Critical actors in subnational legislatures: A new frontier in women’s representation?

Abstract

This study examines women’s issues and critical actors in Republican-controlled and Democrat-controlled U.S. state legislatures by examining publicly available legislative data. I study individual authors as potential critical actors. Existing work in comparative politics finds that men are more likely to advocate for women’s issues as women’s presence increases, though there is less consensus regarding subnational critical actors. I contribute to this gap using 2020 legislative data from Oklahoma and Maryland. Oklahoma and Maryland are different in two key regards: Oklahoma’s legislature was made up of approximately 21.5% women as of 2020 and continues to be controlled by a Republican supermajority in both legislative chambers (as well as a Republican trifecta). Maryland, on the other hand, was made up of 38.8% women as of 2020 and was controlled by Democratic supermajorities in both legislative chambers (though Republicans controlled the governorship). Legislative data is gathered with Legiscan and analyzed using binary logistic regression. I propose two main hypotheses: H1: Women are more likely to introduce women’s issue legislation, but successful legislation is more likely to have a male author both in Oklahoma and Maryland. H2: Women’s issue bills are more likely to be authored by Democrats overall, but partisan patterns in success will arise in single-state analysis. I find that bill success largely depends on author party for the 2020 legislative session.