Weekend Reading on Women\u2019s Representation<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0is a compilation of stories about women\u2019s representation in politics, on boards, in sports and entertainment, in judicial offices and in the private sector in the U.S. and around the world\u2014with a little gardening and goodwill mixed in for refreshment!<\/p>\n Birthdays:<\/strong>\u00a0Maya Rudolph<\/strong><\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0actor and feminist;\u00a0Jackie Weiss<\/strong>, neuroscientist;\u00a0Huma Abedin<\/strong><\/a>, former Hillary Clinton staffer;\u00a0Lucy Burns<\/strong><\/a>, suffragist (1879);\u00a0Liz Cheney<\/strong><\/a>, former U.S. representative;\u00a0Jackie Kennedy Onassis<\/strong><\/a>, former first lady;\u00a0Ali Krieger<\/strong><\/a>, professional soccer player and actor;\u00a0Annis Cassells<\/strong><\/a>, poet and author;\u00a0Nicole Austin-Hillery<\/strong><\/a>, president and CEO of Congressional Black Caucus Foundation;\u00a0Sharon Creech<\/strong><\/a>, author;\u00a0Dee Frankfourth<\/strong><\/a>, campaign consultant;\u00a0Ann Greiner<\/strong><\/a>;\u00a0Evelyn Haworth Nicholson<\/strong><\/a>, (1903-1994);\u00a0Ellen Brodsky<\/strong><\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0filmmaker;\u00a0Kaitlin Calogera<\/strong><\/a>, the founder of A Tour Of Her Own, the first tourism company in the nation\u2019s capital to focus exclusively on women\u2019s history;\u00a0Anita Hill<\/strong><\/a>, professor and lawyer;\u00a0Celeste Ng<\/strong><\/a>, author;\u00a0Patricia Schroeder<\/strong><\/a>, first woman representative elected in Colorado;\u00a0Eleanor Smeal<\/strong><\/a>, co-founder and president of the Feminist Majority;\u00a0Brandy Brooks<\/strong><\/a>, community activist;\u00a0Marjorie Clifton<\/strong><\/a>;\u00a0Bea Shakow<\/strong><\/a>;\u00a0Beatrice Medicine<\/strong><\/a>, Standing Rock Sioux member and anthropologist,\u00a0Muriel Bowser<\/strong><\/a>, mayor of D.C<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Ten years ago this week, Hillary Clinton\u00a0became the first woman to secure a major party\u2019s nomination for president<\/a>. I remember the particular kind of hope that came with her nomination, the sense that we were watching a door swing open that could never quite swing shut again. <\/p>\n Eight years later, Kamala Harris walked up to that same door and secured her own party\u2019s nomination. <\/p>\n Two women, two chances\u2014and still, a decade on, no one has walked through it. We have seen more women run.\u00a0We have not yet seen a woman win the highest office in the land<\/a>, and the \u201cfirsts\u201d we celebrated in 2016 and again in 2024 have not yet become the \u201cnext\u201d we hoped for.<\/p>\n That gap, between a historic first and a durable pattern, is exactly why our team spent the first part of this week at the\u00a0National Conference of State Legislatures<\/a>\u00a0(NCSL<\/a>) summit, putting our newly released\u00a02026 Gender Parity Index<\/a>\u00a0directly into the hands of the women legislators, staffers, policymakers, and democracy and representation leaders gathered there from across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n NCSL was founded 51 years ago<\/a>\u00a0by legislative leaders who understood that a single moment of recognition means very little without institutions built to sustain it.\u00a0<\/p>\n That is the same lesson our Index returns to every year, and this year it is especially stark. Candidate numbers for women are up. Campaign funding for women is up, year over year, on both sides of the aisle. And yet women hold exactly the same share of seats at every level of government that they held a year ago: 28 percent of Congress, 30 percent of state executive offices, 34 percent of state legislatures, 27 percent of the largest local offices in the country. <\/p>\n The money and the candidates moved. The parity scores did not.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not hard to see why: Despite many qualified candidates and nearly $15 billion spent in the last election cycle, incumbents still retained 98 percent of seats in Congress, and fewer than 40 House seats are expected to be competitive in 2026. That gap is what we mean when we talk about a structural ceiling, and it is why we do not measure our progress in firsts alone.<\/p>\n There is real news in this year\u2019s index results, and some of it is worth celebrating.<\/p>\n For the second year running, three states, New Hampshire<\/strong>, Maine<\/strong> and Oregon<\/strong>, have held onto an \u201cA\u201d grade\u2014which means they\u2019ve crossed the halfway mark toward full parity\u2014and New Jersey<\/strong> and Virginia<\/strong> earned a \u201cC\u201d for the first time in the index\u2019s 13-year history, largely on the strength of Mikie Sherrill\u2019s and Abigail Spanberger\u2019s wins for governor this past November.<\/p>\n But that progress sits alongside a harder truth: Twenty-three states are still stuck with a \u201cD,\u201d and the national average comes to just 28.2 out of 100, which tells us that 13 years into asking this question, we remain only barely past halfway to parity.