“In 2019, 2,121, or 28.7 percent of the 7,383 state legislators in the United States are women. Women currently hold 509, or 25.8 percent of the 1,972 state senate seats and 1,612, or 29.8 percent of the 5,411 state house or assembly seats,” according to the Center for American Women and Politics. Women achieved another high mark in Nevada, where they hold a majority in the state house with 32 women members out of a total 42 members. The New Hampshire Senate became the first state legislative chamber in the country to reach or surpass gender parity, with 13 of its 24 seats (54 percent) held by women in 2009-2010. More recently, the Colorado House of Representatives had 34 women members out of a total 65 members.
Colorado was the first state to elect women to a state legislature in the United States. In 1893, Colorado passed a referendum granting women voting rights, and the next year, the Democratic, Republican, and Prohibitionist Parties each nominated three women for the legislature in an effort to gain the favor of the newly enfranchised women. Three Republican women, Carrie Clyde Holling, Frances S. Klock, and Clara Clessingham, won their races to serve in the Colorado House of Representatives. When Holling gained passage of a bill to raise the age of consent for girls from 16 to eighteen, she became the first woman in American history to pass a bill in an American legislative body. None of the women ran for a second term, but other women followed them. The first woman to serve in a state senate was Martha Hughes Cannon, a Democrat, who served in the Utah Senate from 1897 to 1901.
The first 11 states that elected women to their legislatures were all west of the Mississippi River. In 1919, New York became the first state east of it to have women in its legislature. The year after women gained suffrage rights through the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, women began serving in nine additional state legislatures, among them New Hampshire. The attorney general of New Hampshire had stated that under common law, women could not hold public office, but the two women elected to the New Hampshire legislature that year were permitted to take their seats.
Louisiana was the last state of the 48 states that were in the Union in 1920 to have women in its legislature. Democrat Doris Lindsey Holland succeeded her deceased husband in 1936 and then won a full term.
Women began serving in the territorial legislatures of Hawaii and Alaska in 1925 and 1937, respectively. In 1959, when Alaska and Hawaii became states, both had women in their legislative bodies. For other U.S. territories the dates are as follows: Puerto Rico, 1933; Guam, 1947; American Samoa, 1953; Virgin Islands, 1953; and the Northern Mariana Islands, 1979.
In 1991, for the first time in American history, women served in every state legislature in the nation. In 1993, every state except Nebraska, which is unicameral, had at least one woman in the House and at least one woman in the Senate.
The first African American woman to serve in a state legislature was Republican Minnie Buckingham Harper, who was appointed to the West Virginia Legislature in 1929. She succeeded her deceased husband. The first African American woman elected to a state legislature was Crystal Dreda Bird Fauset, who entered the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1938. The first Asian American woman to serve was Democrat Patsy Takemoto Mink, who served in Hawaii’s territorial House of Representatives in 1957, territorial Senate in 1959, and the Hawaii State Senate from 1963 to 1964. The first Hispanic American women, Republican Fedelina Lucero Gallegos and Democrat Porfirria Hidalgo Saiz, entered the New Mexico House of Representatives in 1931. The first Native American woman to serve in a state legislature, Republican Cora Belle Reynolds Anderson, a La Pointe Band Chippewa, was a member of the Michigan House of Representatives from 1925 to 1926.
From the time women entered legislative service, they have served in leadership positions. Some of the early notable examples are listed below:
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Caucus Secretary: Republican Clara Clessingham, Colorado, 1895
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Caucus Chair: Populist Mary A. Wright, Idaho, 1899
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Majority Leader: Democrat Reva Beck Bosone, Utah, 1935
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Majority Whip: Democrat Concha De Ortiz y Pino, New Mexico, 1941
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Speaker: Non-Partisan League member Minnie D. Craig, North Dakota, 1933
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Senate President pro tempore: Democrat Louise Holland Coe, New Mexico, 1931
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Senate President: Republican Consuelo Northrop Bailey, Vermont, 1955
In 2019, 72 women held leadership positions in the House and the Senate.
Between 1895 and 1921, the number of women serving in state legislatures was uneven, declining to no women in 1905 and 1907, until 1923, when small increases became a weak pattern. In the years from 1923 to 1971, growth was steady but again slow. It was not until 1971 that women made up 4.5 percent of all legislatures. Significant growth in the number of women in state legislatures appeared in the mid-1970s, suggesting that the modern feminist movement influenced the number of women running for and winning seats.
Even with the growth, however, only 28.9 percent of all state legislators (2,131 total legislators) were women in 2019, a full century after women gained suffrage rights. In 2019, Nevada had the highest percentage of women (52.4 percent) in its legislature, followed by Colorado with 47 percent. Mississippi had the lowest percentage of women, with 13.8 percent; West Virginia had the next lowest percentage, with 14.2 percent. Of the women serving in state legislatures in 2019, women of color held 456 seats (24.3 percent).
The significance of women serving in state legislatures rests in the additional perspectives that women bring to decision-making and the differences in priorities between women and men, regardless of party affiliation. For example, women’s top-priority bills more frequently deal with health and welfare issues than do men’s top-priority bills. Women tend to develop expertise in the areas of health and welfare, whereas men tend to develop expertise in fiscal matters. In addition, the higher the proportion of women legislators, the more likely that women’s priority bills will deal with women, children, and families and the more likely that they will win passage. Women legislators have worked for and won changes in rape legislation and social welfare, childcare, family violence, divorce, and education policies. Women have also offered and advocated changes in other areas, including tax policy, the environment, economic development, transportation, and agriculture. By adding to the pool of ideas and knowledge, women alter the legislative agenda and expand the options for solving identified problems and for initiating legislative action.
In addition, state legislatures often provide the base from which both female and male candidates for higher office begin their political careers.
See also: Bosone, Reva Zilpha Beck; Fauset, Crystal Dreda Bird; Mink, Patsy Matsu Takemoto
References: Center for the American Woman and Politics, National Information Bank on Women in Public Office, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University; Cox, Women State and Territorial Legislators, 1895-1995 (1996); Thomas, How Women Legislate (1994); https://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/women-state-legislature-2019 (accessed June 28, 2019).