If You Voted for Biden Thanks a lot Hole Shirt
Women in CongressThe 117th Congress will have a record total 141 women, or 26.4 percent of its membership, when it convenes on January 3. (Even so, women’s representation in Congress will lag behind that in the national legislatures of many other democratic countries.) Those numbers don’t include Senator Kamala Harris, who will be resigning her seat, or non-voting delegates in the House. These numbers could change slightly or remain the same, depending on whether Kelly Loeffler wins the January 5 run-off for her Georgia Senate seat and who is appointed to fill Vice-President-Elect Harris’s Senate seat. Ohio Representative Marcia Fudge is set to resign her seat so she can become secretary of Housing and Urban Development.Women won’t, however, be equally distributed between the two parties. Democrats will have 105 women members of Congress, which is one less than in the 116th Congress. Republicans will have thirty-six women lawmakers, or fourteen more than in the 116th Congress. That breaks the record the GOP set back in 2006. The House will have 117 women lawmakers, with eighty-nine Democrats and twenty-eight Republicans. Nine out of the thirteen House seats Republicans flipped from blue to red were won by women. Meanwhile, there will be twenty-four women senators, sixteen of whom are Democrats and eight of whom are Republicans. Again, how Loeffler fares on January 5 and who replaces Harris and Fudge could change these numbers.
If You Voted for Biden Thanks a lot Hole Shirt
A record fifty-one women of color will serve in the 117th Congress. The previous record was forty-eight, set by the 116th Congress. Republicans broke their record for most women of color in Congress (five). The previous GOP record was three, set in 2014. Forty-six women of color will represent Democrats (not including Kamala Harris), down from the record forty-seven from the last Congress. Cori Bush (D-MO) became the first Black congresswoman elected in Missouri and Marilyn Strickland (D-WA) the first in the state of Washington. Strickland also joins Young Kim (R-CA) and Michelle Steel (R-CA) to become the first Korean American women in Congress. Wyoming elected its first female Senator: Republican Cynthia Lummis. Other Notable DevelopmentsPeople of color will make up about 28 percent of the new House. Elected to the House this year, not including non-voting delegates, are forty-three Hispanic Americans (three more than the 116th Congress); sixteen Asian Americans (three more than the 116th); fifty-seven Black Americans (five more than the 116th); and five American Indians (two more than the 116th), and one native Hawaiian, Kaiali’i Kahele. Kahele is only the second native Hawaiian elected since Hawaii became a state in 1959.