<\/p>\n Idaho<\/strong>, which used to rank respectably in the 30s, now ranks dead last.<\/p>\n Washington<\/strong> has hovered on the edge of parity every single year since we started keeping score in 2013, close enough to see the finish line and still, somehow, never crossing it.<\/p>\n Firsts happen, again and again, in a way that can make progress feel inevitable. The overall math tells us it never has been, and moves at its own, much slower pace regardless.<\/p>\n That is what the Gender Parity Index is for, and why it is such a powerful tool. It is not a scoreboard we check once a year and set aside. It is the evidence we carried into every conversation at NCSL this week, so that the next milestone is not just another first to celebrate, but proof of a system finally built to let women stay.<\/p>\n An excerpt from Annis Cassells\u2019 \u201c<\/strong>That Moment When We Call the Roll<\/strong><\/a>.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Disenfranchised<\/em><\/p>\n and discounted,<\/em><\/p>\n women organized,<\/em><\/p>\n fought, forged ahead,<\/em><\/p>\n showed up.<\/em><\/p>\n Lucretia and Elizabeth crusaded<\/em><\/p>\n for abolition and women\u2019s rights<\/em><\/p>\n Susan campaigned for suffrage<\/em><\/p>\n Alice led protests<\/em><\/p>\n Ida B. wrote (and marched, anyway)<\/em><\/p>\n Phoebe penned a letter<\/em><\/p>\n to a Tennessee state senator:<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cDear Son\u2026Hurry and vote<\/em><\/p>\n For suffrage\u2026be a good boy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And, red rose in his lapel,<\/em><\/p>\n he obeyed his mother,<\/em><\/p>\n cast the tiebreaker aker,<\/em><\/p>\n secured the right<\/em><\/p>\n to vote<\/em><\/p>\n for some women.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s no secret for readers of my column: I believe the\u00a0data is convincing<\/a>\u00a0that ranked-choice voting (RCV) helps level the electoral playing field for women by weakening the control of gatekeepers and incentivizing more civil and collaborative campaigns.<\/p>\n RCV has additional benefits too, such as its clear value for political parties to nominate more unifying candidates, as recently demonstrated in Maine\u2019s\u00a0Democratic gubernatorial primary<\/a>\u00a0won handily by Democrat Hannah Pingree after she trailed in first choices.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why I was so enraged to learn that the Democratic National Committee\u2019s Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) has voted to block state parties from making use of RCV to select a nominee in their 2028 presidential primaries\u2014see\u00a0this article about outraged Maine Democrats<\/a>, with a recent University of New Hampshire poll finding that registered Democrats in Maine support their RCV law that includes presidential primaries by a margin of 84 percent to 6 percent. <\/p>\n This Maine article unfortunately includes a falsehood from the Rules and Bylaws Committee co-chair Jim Roosevelt that RCV ballots are incompatible with party rules. That misstatement is puzzling, given that the DNC under Roosevelt\u2019s leadership has\u00a0approved several uses of RCV in 2020<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a02024<\/a>\u00a0that were consistent with those rules.<\/p>\n Driving the DNC\u2019s proposed RCV ban is long-time RCV skeptic Frank Leone. Ironically, Frank lost the debate among Democrats in Arlington, Va., over use of RCV in all their nominating contests, where\u00a0RCV has been overwhelmingly popular<\/a> and passed into county law. <\/p>\n He then moved to Washington, D.C., where 73 percent of voters in 2024 voted to implement RCV for all contests, including presidential primaries\u2014with a great rollout of using RCV in\u00a0this summer\u2019s primaries<\/a>. But if you can\u2019t win locally, Leone\u2019s approach is to impose bans nationally. <\/p>\n Mirroring new language passed by the Republican National Committee (!!), his proposed rule would block D.C. Democrats from making use of RCV in their 2028 primary, despite the\u00a0D.C. law being intentionally constructed<\/a>\u00a0to be consistent with his party\u2019s rules on proportional allocation of delegates.<\/p>\n My husband Rob Richie recently\u00a0explained<\/a>\u00a0the value of RCV in presidential primaries for both parties\u2014with Republicans having a compelling case to turn to RCV as well. <\/p>\n Involving Democrats and their proportional allocation rule, Rob Richie writes:<\/p>\n \u201cDemocrats have a strict requirement for proportional representation across all states, with statewide delegates allocated to any candidate earning at least 15%. That makes winner-take-all forms of RCV a non-starter with Democrats. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBut 15% is a high number, and\u00a0<\/em>millions of votes<\/em><\/a>\u00a0are \u2018ineffective\u2019 because they are below the threshold. Embracing a caucus-like \u2018realignment\u2019 rule with ranked ballots would allow those voters to get a chance to have their vote count. That is, you would count all first choices, then, in the realignment round, move all ballots cast for nonviable candidates below the 15% threshold to their next-ranked viable choice. