The Los Angeles Times has this article about the decline in the number of women elected to the state legislature. The number of women elected in regular elections to the California legislature has been: 2002 32; 2004 29; 2006 28; 2008 27; 2010 26; 2012 28; 2014 24.
How many women in the CA 2012 and 2014 general elections due to the top 2 primary ???
Good point.
Gender balance in government can be easily achieved with pure proportional representation (PR).
All of us men can easily guarantee close to 1/3 being elected should we rank our opposite gender #1 with consecutively alternating genders thereafter.
Should women do the same, 2/3rds to 100% of the people alternate genders when voting and rank their top-ranked person of opposite gender #1, then the percent would be exactly 50% female and 50% male and the top ranked males and females (or visa versa) would always be elected.
You can have all the ballot access for women in the world, but if pure proportional representation isn’t used then no woman is guaranteed to win.
The USA Parliament has been providing the mechanics and the team psychology for this for twenty consecutive years and it works fine.
Get ready for 2016 when a new year and a new plan can be test-marketed. We have 90 days to get on track and make 2016 the best year ever for pure proportional representation (PR).
The USA Parliament:
http://www.usparliament.org/
The International Parliament:
http://international-parliament.org/
Assuming a static effect, Top 2 has resulted in more women being elected to the legislature than who would otherwise have been. A static effect assumes that the same candidates would run, they would campaign the same way, and voters would vote much the same way.
Before Top 2, one male challenger had defeated a female incumbent. This was SD-3 in 2008, when Mark Leno defeated Carole Migden. There were other factors involved.
2012: AD-47 Cheryl Brown trailed Joe Baca, Jr. in the primary 29% to 42%, but won the general election 56% to 44%. Both were Democrats.
2012: AD-67 Melissa Melendez trailed Phil Paule 23% to 28% in the primary, but won the general election 53% to 48%. Both were Republicans.
2012: AD-50 Betsy Butler led Richard Bloom 25.8% to 25.6% in primary, but lost the general election 49.5% to 50.5%. Both were Democrats. Butler was an incumbent, but because or redistricting, there were suggestions that she was a carpetbagger (I don’t know whether she actually moved or not).
2014: AD-15 Catharine Baker led the primary 36.7% to Tim Sbranti 29.2%. Baker was a Republican, while Sbranti was a Democrat, one of three on the primary ballot. One of three, Steve Glazer, endorsed Baker in the general election, where she defeated Sbranti 51.6% to 48.4%.
2014: AD-39 Patty Lopez trailed Raul Bocanegra 24% to 62% in the primary, but won the general election 50.5% to 49.5%. Both were Democrats.
2014: AD-15 Elizabeth Echols led Tony Thurmond, 31% to 24% in the primary, but lost the general election 54% to 46% in the general election. Both were Democrats.
In general, it appears that Democratic women failed to replenish their numbers in winnable seats. As assemblywomen were term-limited, they would run for the senate, and be elected. Supporters of the election of women generally may have focused their attention on the next level. When a term-limited assemblywoman did not run for the senate, it was not uncommon for another woman to be elected to the assembly seat.
The number of Democratic assemblywomen has been declining since 2002, while the number of female Democratic senators had been fairly steady.
When the number of Democratic assemblywomen began increasing in the early 1990s, it was fairly typical for a woman candidate to face three male candidates in the Democratic primary, and win with a plurality, say 40%-25%-20%-15%, and then easily win in the general election.
There has been a decline in candidates over time, but a female candidate might win the primary 60%-40%.
There does not appear to be a decline in female candidates being elected, so much as there have been fewer female candidates running. Women were initially aided by term limits, since there were a large number of seats that would be open on a definite schedule, and it also provided a career path from the assembly to the senate to Congress.
The increasing success of ethnic candidates may also be a factor. As the number of Hispanic and black legislators has increased, more of the legislators are male.