Party Change & Women's Issues in the U.S. State Legislatures: The Case of the Washington House of Representatives

February 27, 2013
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Schaeffer Hall, The Commons (Rm 302)

Please join us for our next SSIG colloquium, "Party Change and Women's Issues in the U.S. State Legislatures: The Case of the Washington House of Representatives" on Wednesday, February 27th, from 12 - 1 pm. Our speaker was UI political science professor Tracy Osborn.

Researchers of women and politics have long sought to understand the connection between the election of women to office and the creation of substantive policies that affect women.  Increasingly, we have come to understand that political parties play an intervening role in this relationship.  However, it is unclear whether short-term changes in party majority control and strength in the legislature, long-term changes in party alignment with women’s interests, or both contribute to our current, varied understanding of how parties matter.  In this paper, we examine both short-term and long-term party effects using a new data set of bills introduced in the Washington State House from 1991-2010.  Though our analysis is largely descriptive at this point, our data indicate possible short-term party effects, in that party majority control enables the ruling party in the chamber to introduce more policy alternatives to women’s issues policy problems.

We will meet in the Commons (302), Schaeffer Hall (SH) for this colloquium. Please contact Anthony Paik with any questions about this session at anthony-paik@uiowa.edu.

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Dragana Petic at dragana-petic@uiowa.edu.