A new record was set in 2023 with 372 Black women serving in state legislatures despite their numbers only accounting for 5% of all state legislators (CAWP 2023). As more Black women enter legislative institutions, how will they govern and how will the institutions respond? How will they leverage their collective power to represent?
Using interviews with Black women state legislators in Maryland and Louisiana, we examine how identity-based caucuses that champion a single vantage point – either race or gender – (Black caucuses, women’s caucuses) affect the legislative behavior of Black women. In addition, we consider how these single-axis caucuses matter for understanding the way Black women experience legislatures; are these groups key to providing Black women with support, or do Black women feel locked out of caucuses organized around a single identity?
We find that while many scholars or pundits may homogenize Black women and their political interests, as state legislators, their priorities and strategies vary according to political context. Black women strategically assess their political circumstances with the utility of women’s and Black caucuses as one calculation. Appreciating these differences helps to explain Black elite behavior and the viability of single-axis identity caucuses as policymakers. By acknowledging the strong influence political party and generational differences have on policy priorities and legislative strategy, we can better assess the quality of representation provided by Black women.
What are legislative caucuses?
Caucuses are voluntary associations of legislators that are united by a common interest. This unifying interest could be a particular political issue – like the environment or crime – or it may be related to a particular industry like transportation or healthcare. Other types of caucuses are organized around a shared identity – like Black caucuses or women’s caucuses. These identity caucuses organize around the political, economic, and social consequences of the lived experience of this identity. For example, the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues has historically worked on issues like maternal health, girls and STEM, and women’s veterans’ concerns (Gertzog 2004). Likewise, the Congressional Black Caucus frequently proposes legislation on civil rights and voting access, criminal justice reform, and poverty reduction policies.[1] Caucuses are a way for individual legislators to leverage collective power and resources to achieve their personal and political goals.
Caucuses are important in Congress and state legislatures because they are an alternative to formal committees and political parties. These organizations typically include members from both parties, enabling information sharing and relationship ties outside of normal channels, which can help move policies through the complicated process of a proposal becoming law (see Ringe and Victor 2013 for a fuller discussion). Caucuses also enable members to utilize their distributions across committees to gather information about potential roadblocks and facilitate forward momentum. Caucuses are also good for members themselves as they offer an opportunity to lead and build skills and relationships that are valuable to upward mobility. Identity caucuses in particular can be a safe space for legislators from historically marginalized groups who find legislatures to be hostile environments (see Clark 2019 and Mahoney 2018 for a fuller discussion). Finally, identity-based caucuses are also a way for legislators to signal their commitment to various constituencies. Advocates outside of legislatures can identify champions for their issues and direct resources to support them more effectively.
Despite all these benefits, caucuses are not seamless, effective political machines. In fact, large variation exists among the best organized, most effective caucuses and those who are more superficial in purpose. For one thing, having members of both political parties as members makes agreement on policy solutions difficult. As such, in times of polarization and small margins for majorities, bipartisan caucuses may not be highly effective in passing legislation. In fact, in some states, party leaders actively discourage caucuses because they compete with party loyalty. But party is not the only divisive identity that can complicate caucus functioning. Seniority, gender, race, sexual orientation, ability, and age are just a few of the factors that may divide members who otherwise share an important common interest. These divisions within caucuses and the potential for cross caucus collaboration is what intrigued us and motivated our study on Black women legislators.
Why study the caucus activity of Black women legislators?
Because identity caucuses at the state level focus on only one aspect of a person’s identity – either race or gender – we wondered how Black women, who may want to advocate for their race and gender, navigate these organizations. In our research, we center Black women legislators in Maryland and Louisiana to illustrate the complexity of representing both racialized and gendered group interests.
We use interview data collected in the spring of 2022 and 2023 to assess how identity shapes the motivations, experiences, and behavior of marginalized legislators within caucuses. One member of the team, Nadia Brown, conducted the Zoom interviews because social science scholarship has long noted that researcher identity matters in how the researcher connects with and to the participants. As a Black woman, Nadia Brown interviewed the lawmakers, and another member of the team, Anna Mahoney, was a non-visual and non-verbal participant in the interviews. This allowed Nadia and Anna to both be present during these semi-structured interviews and to communicate among themselves about potential follow-up questions.
