African-American Committee Chairs in U.S. State Legislatures

Objective. In this article, we explore whether African-American state legislators have been able to translate election to office into positions of power, particularly as committee chairs. Methods. We cull data from all state legislative chambers that contained a black legislator during two time peri...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science quarterly 2007-09, Vol.88 (3), p.619-639
Main Authors: D'Andra Orey, Byron, Overby, L. Marvin, Larimer, Christopher W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Black American people
Chairpersons
Chairs
Committees
Congressional elections
Constituents
Election results
Elections
Ethnic minorities
Generations
Governance
Leadership
Legislative Bodies
Legislators
Legislature
Legislatures
Political behaviour
Political leadership
Political parties
Political partisanship
Political representation
Political sociology
Politics
Power
Race
Race and Ethnicity
Redistricting
Seniority
Social dynamics
Social integration
Social norms
Social sciences
Sociology
State elections
State government
State legislators
States
U.S.A
Voters
Voting rights
Voting Rights Act
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Summary:Objective. In this article, we explore whether African-American state legislators have been able to translate election to office into positions of power, particularly as committee chairs. Methods. We cull data from all state legislative chambers that contained a black legislator during two time periods, 1989 and 1999. In doing so, we compare the observed numbers of African-American chairs with their expected numbers. We also examine each state's percentage of black chairs using multiple regression to determine what factors—political, partisan, institutional, cultural—influence the selection of black committee chairs. Results. Overall, our descriptive analysis reveals that blacks are underrepresented as chairs. They are not, however, significantly underrepresented as chairs of the most important committees and they are generally overrepresented as chairs of committees with jurisdiction over social services. Our multivariate analyses show that the prevalence of black chairs is driven primarily by factors related to partisan control of legislative chambers and size of the black legislative delegation, and that these dynamics have changed over time. Conclusion. Although the increase in African-American state legislators has led to an increase in substantive leadership roles, these positions have been limited almost entirely to chambers where the black caucus is a critical element of a Democratic majority.
ISSN:0038-4941
1540-6237
DOI:10.1111/j.1540-6237.2007.00475.x