California is about to have the most women in its legislature in state history

Elizabeth Betancourt knew from an early age that she wanted to run for office — but it wasn’t until college that she finally found the courage to say it out loud. When she first shared her ambitions, telling her boyfriend at the time, he scoffed.

“I was a young college student and was like oh OK, don’t talk to anyone about this ever,” the 39-year-old water policy expert says now with a laugh. She left the boyfriend in the past, but it still took Betancourt years to circle back to that dream. A business owner, rural advocate, and the founder of the Redding Women's March, she has impacted state policy on resources management, lending language to California water code to help protect both forests and drinking water. But like many other qualified female candidates, she didn't feel ready to jump in until after she was asked.

This year, the Democrat launched a campaign for the District 1 Assembly seat, left open by Republican Brian Dahle after he was elected to the Senate. Betancourt is a Close The Gap, California recruit, and part of the organization's plan to achieve gender parity in the progressive state's legislature, which currently lags far behind its western neighbors. California ranks 21st in the nation with just over a third of its legislative seats filled by female lawmakers. Through recruiting strong candidates in targeted districts, CTGCA aims to get to 50% by 2028. 

CTGCA has rallied behind Betancourt  — but the two candidates remaining in the runoff scheduled for Nov. 5 are both women. The other candidate is Sen. Dahle’s wife, Megan Dahle. No matter who wins, the election will enable CTGCA to inch closer toward its goal and help the state break its previous record with 38 women seated in the legislature.

“Our energy at Close the Gap is on progressive women and recruiting progressive women,” Executive Director Susannah Delano says, but adds that it is really more about “moving the needle in terms of the gender balance ratio.” The group looks for promising candidates who already have networks of support and champion reproductive justice, support public education, and who are committed to building pathways out of poverty for state residents.

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The organization targets both open seats and purple districts, carving out election strategies and identifying potential recruits years in advance. With that strategy, the CTGCA has already helped California jump from 32nd since launching in 2013. Over the next nine years, 96 seats will open up, and the group hopes to elect at least four women in every cycle to achieve 50% representation. 

Even with their efforts, and that of similar organizations working across the country to increase the number of female leaders, women continue to face daunting obstacles when they run. 

A farmer and small business owner, Dahle spent four years on the school board, two as president. She shadowed and supported her husband during his tenure in the Assembly and now she says, she is ready to represent her district and stand on her own as a candidate. That hasn’t stopped naysayers from pushing her to back down. Many of them have come from within her own party.

“As I stepped into this realm I was shocked to find how many people were not supportive. I literally had calls that said, stay home with your kids,” she says, adding that she never identified as a feminist, but her experience with misogyny in this campaign has shifted her perspective.

“I have walked this road with my husband and no one asked Brian when he ran, who is going to run your farm? Who is going to run your trucks? Who is going to raise your three kids? I guess the assumption was that I would,” Dahle says. “And I did — very well.”

Her experience is not unique and the challenges can continue even after they are elected. In California, where Democrats hold a supermajority and have prioritized inclusive policies, the statehouse is still rife with sexism and sexual misconduct. 

In the midst of the Me Too movement in 2017, female legislators went public with their concerns about misogyny and harassment endemic to the capital. 

"Each of us has endured, or witnessed or worked with women who have experienced some form of dehumanizing behavior by men with power in our workplaces," a long list of legislators and staff wrote in an open letter two years ago. 

"Men have groped and touched us without our consent, made inappropriate comments about our bodies and our abilities. Insults and sexual innuendo, frequently disguised as jokes, have undermined our professional positions and capabilities. Men have made promises, or threats, about our jobs in exchange for our compliance, or our silence." 

A slew of sexual misconduct allegations and resignations followed in the year after, along with new bills to ban both retaliation and secret settlements from accused lawmakers. 

Leadership in the legislature has also attempted to change the culture and both houses launched independent investigations into the allegations. While the women who wrote the letter championed such changes, the solution they offered is to ensure more women can access positions of power. And that's what Delano and her organization are hoping to do. "It just takes a lot of focus and time to move the needle," she says.  

North State runoff will set a new record 

Betancourt and Dahle have different ideas about how they would represent Assembly District 1, which includes several rural counties that stretch across the northern and eastern border of the state. But both are eager to work with the other women currently serving and are excited to be part of an election helping California move toward better gender parity.

