Kyrsten and Pramila, the worst and the best Democrats in Congress-- both are womenYesterday, Danielle Kurtzleben reported on an NPR study that found women see female lawmakers as being more competent and having more integrity. She reported that "Women tend to think more highly of female legislators on a variety of measures. With men, though, it depends on party; Republican men have reservations about the women representing them, whereas Democratic men in some ways rate women more highly than men."
On the whole, women tend to view a female representative as being more competent, having more integrity and representing the district well. They also tend to approve of female legislators more.Meanwhile, men, on the whole, don't view women and men very differently on these measures.But these attitudes don't hold steady across parties-- Republican women in particular get a boost from fellow women."Women rate female Republican legislators more positively than they do male Republican legislators," the researchers write, "but neither women nor men rate Democratic legislators differently based on their gender."Specifically, Republican women members of Congress got a 10 to 11 percentage point boost in the areas of "approval" and "representing the district well" among women respondents.Costa and Schaffner also broke down the data based on the party and gender of the respondents."While Democratic men evaluate women legislators more favorably, the opposite is true for Republican men," the researchers write. "Republican men are the one group who provide lower evaluations of female elected officials."Republican men rated women lower in the areas of competence (by around 6 percentage points) and integrity (by just over 7 percentage points).Potentially related to all of this is the finding that women are less likely to engage with their legislators than men are. In particular, the researchers found that women are less likely to contact female Democratic members of Congress, and that Democratic women are likewise substantially less likely to contact members of Congress.One guess the researchers had here is that "if women trust that their interests are more often prioritized by female legislators, they may see less of a need to contact them."And it's possible that some female respondents perceived Democratic women in particular to be focused on things like equal pay and paid family leave, which are often considered "women's issues" and are policy areas that Democratic politicians often champion.
How does this manifest itself in the real world? Well, the single best member of Congress-- as measured by the current session's crucial vote scores. There are 19 members of Congress who have perfect 100% scoresi including 6 freshmen. Of the 19 members, 7 are women and 12 are men. The full list:
• Nanette Barragán (D-CA)• Karen Bass (D-CA)• Katherine Clark (D-MA)• Elijah Cummings (D-MD)• Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA)• Adriano Espaillat (D-NY)• Jimmy Gomez (D-CA)• Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)• Pramila Jayapal (D-WA)• Ro Khanna (D-CA)• Barbara Lee (D-CA)• John Lewis (D-GA)• Jim McGovern (D-MA)• Jerry Nadler (D-NY)• Frank Pallone (D-NJ)• Mark Pocan (D-WI)• Jamie Raskin (D-MD)• Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)• Nydia Velazquez (D-NY)
Some really great women there, that's for sure... and lots of others have nearly perfect scores this session as well: Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Linda Sanchez (D-CA), Judy Chu (D-CA), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Robin Kelly (D-IL), Louise Slaughter (D-NY), Gwen Moore (D-WI)...But now let's look at the bottom of the congressional barrel. No Democrat even comes close top Arizona sociopath Kyrsten Sinema, who isn't just an arch-reactionary and criminally corrupt, but is also severely mentally disturbed and in need of psychiatric treatment. She's a woman-- and she is the only Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee to have accepted over a million dollars in bribes last year from the banksters she's supposed to be overseeing. Her crucial vote score is a shocking 20.0, the lowest of any Democrat I can remember. Currently there are 6 Republicans voting more progressively than Sinema. And if you look at the Democrats in Congress voting against progressive initiatives more frequently than supporting them... there are 18 and only 3 are women: Sinema, Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL) and Jacky Rosen (NV). Here's the full list from worst to merely putrid:
• Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)- 20.0• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- 25.71• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- 28.57• Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)- 31.43• Josh Gottherimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- 31.43• Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL)- 34.29• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)- 41.18• Charlie Crist (Blue Dog-FL)- 42.86• Tom Suozzi (NY)- 44.12• Jacky Rosen (NV)- 45.71• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)- 45.71• Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY)- 45.71• Ron Kind (New Dem-WI)- 45.71• Gene Green (TX)- 48.48• Raul Ruiz (CA)- 48.57• Dave Loebsack (IA)- 48.57• Lou Correa (Blue Dog-CA)- 48.57• Ami Bera (New Dem-CA)- 48.57
As for the Republican women in Congress, they're generally no better than the Republican men in Congress, though there are too few of them to make a good statistical evaluation. There are 124 Republicans with a ZERO crucial vote score for the current session. And of them 12 are women: Diane Black (TN), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Susan Brooks (IN), Liz Cheney (WY), Virgina Foxx (NC), Kay Granger (TX), Karen Handel (GA), Mia Love (UT), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), Martha Roby (AL), Ann Wagner (MO), Jackie Walorski (IN) and Mimi Walters (CA). Talk about extreme! There are only 19 Republicans who voted over 10% of the time for progressive legislation or positions. And of the 19... 3 are women: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL), Barbara Comstock (VA), Elise Stefanik (NY), each of whom represents a blue-leaning district. Maybe gender isn't the best way to figure out who to vote for in elections.