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIn 2020, about\u00a0<\/em>90% of such voters<\/em><\/a>\u00a0in the four states providing data about how voters used their ranked ballots had their ballots count toward viable candidates. Translated across all states, that would be a huge win for voting rights and likely result in more votes making a difference than any other reform \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cFor Democrats, this is a key cycle for their commitment to voting rights. FairVote\u2019s polling shows a remarkably\u00a0<\/em>broad and high level of support for RCV among Democratic voters<\/em><\/a>, including a margin of greater than 10 to 1 for its voters under 50. Democrats also have a\u00a0<\/em>great lesson from 2020 showing that RCV work<\/em><\/a>, which is why many of their state party leaders want to use RCV in 2028. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWith numerous state parties that run their own contests wanting to do vote-by-mail with RCV, national Democrats would do well to get out of their way and simply spell out clearly the acceptable rules for using RCV to make more votes count.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The proposed ban of RCV will only become finalized in mid-August at the next meeting of the full DNC. A number of state party leaders gearing up to use RCV in 2028 contests are encouraging people to talk with any DNC members they might know to ask them to withdraw this rule. Ideally, the RBC would be directed to provide guardrails to define how they want state parties to make use of RCV ballots rather than impose a draconian ban that is deeply unpopular among Democratic voters\u2014and bad for a party seeking to uphold voting rights and identify a unifying nominee in 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n To find out more about how you can help,\u00a0please visit FairVote Action\u2019s website page<\/a>\u00a0for more information on how to get involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even if national Democrats do choose to vote to ban RCV in presidential primaries, I am confident that ban won\u2019t last another cycle\u2014see the momentum for RCV continuing to build where it becomes the norm across all states. <\/p>\n Let me share a round of news:<\/p>\n Honolulu; Irvine, Calif.; and Longmont, Colo., will vote on RCV in November<\/strong>: RCV has won majorities from voters in more than 30 straight city ballot measures. FairVote CEO\u00a0Meredith Sumpter released a short video<\/a>\u00a0on three more localities voting on RCV, and here\u2019s\u00a0more from FairVote<\/a>:<\/p>\n Since July 14, city officials in\u00a0<\/em>Honolulu HI<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>Irvine, CA<\/em><\/a>; and\u00a0<\/em>Longmont, CO<\/em><\/a>\u00a0all voted to put\u00a0<\/em>ranked choice voting<\/em><\/a>(RCV) on the ballot this November. Honolulu is Hawaii\u2019s capital, and home to nearly 70% of the state\u2019s population. Irvine is home to over 300,000 people, and Longmont is one of the fastest-growing cities in America. Together, these cities are home to 1.4 million people, who could soon have better elections with ranked choice voting.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Huntington Beach voting rights case results in RCV<\/strong>: Huntington Beach, Calif, is a city of nearly 200,000 people with winner-take-all, at-large elections that make it nearly impossible for racial and ethnic minorities protected under the California Voting Rights Act from being able to elect candidates of choice. With the support of the plaintiffs challenging the city\u2019s exclusionary voting system under the CVRA, a state judge has ordered Huntington Beach to implement a proportional form of ranked choice voting. Here\u2019s more from\u00a0LAist<\/em>:<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cJudge Griffin wrote that ordering the city to adopt ranked-choice voting was a \u201cless drastic remedy\u201d to bolster Latinos\u2019 voting power than district elections. Currently in Huntington Beach, all residents vote citywide for city council seats, and the top vote-getters win.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWith district elections, only people within a particular district can vote for a particular seat, which advocates say helps ensure districts see themselves represented in their local government bodies. Among the advantages of a ranked-choice system, advocates say, is that it gives voters more freedom to vote for their favorite candidate, even if they think that person won\u2019t ultimately win.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n New scholarship finds proportional RCV a promising voting rights remedy:\u00a0<\/strong>Harvard law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos lifted up on the Election Law blog an important new academic paper.