By Cynthia Richie Terrell on January 31, 2020

When Women Vote highlights the challenges Americans, particularly women, face when trying to vote in the current voting system, and the amazing things that happen with reform. We make the case for further voting reform and for removing bias in the voting process by sharing stories and experiences of women voters and leaders throughout the United States.

“Our democracy depends on every vote being counted and every voice being heard. I am grateful for this book highlighting the vital importance of empowering women - from every spectrum, perspective and walk of life - to raise their voice and ensure that they are heard in every powerful room in our country.”
—Jocelyn Benson, Michigan Secretary of State

Katie Sowers is in her second season as a 49ers offensive assistant coach. 

I was excited to see this piece on SBNATION about Katie Sowers who is the first openly gay woman coach to be involved in the Super Bowl:

Sowers, 33, is more than that to the players she coaches, her co-workers in the NFL, and her fans. She’s an inspiration to a lot of people, from women who love football or other sports, to LGBTQ people who are unable to outwardly be themselves in public.

Though she set out to be a coach in the NFL — with the end goal of being a head coach some day — she has embraced being a role model. Sowers took an even bigger step in the spotlight recently, when she was featured in Microsoft Surface ad that ran during football games...

Sowers was signing autographs for women and girls before a preseason game in Denver when it fully hit her that she was making a difference.

“I had multiple families call me over and thank me for the doors I am opening for their daughters,” Sowers told Outsports. “I even met a few young girls who were so excited to see me and tell me their own story of the sports they play. It was a special moment that I will remember for a long time.”

Sowers has a chance to add even more to what is shaping up to be an incredible legacy when the 49ers play the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. She can go from the first openly gay woman coaching in a Super Bowl to the first openly gay woman winning in a Super Bowl.

 

The National Women's Law Center issued a report on the impact of women in state legislatures - I have attached the summary of the report:

Women made great strides in political representation in 2018. There has been significant media attention devoted to the historic gains women made in Congress, but the shift in political representation the states was equally significant. Women’s representation in state legislatures increased by more than three points in 2018 (from 25.4 percent to 28.9 percent of all state legislative seats). Nevada became the first majority women legislature and Colorado approached gender parity, with a legislature that is 47 percent women.
Although often presented as a non-partisan phenomenon, the gains in women’s representation across the board were due to Democratic women candidates’ victories. Democratic women gained about 300 state legislative seats in 2018, while the number of Republican women state legislators declined by just over 40.3

More than a year out from the “year of the woman,” the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) and Quorum examined the impact of this changing representation in the states. In this fact sheet, we present new data on women’s state legislative achievements, including that women state legislators introduced and enacted more legislation than men over the past two legislative sessions.

There was a good piece on CNN about this report from Julie Kohler at fellow at the National Women's Law Center:

Iowa and New Hampshire may dominate political headlines in the near term, but it is in a host of other states where significant political change is afoot. Many state legislatures are reconvening, including in Virginia, where a record 40 women now serve in Virginia's House of Delegates. Eileen Filler-Corn was recently elected the first woman speaker, with Charniele L. Herring serving as the first woman and the first African American majority leader. Earlier this month, Danica Roem tweeted after becoming the first trans woman to chair a committee in the Virginia legislature.  

There was a terrific piece on FiveThirtyEight about the impact of district design on women's representation by Meredith Conroy which echoes the research done by the RepresentWomen team. Women are far more likely to get elected from multi-seat districts than from single seat districts - the data is clear on this front:

For much of the 1980s, Wyoming had more women serving in its state legislature than almost all other states, living up to its nickname: the Equality State. Today, Wyoming ranks 48th, up from dead last in 2018.

It’s difficult to point to a single reason why so much changed in Wyoming. Yes, Wyoming has become more conservative, and the number of female politicians in the Republican Party has been stagnant or declining for years. But something else happened in Wyoming that may have inadvertently slowed the state’s momentum when it came to electing women to political office: the state changed how people are elected to political office. In 1992, the Wyoming state legislature switched from multi-member districts — when voters elect multiple people to represent their district — to single-member districts — when voters elect one person to represent their district.

It may seem like an innocuous change: If women were likely to be elected in one system, then they should be in the other. But there’s a host of research suggesting that in multi-member districts, more women might be encouraged to run and more women might win.1 For a country that still elects three times more men than women to state legislatures, multi-member districts might be a simple trick to help balance the scales — if only it weren’t going out of style.

Political scientists have spent a lot of time examining what increases the likelihood of a woman running and getting elected. We hear about how women need to be recruited, how they need deeper political networks and support. But the structure of elections may also shape women’s electoral fortunes in profound ways.