In March of 2023, we interviewed ten Black women delegates in Maryland while five interviews in Louisiana were conducted. These interviews were open-ended with questions focusing on what caucus memberships were important to them, how much time they spent in these groups, and what benefits they identified emanating from their participation in these voluntary groups. On average, these conversations lasted about an hour. We assured legislators that because we wanted them to share perhaps critical opinions about the utility of these groups, we would not identify them by name in published works.
In spring of 2023, Maryland had 64 women serving in the legislature, 30 of them identifying as Black, while in Louisiana, only 23 women held house seats and of those seven were Black. The Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland had 63 total members in 2023 of those 49 were delegates, indicating the numerical strength of Black women in this state. In Louisiana, however, the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus had only 36 members total with 25 in the House.
Maryland and Louisiana are ideal state legislatures to conduct this research because they allow for sufficient comparisons and contrasting analysis. The Maryland state legislature is a professional statehouse with a consistently sizable population of Black women lawmakers; indeed, they boast of having one of the largest populations of Black women serving in any state legislature in the nation. Conversely, the Louisiana state legislature is a non-professional statehouse and has relatively small number of Black women serving in the institution. Both states, however, have slightly over 30% Black or African American population. The states vary in geography; Maryland is a mid-Atlantic state and Louisiana is a Gulf state. But both states are below the Mason Dixon line and have a history of enslavement.
The Louisiana and Maryland Black caucuses were founded in the 1970s. Maryland is home to the first women’s caucus founded in the United States, which was organized in 1972. However, the Louisiana Legislative Women’s Caucus was not organized until 1986. The first woman was elected to the Louisiana statehouse in 1936 as compared to this historic first in Maryland which occurred in 1921. In recent years, Democrats have held a large seat share in Maryland, whereas Republicans hold a significant seat advantage in Louisiana. Maryland and Louisiana provide notable similarities but also glaring differences that offer insights into the differences and similarities that Black women face as members of their state’s Black and women’s caucuses.
An intersectional analysis considers the multifaceted ways that structures of oppression intersect and mete out consequences for legislators with marginalized identities. We use this approach in our study of identity-based caucuses to examine how caucuses that champion a single vantage point – either race or gender - impact how Black women legislate and affect their experiences within state legislatures. Because Black women contend with both sexism and racism which uniquely shapes their experience, they frame problems and propose solutions unique from their raced or gender counterparts (Reingold and Smith 2012; Smooth 2006). We wanted to understand how Black women lawmakers brought their lived experiences to bear and achieved their legislative goals through single-axis identity-based caucuses.
Findings
Black women prioritize intersectional approaches within single-axis identity-based caucuses.
We find that while caucuses are useful in advancing the policy priorities of Black women lawmakers, how they use them to advance their policy preferences differs. We therefore identify heterogenous strategies within a population frequently depicted as monolithic in legislative studies. For example, in Maryland, a state with large numbers of both Black and women legislators, Black women felt empowered to lead both Black and women’s caucuses and direct their priorities toward intersectional policy solutions.
A Democratic Black woman delegate who represents Baltimore City in the Maryland state legislature noted that the current make-up of the Black Legislative Caucus is changing, telling us, “We definitely are poised for a generational shift, as well as gender shift, [within] the leadership of the Maryland Black Caucus.” She stated that the slate for the next executive board for the Black Legislative Caucus is majority female and younger than their predecessors. This has policy implications. She explained:
“[We] are having these conversations and so many of the people that are going to be on this slate are women and younger. And they are definitely going to bring a different perspective…Even now, when people think about police accountability, the image that comes to their mind is helping a Black man. Right? But there are Black women [who are] getting roughed up by the police and everything else too. And I think that as long as you have either a certain generation or male leadership, the way that they will talk about issues that affect all Black people will still be primarily through the lens of Black maleness.”
