Especially for Democratic women.
It’s an under-reported story of 2011, and one that advocates of Democratic women say could be part of the story of the more feisty Democratic party that has emerged in recent months.
Let’s breakdown the history. Heading into the 2010 elections, there were 73 women in the House (including Democrats and Republicans.) Despite the emergence of powerful women on the Republican side like Rep. Kristi Noem (SD), the number of women in the House actually shrank on Election Day 2010 to 72 — a net loss of one — breaking a long cycle of advancing female representation on Capitol Hill that had stretched back for three decades.
Then, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) resigned to lead a think tank shortly after the 112th was seated, leaving just 71 women in the House.
Then Democratic women began winning special elections and restoring their numbers.
On May 24, Rep. Kathy Hochul won in the hotly-contested NY-26 special, which was kicked off by the first of two resignations by married male members of Congress who sent women sexual pictures from their cell phones.
Rep. Janice Hahn won the race to replace Harman in CA-36 on July 12, a race that was marked by a sexually-charged and highly-offensive commercial made to support the Republican. The ad was condemned by all sides.
Those wins put the number of women in Congress at parity with their numbers from the 111th Congress. The streak came to an end when Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) defeated Democratic nominee Kate Marshall on Sept. 13 in Nevada’s special election.
Read the whole thing. It really is remarkable, especially when you compare this with the hagiographical elevation in Canadian politics solely of Conservative women.