Percentage of Women in the Texas House and Senate, 1923

Up a Hill...

Although women now occupy numerous positions at all levels and branches of government, their numbers are still well below their proportion of the general population. After more than three decades of substantial progress, women still represent just twenty percent of Texas lawmakers and less than seventeen percent of members of Congress.

2013	House	Senate	Total
Texas	20.7%	22.6%	21%
All states	25.3%	20.3%	24%
Congress	17.9%	20%	18.3%

Key Years

1922: Edith Wilmans is first woman elected to Legislature (House).
1971: Texas Women's Political Caucus founded to elect women.
1990: Ann Richards (D) is elected Governor.
2003: For the first time, the House has more Republican (20) than Democratic (12) women.

Source: Center for the American Woman and Politics; National Council of State Legislatures.

Mouse-over for full source, footnote.

Full Source: Center for the American Woman and Politics (CAWP), http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/levels_of_office/documents/elective.pdf, Accessed 18 January 2013. Legislative Reference Library of Texas, http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/sessions/memberStatistics.cfm, Accessed 18 January 2013.

Full Footnote: The percentages of women in legislative chambers of other states are median values. The median is the middle value. For fifty states, an even number, the middle value is the average of the two middle values. Twenty-four states have great values and twenty-four have smaller values.

The Texas Legislature has the median value for total percentage of women legislators (20.9% of all legislators in Texas are women). The Texas House ranks 16th (32 of 150, or 21.3%). While the Texas Senate ranks 38th.

The Texas Politics Project

Up a Hill...

Key Years