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Thursday, November 4, 2010

Women in the 112th Congress

First, a table of the number of women in the House and Senate at the beginning of each of the last few Congresses, broken down by political party.


CongressHouseSenate
DemRepTotalDemRepTotal
96th11516011
97th10919022
98th12921022
99th111122022
100th121123112
101st141125112
102nd20929112
103rd351247516
104th301747538
105th351651639
106th391756639
107th41185910313
108th3921609514
109th4223659514
110th50217111516
111th58177513417
112th*48247212517

(112th projected based on current totals in AK-Sen, AZ-8, IL-8, NY-25)

Yes, not since the 96th Congress (1979-1981) have we seen a Congress with less women in EITHER house of Congress than there were in the previous one.

What about this year? In the Senate, no women Senators retired; Democrat Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas lost her re-election race, while Republican Kelly Ayotte won the open Senate seat in New Hampshire being vacated by Judd Gregg. Two more Senate races with women remain undecided. Democrat Patty Murray leads Dino Rossi by about 28,000 votes in Washington (with over half a million remaining to be counted). In Alaska's Senate race, 40.95% of the votes were cast for write-in candidates compared to 34.34% being cast for Republican nominee and Tea Partier Joe Miller; if as expected, most of those write-in votes are valid write-in votes for Lisa Murkowski, she will be returning to the Senate, and there will once again be 17 female Senators, 12 Democrats and 5 Republicans.

In called House races, there will be 7 less Democratic females, 6 more Republican females.

Specifically, we are guaranteed to see the following women in the next Congress (unless something happens to prevent them from taking office):

Republican women are in red font, Democratic women are in blue font, non-white (Latino, Asian, black, Native American, etc) women are in bold, and newly elected female members are underlined.

States which are not guaranteed (based on current results) to have any female members of the House Representatives in the 112th Congress are omitted from the table.


State#Names
Alabama2Martha Roby (AL-2), Terri Sewell (AL-7)
California19Doris Matsui (CA-5), Lynn Woolsey (CA-6), Nancy Pelosi (CA-8), Barbara Lee (CA-9), Jackie Speier (CA-12), Anna Eshoo (CA-14), Zoe Lofgren (CA-16), Lois Capps (CA-23), Judy Chu (CA-32), Karen Bass (CA-33), Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34), Maxine Waters (CA-35), Jane Harman (CA-36), Laura Richardson (CA-37) Grace Napolitano (CA-38), Linda Sanchez (CA-39), Mary Bono Mack (CA-45), Loretta Sanchez (CA-47), Susan Davis (CA-53)
Colorado1Diana DeGette (CO-1)
Connecticut1Rosa DeLauro (CT-3)
Florida6Corinne Brown (FL-3), Kathy Castor (FL-11), Frederica Wilson (FL-17), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18), Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (FL-20), Sandra Adams (FL-24)
Hawaii2Colleen Hanabusa (HI-1), Mazie Hirono (HI-2)
Illinois2Jan Schakowsky (IL-9), Judy Biggert (IL-13)
Kansas1Lynn Jenkins (KS-2)
Maine1Chellie Pingree (ME-1)
Maryland1Donna Edwards (MD-4)
Massachusetts1Nikki Tsongas (MA-5)
Michigan1Candice Miller (MI-10)
Minnesota2Betty McCollum (MN-4), Michelle Bachmann (MN-6)
Missouri2Vicky Hartzler (MO-4), Jo Ann Emerson (MO-8)
Nevada1Shelley Berkley (NV-1)
New York7Carolyn McCarthy (NY-4), Yvette Clarke (NY-11), Nydia Velazquez (NY-12), Carolyn Maloney (NY-14), Nita Lowey (NY-18), Nan Hayworth (NY-19), Louise Slaughter (NY-28)
North Carolina3Renee Ellmers (NC-2), Virginia Foxx (NC-5), Sue Myrick (NC-9)
Ohio4Jean Schmidt (OH-2), Marcy Kaptur (OH-9), Marcia Fudge (OH-11), Betty Sutton (OH-13)
Pennsylvania1Allyson Schwartz (PA-13)
South Dakota1Kristi Noem (SD-AL)
Tennessee2Diane Black (TN-6), Marsha Blackburn (TN-7)
Texas3Kay Granger (TX-12), Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18), Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)
Washington2Jaime Herrera (WA-3), Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (WA-5)
West Virginia1Shelley Moore Capito (WV-2)
Wisconsin2Tammy Baldwin (WI-2), Gwen Moore (WI-4)
Wyoming1Cynthia Lummis (WY-AL)

The following women who were in the 111th Congress at the beginning will not be in the 112th.

Virginia Brown Waite (R-FL) [retiring], Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA) [lost re-election], Mary Fallin (R-OK) [ran for Governor], Debbie Halvorson (D-IL) [lost re-election], Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI) [lost primary], Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH) [lost re-election], Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) [lost re-election], Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL) (lost re-election], Betsy Markey (D-CO) [lost re-election], Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) [lost re-election], Hilda Solis (D-CA) [became Secretary of Labor], Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) [became U.S. Senator from New York], Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) [became something or other in the Obama administration], Dina Titus (D-NV) [lost re-election], Diane Watson (D-CA) [retired], Stephanie Herseth (D-SD) [lost re-election]



In 3 races which have not been called, looking at the present totals, there will be one further less Democratic female (Melissa Bean) and one further more Republican female (Ann Buehrkle of New York)

i.e. Republican wave seems to have made this the first time in 30 years that an incoming House of Representatives has less women than the outgoing one.