Transparency, participation, and accountability are the hallmarks of open government. Citizens should have clarity in understanding who represents their interests at every level of government. Access to more information about the demographics of public officials will encourage more citizens to serve their communities by seeking public leadership roles. This demographic data is also an important tool for party leaders who seek to diversify the pool of candidates for elective office. In addition, a commitment to transparency and codified mechanisms that meet this standard of transparency – for example, requiring government to collect and share demographic information about its public leaders – are crucial building blocks of good government.
Our findings serve as a roadmap for scholars, activists, and government officials both here in New Jersey and in other states who may want to replicate these efforts, highlighting what is possible and what obstacles need to be addressed to make databases such as these, whose information is invaluable, a reality. Uniformity and efficiency are critical to achieving the legislation’s goal: to be able to measure and track over time the gender and racial/ethnic diversity of the state’s elected officials. Finally, the data collection process should ultimately be housed within state government with sufficient infrastructure provided for ongoing maintenance. The state must take responsibility for ensuring this data is collected and create mechanisms for doing so and be accountable for reporting this information on an ongoing basis.
CAWP looks forward to continuing to collect, as best as possible, and analyze this data in 2023-2024 in order to provide a solid baseline of information on the gender/race/ethnicity of elected officials in the Garden State. Our hope is that, during this time, more can be done to institutionalize the collection of this information within state government in the future.