“It is a big thing for California. We think we are so on the cusp of everything fair and equitable but women’s representation is one of those things we have always struggled with,” Betancourt says.

“Men run for the position and women run for a reason,” she adds. “That’s not a rule, but it certainly speaks to in general, that women would like to go in and get something done.”

She placed first in an initial election held at the end of August, with 39% of the vote, and was the only Democrat running in the typically conservative district. She says her experience working in Northern California’s forests, fields, and rivers along with the four years she spent as director of the Western Shasta Resource Conservation District Board, have given her experience to advocate for the region’s rural interests while maintaining watershed health, fire protection, and conservation efforts. She also hopes to prioritize and expand higher education, and healthcare, especially for seniors and rural residents who would benefit from broader access to telehealth.

But she adds that, as a woman, she hopes to lead in a way that’s more inclusive.

“Women, by and large, are better at collaboration and listening to other viewpoints, and considering the longer-term effects on communities, individuals, and state,” Betancourt adds.

Dahle, her political opponent, agrees on the importance of ensuring more women are elected. “Women need to rise, especially conservative women,” Dahle says. “There is a place for us in the party and in politics.”

She says she has already forged relationships with other legislators and is eager to collaborate with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. That will be an important skill in the Democrat-run state. “I still think there’s a place for conversation and a place for working together, even though national politics polarizes everything,” she says adding that she wants businesses and job creators to have better representation. “I want to actually get good work done.”

Dahle has learned from other women, after starting a series on “Women Who Lead” performed in a local theater in her district. So far, there have been two events showcasing leaders in government and business, and an additional one is scheduled to highlight women in healthcare.

In her partnership with state Sen. Brian Dahle, she also says she is the strategic thinker.

“Women are good at multitasking,” she says. “We are good at wearing multiple hats all the time. Women bring a different perspective on how to move forward, how to look at things in a strategic way that make our communities healthier so people can thrive.”

Women need to be recruited at higher numbers

Despite huge gains in recent years that have landed more women in office nationally, research shows many women still face significant obstacles and persisting biases that squash ambitions. It’s even harder for women of color.

“A reflective democracy should have leadership that reflects the voters and the communities they are serving and setting priorities for,” Delano says. She adds that, despite the progress the organization has made in the past two years, the state still lacks enough female legislators to sit on every key policy committee.

“It is incredible to think there are committees deciding major issues that are going to affect people and women are not at the table," she said. "I think it’s a basic equity question in that sense.”

It's not just about helping women get elected, though. Part of the problem lies in convincing women they are ready to run. A 2009 Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics study that tracked pathways to state legislatures, found women are more likely to run if they are asked to. 

Another paper published by Washington University found that women and men are equally ambitious when it comes to politics but women are more likely to consider a vast array of factors. “These findings tend to reinforce the notion that broad patterns of sex-role socialization continue to impede women from full inclusion in the electoral process,” the researchers concluded. 

That’s why CTG hopes to smooth the pathways diversify the legislature. Once the candidates sign-on, they shepherd them through the process, with information, advice, and expertise, including access to other recruits who are already in office.

“It is not that women are wallflowers who are too shy to step in” Delano explains. “A lot of times the kind of women with the qualifications and community support that could be great candidates have a lot of great options. For us a lot of times, it is really about making a case for them on the impact they can make and that’s often best accomplished by putting them with the sitting members now, who can speak to the opportunities that are there.”

There’s also the funding. Delano explains that women’s participation in politics has lagged alongside their admittance to powerful financial networks. “For us, barring some kind of large scale reform,” she adds, “recruiting really is the answer. It allows us to have that one-on-one conversation and explore how to run in a way that is tailored to the district they are in.”

CTG in California has had three successful election cycles, that helped get nine progressive sitting lawmakers into office. Most of them are women of color. 

California ranks 21st for gender parity in the state Legislature | Created with Datawrapper

The work is about more than just image. Women don’t only bring balance and different perspectives to governance but have also shown to legislate differently from their male colleagues.

"I think we are really seeing now, women who are not just solid champions on the issues that historically have been important to women," says Assemblywoman Monique Limón, who also serves as the vice chair of the California Legislative Women's Caucus. 

This year, some of the most buzz-worthy bills passed in the state were authored by women. Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, authored landmark labor legislation that could shift millions of independent workers to employee status. Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, authored SB 206, enabling college athletes to be paid, and Limón authored AB 539, which will cap interest rates at 36% and ensure predatory lenders can't gouge borrowers. 

