Who is representing you?: Federal and state governments are more White and male than the populations they serve, by Jeff Inglis, Boston Globe, October 19, 2022.
The nation is home to populations that are quite diverse in racial and ethnic backgrounds, and they are generally evenly split along gender lines. However, the governments that serve them are led by people who are disproportionately White and male, according to an analysis by The Emancipator.
The charts and maps below paint a picture of a country whose top government officials do not often share racial, ethnic, or gender-identity characteristics with those they serve. These representations are based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, and federal and state executives, legislators, and judges.
“There’s a clear descriptive value in seeing people who look like you in public institutions. Namely, you feel like there’s the capacity for someone to represent you,” says Bridgett A. King, an associate professor and director of the Master of Public Administration Program at Auburn University. “You feel like it’s a space where people like you, across whatever demographic marker we’re using, are welcome and there’s opportunities. So there’s that, the optics.”
Shared identity can extend benefits beyond race, according to Spencer Piston, an associate professor of political science at Boston University. For example, he says, “Legislators of poorer backgrounds are more likely than rich legislators to look out for poor people’s interests.”
Our federal representatives don’t reflect us — especially in the Senate
At the federal level, the U.S. House of Representatives most closely resembles the United States as a whole in terms of racial and ethnic diversity. Just shy of two-thirds of House members identify as White; 12.5% of them are Black; and 9.5% are Latino, according to the Congressional Research Service. The U.S. Senate, on the other hand, is the least representative of America’s racial diversity with 83% of its members identifying as White, 3% as Black, and 7% as Latino.
The federal judiciary is similarly split, with the U.S. Supreme Court having similar ratios as the United States overall, though without any Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Indigenous people, or multiracial members. But the overwhelming majority of the 1,413 sitting federal judges identify as White, according to the Federal Judicial Center.
Forty-seven of those federal judges are of Asian American or Pacific Islander descent; and four are Native Americans: Diane Joyce Humetewa of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, Lauren Jennifer King of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Frank Howell Seay of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, and Sunshine Suzanne Sykes of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
The top level of the executive branch is split between a White man, President Joe Biden, and a multiracial woman, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has both Black and Asian American heritage.
Some state governments reflect their state’s diversity, others fall far short
States’ executive branches are overwhelmingly White, with just three governors (Hawaii, New Mexico, and Oklahoma) identifying as having backgrounds other than White.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hawaii’s legislature is the least White, with just 22% of its members identifying with that background, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Vermont and North Dakota are served by legislators who are 98% White. The Whitest state in the nation is Maine, where 96% of its lawmakers are White. Even so, those states’ legislatures are relatively representative of their majority-White constituencies.
Mississippi’s lawmakers are also relatively representative of their population: 57% White, 27% Black, and 14% other races in a legislature serving a population that is 56% White and 37% Black.
Starkly unrepresentative legislatures exist in Alaska, Delaware, and Oklahoma, where White lawmakers are much more prevalent than White constituents. In Delaware, a population that is just 61.5% White, residents are served by a legislature that is 85.9% White. That leaves a lot of people who may not find their interests, experiences, or needs shared or understood by those who hold power.