Legislative Modernization

Legislatures were designed by and for people who didn't have caregiving responsibilities, outside jobs, or a paycheck to protect. That design is still in place — and it's still filtering out women.

RepresentWomen imagines a modern governmental workplace where more women officeholders can run, serve, and lead. Getting there means changing how legislatures actually operate day to day: what they pay, how they schedule, who gets to lead committees, and whether the building itself works for a lawmaker who's also a parent or a caregiver.

We focus on four internal reforms that, together, make legislative service sustainable for more people — starting with the one that shapes everything else: pay.

1. Fair Pay for Legislators: Compensation Commissions

Legislative pay determines who can afford to serve. Low wages often mean only the retired or independently wealthy can sustain office, and women lawmakers across the country consistently cite salary as a factor in deciding whether to run, or run again.

New Mexico is the extreme case: legislators there are virtually unpaid, earning only a per diem for session days.

Compensation commissions (CCs) — independent bodies that set legislative pay outside the legislature's own vote — are one of the most viable, underused fixes to this problem. Our research report, Salaries of State: Modernizing State Legislatures through Compensation Commissions, is the first to examine CCs specifically through the lens of women's representation.

What the research found:

1. Pay shapes who serves and how long. Low pay disincentivizes women from staying in office, especially given the added domestic duties and costs — like childcare — that disproportionately fall on women.
2. Higher pay opens the door; it doesn't guarantee results. More competitive compensation creates the conditions for more women to run, but it has to work alongside other structural reforms to actually close the representation gap.
3. Commission design determines effectiveness. Where a commission's recommendations take effect automatically, legislators face far less electoral backlash for supporting a pay raise than in states requiring a separate vote.
4. Voter education is a prerequisite, not an afterthought. Misconceptions about how much legislators are actually paid are common, and any successful reform has to address that transparency gap directly.

A few states show what this looks like in practice:

• Arkansas — the Independent Citizens Commission's recommendations are binding and cannot be overridden by the legislature.
• Washington — the Citizens' Commission on Salaries is binding unless overturned directly by voters.
• Arizona — the Commission on Salaries for Elective State Officers sends recommendations to voters for approval or rejection at the ballot.
• New York — an independent commission reviews pay for lawmakers, judges, and statewide officials on a regular cycle.

Want the full picture on legislative pay? Read our deep dive on how legislative pay works state by state, why 22 states use independent compensation commissions, and what the data shows about pay and women's representation.

2. Fairer Legislative Practices

Pay is only one barrier. Erratic schedules, long geographic distances to the capitol, and opaque leadership-selection processes make service difficult for many lawmakers — and disproportionately for women managing caregiving and household responsibilities. Reforming these practices benefits everyone who serves, not only women.

Our 2021 case studies examined how the Nevada and Maryland legislatures approached these best practices in practice. View the Best Practices: For a Gender-Balanced Democracy Guide

3. Legislative Rules Changes

Beyond pay and scheduling, legislative bodies can make the workplace itself more workable through direct rules changes. We call on legislatures to:

• Provide affordable on-site childcare
• Allow telecommuting and virtual voting for elected officials
• Build family-friendly schedules for committee meetings and floor proceedings
• Review how committee leadership is selected

4. Women's Caucuses

Roughly 20 states have partisan or bipartisan women's legislative caucuses working to improve the status of women in their state. These caucuses double as networking infrastructure for women lawmakers and as a vehicle for the reforms above.

RepresentWomen partners with these caucuses to:

• Learn what's actually working on the ground
• Strategize around emerging reform opportunities
• Help implement systemic solutions to women's underrepresentation