January 1, 2020
Since women earned the right to vote 100 years ago, political parties have been looking for ways to engage women in the political process. Both the Democratic and Republican national parties have enacted gender balance rules to attempt to achieve gender parity amongst their state delegates to national conventions. Following these national policies, some state parties have established guidelines for choosing who to send to their state conventions, requiring gender balance at local levels. The team at RepresentWomen has worked with the pro-bono team at Hogan Lovells to research each state party’s rules. The visuals are based on that research. This brief explores the history and the constitutionality of these rules.