\u00a0Here\u2019s his post<\/a>:<\/p>\n Michael Hankinson, Joseph Loffredo, and Asya Magazinnik posted this interesting new\u00a0paper<\/a>\u00a0showing that alternative remedies like ranked-choice voting are systematically more effective than single-member districts in remedying violations of the California Voting Rights Act. Here\u2019s the abstract:<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAs federal voting rights protections recede, state-level voting rights acts (VRAs) have become the principal legal tool for safeguarding minority representation in the United States. We assess what these laws can accomplish using the California Voting Rights Act, which has compelled over 150 cities to replace at-large with district elections. Applying redistricting algorithms across 109 cities, we evaluate how much district elections-and the alternative reforms state VRAs permit-can amplify Latino political influence. <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cDistrict elections prove to be a limited remedy: most cities cannot draw a majority-Latino district and many cannot use districts to meaningfully increase Latino electoral success, even under optimistic assumptions about turnout, cohesion, and crossover voting. By contrast, cumulative voting, ranked choice voting, and limited voting empower Latino voters without relying on favorable geography or mapmakers\u2019 discretion. We conclude that policymakers seeking to improve minority representation should be more open to reforms within the proportional representation family.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Alaska\u2019s top-four primary with RCV produces governance for voters<\/strong>: RepresentWomen has been pleased to hold several events with Alaska leaders like state Sen. Cathy Geisel on their state\u2019s powerful combination of all-candidate primaries with RCV in November. This week Geisel\u00a0co-authored an\u00a0Anchorage Daily News<\/em>\u00a0article<\/a>, \u201cWe govern across the aisle. Alaska\u2019s open primary makes it possible.\u201d <\/p>\n Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen the benefits in recent years. Cross-partisan majorities have brought legislators from across the aisle together to tackle some of the state\u2019s most difficult challenges. We have not voted the same way on every bill, and we never will. But we have demonstrated that disagreement does not have to lead to paralysis. When legislators are encouraged to represent the full breadth of their communities instead of the narrowest slice of partisan opinion, they can find durable solutions. That is true public service.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n New British minister Andy Burnham\u2019s lived experience with RCV\u2014and his mayoral replacement being picked this week with it<\/strong>: In the United Kingdom, several English cities like London directly elect their mayors. They are elected with the simplified\u00a0\u201csupplementary vote\u201d form of RCV<\/a>\u00a0being used this week to fill Greater Birmingham\u2019s mayoral vacancy created by Andy Burnham becoming the new British prime minister. Watch\u00a0Burnham explaining how revelatory it was for him to run and win in this system<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0(Note that if Burnham had had challenges for leadership of the Labor Party this summer, that party would have used RCV, just as done by all five national parties in Canada.<\/p>\n Local dialogue about RCV in Albany, N.Y., and Deschutes County, Ore.<\/strong>: My husband Rob this month had two excellent chances to support local energy for RCV, which is emblematic of local energy around the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n RCV Albany<\/a>\u00a0has made great headway toward New York\u2019s capital city; Rob had an\u00a0op-ed in the\u00a0Albany Times-Union<\/em><\/a>\u00a0making the case. And during his trip to Bend in Deschutes County, the local League of Women Voters\u00a0gave a lecture<\/a>\u00a0that drew well over 100 people to learn about a campaign\u00a0to bring proportional RCV to Deschutes<\/a>.<\/p>\n I was glad to be at a wedding in Vermont for a long-time family friend, but it did mean I had to miss a presentation at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C., by the Council on Foreign Relations\u2019\u00a0Linda Robinson<\/a>\u00a0on her new book\u00a0Women in Power: Fighting for Democracy in an Age of Authoritarianism<\/em><\/a>. I\u2019m deeply interested in this theme and look forward to diving into the book, which includes a call for the kind of structural reforms RepresentWomen studies and supports. <\/p>\n Here\u2019s more from the\u00a0Politics and Prose announcement of <\/a>Robinson<\/a>\u2018s talk with Tamara Wittes, and or watch a video of their conversation<\/a>:<\/p>\n
\nA Decade After Hillary Clinton\u2019s Historic Nomination, Women Are Still Waiting for Parity<\/h2>\n
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\nWhy Are Democrats Trying to Ban Ranked-Choice Voting in Presidential Primaries?<\/h2>\n
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\nGood Ranked-Choice Voting News Abounds<\/h2>\n
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\nNew Book Argues Women\u2019s Leadership Is Democracy\u2019s Best Defense<\/h2>\n
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