frances E. Lee, and Eric Schickler, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the American Congress, 2011. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199559947.003.0011. On the importance of women in Congress, see Kelly Dittmar, Kira Sanbonmatsu, and Susan J. Carroll, A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen’s Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters (Oxford University Press, 2018).
[4] For example, in 2017-2018 (115th Congress), the standard deviations for liberal-conservative scores (DW-NOMINATE) for blacks and Latinx members of the House were .15 and .32, respectively.