"We are seeing women — now that we have this critical mass — lead conversations in non-traditional spaces," Limón says. "Athletics, banking, and employment—spaces that traditionally haven’t had women be at the forefront."

There's still a long way to go to overcome gender bias

“There is a lot of research that has identified gender differences in legislative behavior,” says Kira Sanbonmatsu, a senior scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “Political party is obviously extremely important to understanding policy, but historically, women have introduced legislation that men hadn’t thought about or didn’t make a priority.”

As a political scientist, Sanbonmatsu studies why and how women run for office, and also the impact they have once elected. Her book “A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen’s Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters,” written with Kelly Ditmar and Susan J. Carroll and published last year, examines how gender shapes the political process and how far women still have to go to achieve equal opportunities.

In a new report released this month, Sanbonmatsu and her colleagues found that even though 2018 was a big year for female representation across the country, there’s still a long way to go. Women only hold 28.9% of statehouse seats — and that’s a record high. Since 1971 the number of women has increased fivefold.

Nevada holds the current record — and only state in the U.S. with half or more seats held by women — at 52.4%. Next comes Colorado (47%), Oregon (42.2%), and Washington (41.5%). After the Nov. 5 Assembly District 1 election, California will jump two spots to tie with Hawaii for 19th place, and pass its own record 38 women in the legislature.

But the Rutgers report concluded that, despite wins for women, the positive outcomes have masked just how hard it still is for women to get elected. Women running for office still face daunting levels of gender and intersectional bias in both how media portrays them and how voters view them. They face harassment and often need to be far more qualified and experienced than male opponents.

Without a dedicated effort, legislatures are also likely to fall behind, even if they've achieved more equitable representation. Only 10 years ago, California ranked sixth, with among the highest numbers of women in the legislature in the nation. It’s fallen behind, most likely due to term limits. Members elected in its 80 Assembly districts serve two-year terms, in the state Senate, the terms are four years. In 2012, the state passed Proposition 28 limiting legislators to 12 years of service total, whether served in either houses or both. Officials elected before the passage of the proposition can serve up to three terms in the Assembly and two terms in the Senate.

Without sustained recruitment to ensure seats continue to be filled by women, legislature turnover shifts back to mostly white men. 

Another issue is party support. Sanbonmatsu's research shows that women need significant backing from their political parties in order to be successful, and that conservative women aren’t gaining equal ground. According to her report, Republican women officeholders declined at every level of government last year.

“There is an imbalance between the two parties,” Sanbonmatsu says, adding that groups like Close the Gap have been very successful at getting Democratic women into office, but “there has not been the same resource-based and ideological commitment to the election of women on the Republican side. This is a large part of the reason that women office holding overall isn’t higher. The representation of women in the Republican party is meager.”

Even though men still far outnumber women overall, Democrats are making gains | Created with Datawrapper

Nationally, voters who sway left are far more likely to see a problem with the status quo. A 2018 Pew study that surveyed more than 4,500 people, found that 79% of Democrats believe there are too few women in power more than doubling the 33% of Republicans who said so. Democrats were also more likely to attribute the gap to gender discrimination. 

In the California legislature, which is predominantly Democrat, there are only 5 Republican women. Among them, is Sen. Shannon Grove, of Bakersfield, who serves as GOP minority leader. A business owner, and the first female veteran to serve in the Senate, Grove says she’d like to see more conservative women at the table. She’s recruited two and has thrown her support behind Dahle in her race against Betancourt.

“Women make phenomenal legislators,” Grove says, adding that there’s “nothing against the men, but we bring balance and perspective. We need that balance.” As a member of the Women’s Caucus she adds that despite party, women are a source of support for one another, often going across the aisle.  

“I think the women hold their own ground," she says. Despite different viewpoints and ideology, the issues the caucus takes on together aren’t always partisan. “When we stick together we have a lot of weight behind us. We bring a strong opinion and strong perspective on solving problems in a different way.”

Assemblywoma Limón agrees and says the caucus is very excited that the state is breaking its previous record — but the work isn't over yet.

"This [election] is changing history for the entire state of California," she says. "But the fact that it has taken until 2019 to have 38 women in the state legislature needs to be recognized."

She sees the upward trend as a signal of what's to come. 

"It is an incredible moment in history to think about what the future can look like," Limón adds. "There is a future where women in the legislature will reflect the population in the state of California."