While speaking directly about the Black caucus, this delegate explains that the bills that the caucus support are reflective of its leadership. And because Maryland’s Legislative Black Caucus has institutional power—the legislature has a large number of Black representatives—this delegate said that bills will either pass or die based on the support of Black Marylanders. Thus, having Black women in key leadership positions in the Black caucus means that a different type of bill to support Black constituencies will come before the Maryland state legislature. Issues that are discussed as “universal Black issues” but are really a reflection of how older Black male legislators understand political issues are being scrutinized by the current generation of Black caucus members.
In the case of Louisiana, Black women state lawmakers cite challenges with working with the caucus system to advance their legislative priorities. Relative to Maryland, the Louisiana state legislature does not have large numbers of Black legislators,[2] not to mention that the entity is the most politically progressive group in the Republican-controlled legislature and thus not pivotal to shaping policy outcomes (see Sullivan and Winburn 2011). Moreover, the women lawmakers see themselves as partisans first and women second. A Democratic Black woman representative, a first-term legislator from a majority-Black district, expressed outrage with the ineffectiveness of her state’s women’s caucus. The state recently passed a law that banned abortions without exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother. She noted that because the women’s caucus is bipartisan and Republicans vastly outnumber their Democratic counterparts in Louisiana, the women’s caucus was not a major player in the vote. This gendered impotence is further exacerbated by a few Democratic Black women who are sponsors of anti-abortion legislation. This legislator and a few other members of the women’s caucus are pushing for other bipartisan legislation that will help women. When she focused on equal pay for women as a possible bipartisan issue, however, she received pushback from Republican women but found support in her Black male colleagues. She surmised that Black men are better supporters of feminist legislation than some colleagues in the women’s caucus:
“Feminist issues, issues around gender equality…The equal pay bills have come through [and] the brothers have brought them. Absent abortion, cause that’s just the whole animal in and of itself, they [Black male lawmakers] will follow the lead of the female members of the caucus. We will work together on that. They will listen to our voice. [They] have women at home and girls at home that they love. And they just have to go home to a sister and she’s finding out your votes line up with her rights…I think that the level of respect between our [Black] caucus is the leadership is heavily female. I think that helps.”
The Republican Party in Louisiana opposed equal pay legislation as they perceived it would hurt businesses and suppress entrepreneurial enterprises in the state. While the equal pay measure did not have enough support to pass, she appreciated her brothers’ support on the issue. Here, she claims that Black male lawmakers had to be responsive to the Black caucus leadership as well as women in their families or communities. Republican partisans in the women’s caucus were less concerned about women’s right to equal pay for equal work and more persuaded by business interests. The bill did not receive enough support to come to a vote – even with the political reinforcement of Black male legislators on this issue – in this overwhelmingly Republican state.
Differences in party and institutional power present hurdles to coalition building within single-axis identity-based caucuses.
While caucuses matter, our case studies of the Maryland and Louisiana state legislatures demonstrate that party and institutional power have immense importance in coalition building. Policies that Black women champion, such as equal pay or ending state-sponsored violence, are examples of issues that Black women lawmakers bring to legislative caucuses in hopes of finding supportive colleagues who will advance intersectional bills. Yet, as these case studies show, Black women have difficulties shoring up support for their policy preferences within single-axis identity-based legislative caucuses. Black women lawmakers, to their credit, are deploying legislative strategies within identity-based caucuses to their benefit. Either by running (and winning) election to key leadership roles within the Black caucus as typified by the Maryland state legislators or by recruiting Black male colleagues to support feminist issues, Black women lawmakers display political savvy in using caucuses to advance their policy priorities.