To understand why, we’re going to need to wade into the depths of political science jargon and learn about something called district magnitude. District magnitude refers to the number of candidates elected from a specific political district. These decisions are made at the state level every 10 years.2 In multi-member districts, voters vote for two or more candidates to represent their district. These representatives then split duties, like two U.S. senators from any given state do.3 District magnitude varies across, and even within, states. When electing representatives to New Hampshire’s lower chamber, for instance, voters select between one and 11 candidates, depending on the district.

Multi-member districts are increasingly rare, though. The number of states that have at least one legislative chamber with multi-member districts has steadily declined, from 39 states in the 1950s to 17 states in the ’80s to just 10 states today.

This matters for women’s representation because some research has suggested that district magnitude can influence both the supply of and demand for female candidates. Though women are generally less likely to be recruited to run for office, parties in states with multi-member districts may feel more pressure to balance their list of candidates in an effort to appeal to a wider range of voters. As University of Kentucky political scientist Tiffany Barnes explained, “Whereas access to the ballot is a zero-sum game in single-member districts, in multi-member districts multiple candidates — from the same political party — can occupy a place on the ballot.” And other political scientists have suggested that parties and voters may be more willing to support a woman when she is not the only possible candidate, in part because of bias against female candidates.

Multi-member districts also see more turnover, which may create more opportunities for women to run and fewer contests against strong incumbents. (Turnover presents similar conditions to term-limited seats, which might also increase the number of female candidates.)

Multi-member districts may also change the kind of campaign that candidates need to run, often in ways that could be helpful to women. Although races in multi-member districts generally include more opponents, candidates running for a seat in a multi-member district spend less time attacking each other and more time promoting themselves. As political scientists Michael Horan and James King explained in a 1999 study examining the elimination of multi-member districts in Wyoming, “The typical head-to-head battle between a Republican and a Democrat is replaced by something of a free-for-all where each candidate emphasizes his/her own strengths rather than his/her opponent’s weaknesses.” This free-for-all, they said, can alleviate reservations about facing a contentious campaign period, which may encourage more women to run.

So if more women are elected in multi-member districts, why are they disappearing?

Legal battles have a lot to do with it. Wyoming eliminated its multi-member districts after a federal court ruled that these districts violated the Constitution by distributing the population in a lopsided way. Other states eliminated their multi-member districts after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 opened the door for judicial review of electoral practices that discriminate against racial minorities. Numerous court cases have debated whether multi-member districts dilute the value of votes cast by racial minorities and some rulings have invalidated their use, which might have inadvertently made it harder for women to get elected, at least for a while.

Take North Carolina, which phased out its multi-member districts over several decades in response to such a legal challenge. In the 1970s, more than 80 percent of the seats in the state legislature were in multi-member districts. That dropped to around 60 percent in the 1980s, and around 30 percent in the 1990s. As the number of multi-member districts declined, so did North Carolina’s national ranking with regard to women’s representation. (However, the state saw its ranking improve between 2004 and 2008, after Democrats gained control of both legislative chambers, but it was short-lived — today the state is ranked just 33rd.)

From the RepresentWomen research team:

There are two events in Washington, DC next week that may be of interest - both will be held at the NYU DC campus:

I will be interviewing Rep Don Beyer - the lead sponsor of the Fair Representation Act - and there will be a number of other voting reform experts on hand:

• 3 - 6pm
• Tuesday February 4
• NYU Washington DC Abramson Family Auditorium
• 1307 L St NW, Washington, DC 20005  
• RSVP

And on Thursday February 6th there will be an event to discuss Lucina Di Meco's research on attitudes toward women candidates - see the flyer attached.

Birthdays and milestones this week include:

Finally, please read these terrific pieces by the RepresentWomen team who are doing an amazing job writing about a wide-range of topics related to strategies to advance women's representation - I am very grateful - and impressed by their output:

"Addressing De Jure Inequality: UAE Reaches Gender Parity in Federal National Council by Appointing Women" by Faith Campbell

"Could Women Vote Before the Nineteenth Amendment? It's Complicated." by Jordan Westendorf 

"Katerina Sakellaropoulou becomes Greece's First Female President" by Faith Campbell

"The Equal Division Rule: Making the Case for Political Gender Quotas in the U.S." by Maura Reilly in Ms. magazine. 

That's all for tonight from snowy Iowa City!

Cynthia

P.S. I had a wonderful chat with the woman pilot on my flight to Denver - she likes the idea of more airports named after women - she even invited me to sit in her seat!

• Before the Nineteenth Amendment
• Weekend Reading on Women's Representation February 14, 2020