When California lawmakers met for a special session in Sacramento this month, they marked a milestone. For the first time ever, women held nearly half the seats in the 120-member legislature.
But overall, the political picture is less rosy — at least for those who believe our elected officials should be, well, more representative.
When the new Congress convenes next month, there will be two fewer women in California's House delegation: just 15 out of 52 members. Following the swearing-in of Adam B. Schiff this week, men in the Senate now hold both of California's U.S. Senate seats for the first time since the early 1990s, when the storied duo Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer were first elected.
This loss of women's power is particularly notable in a state where women outnumber men among registered voters and the first female speaker of the House of Representatives and the first female vice president each got their start in the hothouse of San Francisco politics. (However, California, which considers itself ultra-modern, has never elected a female governor.)
For Katie Porter, this trend is a discouraging step in the wrong direction.
“California is a leader in equality, protecting and promoting a woman’s right to reproductive justice, equal pay and parental leave,” Porter said. “That’s why it’s surprising and disappointing that California wasn’t at the top and now may actually be slipping toward the back end of equality and representation in Washington.”
Porter, who gave up her seat in the Orange County House to make an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate seat, is one of four female lawmakers whose California districts will soon be represented by men.
Dave Min will replace fellow Democrat Porter in January. In another Orange County election, Republican Rep. Michelle Steel narrowly lost her seat to Democrat Derek Tran. Elsewhere in Southern California, Gil Cisneros won the congressional seat held by Grace Napolitano, a fellow Democrat who is retiring. In the Bay Area, longtime Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo is being replaced by another Democrat, Sam Liccardo.
The loss of these female representatives was offset by gains in two races in Southern California. Laura Friedman and Luz Rivas were elected to replace Democrats Schiff and Tony Cárdenas.
Still, this net decline in women's representation continues an erosion in Washington that goes back several years. Nearly half a dozen seats in the California House of Representatives that were once held by women — in the Bay Area, Orange County, Santa Barbara and the Los Angeles metropolitan area — are now held by men.
It's unclear why exactly this happened.
“In general, the bench is not that deep for women,” said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC. Additionally, there are often greater challenges for women seeking political office, she said, given family concerns, societal norms and — even still — cultural expectations.
And while there are undoubtedly more opportunities, more mentors and greater resources than before for female candidates, “the highly polarized, often rude and violent environment” — particularly at the national level — “can feel more threatening to women,” Romero said.
Porter, who is in the final days of her third and final term in Congress, plans to return to her job teaching law at UC Irvine next month. She is also using $100,000 in leftover campaign funds to create a political action committee called Woman Up, which aims to bolster the ranks of female lawmakers.
“When there is a concerted effort to address the lack of representation, we are making progress,” Porter said from a favorite spot, a women-run coffeehouse on Capitol Hill. “The state legislature has done this work and we have seen the results.
“As we move toward parity in the Legislature, we need to see the same kind of sustained work in our congressional delegation and in our statewide elections and, frankly, in other parts of the country and other types of elections where there are still fewer women's votes “There is.” to be heard.”
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Porter was mentioned as a possible candidate for governor in 2026 and she admitted: “I'm thinking about it. “I'm having conversations and I'm very, very committed to listening and learning from Californians.” She offered no timeline for a decision.
For at least some, it is politically tempting to downplay diversity and the sorting of people by race, gender and other characteristics.
But as USC's Romero put it, “Representation matters.”
“Elected officials will hopefully hear from their constituents,” she said. “But they also bring their own experiences with them. These lived experiences are intended to represent, at least to some degree, the communities they serve.”
Not long ago, when the number of female officeholders in Washington and Sacramento was much lower, certain issues were considered “women’s issues” and received far less attention and funding than they deserved—to the detriment not just of women but of everyone else.
“You need a representative body that speaks about the needs of all the people it serves,” Romero said.
This is government of the people, by the people and for the people at its most fundamental level.