At the congressional level, many new intersectional caucuses have emerged including the Black Maternal Health Caucus and the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys Caucus. Our research will continue to consider why these caucuses were necessary and whether they facilitate marginalized legislators’ success. Right now, our subjects at the state level do not see a need for such caucuses in their institutions. This reluctance is due to the specific make-up and politics of the Maryland and Louisiana state legislatures. For example, at the time of our interviews the speaker of the house of delegates in Maryland was a Black woman who used her institutional power to prioritize issues of concern for Black women. Therefore, the legislators in our study stated that Maryland does not need a specialized caucus such as the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls. Conversely, Black women lack formal leadership roles in the Louisiana state legislature and decried that their small number in the body, which coupled with their lack of institutional power, make it unlikely a Black women’s caucus forms. In sum, institutions matter, and Black women’s legislative agency is frequently limited by factors outside of their control.
On the Horizon
Our next steps include revisiting our Maryland interview subjects following the demise of the bipartisan women’s caucus to learn more about how and why younger Black women decided to push back on historical norms in order to advance more progressive policy, and thus rejecting bipartisan leadership. We also hope to include the final interviews with Black women representatives in Louisiana to close the loop on their experiences in a predominantly Republican state, now with unified control of government. We are also considering including additional states with more party competition. What happens to these coalitions when elections are competitive and majority control hangs in the balance? Louisiana and Maryland are not great sites to investigate that angle despite their other advantages.
We hope to discover how Black women legislators work within the single-axis caucus system and what conditions lead to innovation in collective organizing within legislatures. Although we do not expect other lawmakers with multiple marginalized identities to behave in an identical manner to Black women, we believe our research sheds light on the broader challenges faced by legislators who aim to represent multiple marginalized groups, making our findings relevant for lawmakers of various diverse backgrounds.
What we have discovered so far is that, like all representatives, Black women are strategic political actors who must read their particular political environment and act accordingly. There is no one playbook for representing the interests of Black women, and recognizing the constraints of political parties and institutional norms enables us to better assess the quality of representation provided by Black women. Further, our work shows how Black women build and utilize relationships across gender, seniority, party, and race to get the job done. When they are marginalized within the institution, they are able to accomplish long term goals by relationship building and working for collegiality, each of which may pay off in future policy debates. When they are in positions of strength due to formal positions of leadership or sheer numbers, they capitalize on that political opportunity to achieve immediate policy results, resisting calls to adhere to historical norms of respectability.
As for caucuses themselves, our research can identify the characteristics of caucuses that engender a sense of belonging. Consequently, our research is relevant for caucus leaders, members, and staff – the very individuals who shape the ethos of these identity-based organizations. In sum, caucuses are malleable and thus can be altered in ways that welcome Black women and prioritize the interests of Black women.
This research will help all legislators learn effective strategies for representing their constituents. Previous studies demonstrate that these groups can help defuse political division and contribute to improved quality of life for all legislators (Holman and Mahoney 2018). Understanding how they are created, maintained, or lost is critical to understanding how to create effective, representative institutions for all Americans.
Suggested Citation: Brown, Nadia, Christopher J. Clark, and Anna Mahoney. 2024. "Part of the Club? What Black Women Legislators Can Teach Us About Effective Lawmaking." Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
References
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Center for American Women in Politics. “Women in State Legislatures 2023.” Retrieved from https://cawpdata.rutgers.edu
Clark, Christopher J. 2019. Gaining Voice: The Causes and Consequences of Black Representation in the American States. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gertzog, Irwin N. 2004. Women and Power on Capitol Hill: Reconstructing the Congressional Women’s Caucus. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publications.
Holman, Mirya R., and Anna Mitchell Mahoney. 2018. “Stop, Collaborate, and Listen: Women’s Collaboration in US State Legislatures.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 43(2): 179-206.
Mahoney, Anna Mitchell. 2018. Women Take Their Place in State Legislatures: The Creation of Women’s Caucuses. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Reingold, Beth, and Adrienne R. Smith. 2012. “Welfare Policymaking and Intersections of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in U.S. State Legislatures.” American Journal of Political Science 56(1): 131-147.
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Smooth, Wendy. 2006. “Intersectionality in Electoral Politics: A Mess Worth Making.” Politics & Gender 2(3): 400-414.
Sullivan, Jas A., and Jonathan Winburn. 2011. The Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus: Race and Representation in the Pelican State. Baton Rouge: LSU Press.
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