What Is The Racial Makeup Of The Senate And The House

The current Congress is the most racially diverse in history, only it's still much whiter than the land overall, according to a new analysis by the Pew Enquiry Centre.

Beginning, the good news: About 22 percent of members of the Business firm and Senate, or 116 lawmakers, are racial or ethnic minorities — the most diverse Congress ever.

"This represents an 84% increase over the 107th Congress of 2001-03, which had 63 minority members," Kristen Bialik wrote for Pew. The current Congress is also the 5th in a row that has been more racially or ethnically diverse than the final.

As this chart from Pew shows, the current Congress's heave in diversity reflects an increment in every major racial and indigenous group — blackness, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American.

A chart showing the racial and ethnic diversity of Congress.

The changes accept made some parts of Congress match the general Usa population, Bialik explained: "For example, 12% of House members are black, about equal to the share of Americans who are blackness. And Native Americans now make upwardly 1% of the House, equal to their ane% of the population."

The shifts are also lopsided by political party: Of the 22 nonwhite first-term representatives, only one is a Republican, Bialik wrote.

Still, Congress remains pretty white overall compared to the rest of the United states population. Nearly 78 per centum of Congress is white, versus 61 percentage of the overall population. The overall gap has widened over time, according to Pew, which means the US population is becoming less white more quickly than Congress is becoming less white.

"The share of Hispanics in the U.Due south. population (18%) is twice as high equally it is in the Business firm (nine%)," Bialki wrote. "Asians account for 6% of the national population only 3% of House members."

Ane caveat: Some members of Congress are counted twice in Pew'south analysis. Presidential candidate and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), for example, is black and Southward Asian, and counted in both categories.

Beyond making Congress look a scrap more like the people information technology's supposed to correspond, this kind of diversity matters because people's backgrounds and life experiences can influence what problems they think are most important.

For example, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is black, and he'south spoken several times about how he'southward been racially profiled by law. In 2016, he said that he had been stopped seven times by law officers in the grade of one year, even equally an elected official. "Was I speeding sometimes? Sure," he acknowledged. "Just the vast bulk of the time, I was pulled over for cypher more than driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood or some other reason just as trivial."

These experiences have helped shape Scott'due south views on policies regarding police and the criminal justice arrangement, leading him to support — and introduce — certain reform efforts.

Similarly, the election of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) led Congress to finish a 181-year-quondam ban on headwear on the House floor, allowing Omar to habiliment a hijab equally she does her task. "No one puts a scarf on my head only me," Omar tweeted terminal twelvemonth. "It's my choice—i protected by the first subpoena."

The same applies to gender diverseness and equality. Studies show, for instance, that electing more women has a noticeable effect on how governments piece of work, with enquiry indicating that women legislators sponsor more than bills, pass more laws, and become more than money sent back to their districts.

And so the new Congress doesn't just look a flake more like the people information technology represents now. It also may exist somewhat more representative, in terms of concerns and policy, for the rest of the country.

Source: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/8/18217076/congress-racial-diversity-white

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