NYT: In State Legislatures, Democrats Are Pushing Toward Parity Between the Sexes

[Doondoo]

WOODBURY, Minn. — Three middle-aged Democratic women — a high school English teacher, an economist and an education lobbyist, none of whom had ever run for office — took on three Republican state legislators last year in this conservative, traditionally Republican town and swept the field.

Their victories — the crest of a wave that brought 14 new Democratic women into the Legislature — helped swing control of the Minnesota House of Representatives to the Democrats for the first time since 1998 and usher in a new moment of female political authority at the Capitol in St. Paul.

.......

Nationally, Democrats picked up more than 320 seats in state legislatures — about 140 of them by women — and gained control of 10 chambers, 4 of them here in the Upper Midwest: the Minnesota House, the Wisconsin Senate and both chambers of Iowa General Assembly. Republicans gained control of the Montana House of Representatives. Almost everywhere, women were crucial to those Democratic margins. In the New Hampshire Senate, which swung to Democratic control for the first time since 2000, women outnumber men almost two-to-one in the new majority caucus.

The Oregon House of Representatives shifted to control by the Democrats, 38 percent of whom are women. In the Colorado House of Representatives, where Democrats increased their majority in 2006, women now constitute almost 49 percent of the Democratic caucus.

Republican women lost ground and saw their numbers slide everywhere but in parts of the South. There are now only 534 of them out of more than 7,300 party-affiliated state legislators nationwide, compared with 1,187 Democratic women, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan group.

Among all Republican state legislators, the percentage of women has fallen to its lowest level since 1985, according to Professor Moncrief at Boise State.



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/15/us/15minnesota.html?pagewanted=2&ref=politics

[rodeodance]

1. I find it interesting--previously Republicans elected men--like head of

the household---traditional roles. In retrospect, it is not surprising.