How Successful Are Female State Lawmakers? A Study Examining the Legislative Success of Female State Lawmakers in Professional and Non-Professional State Legislatures

This non-experimental, quantitative study examined the impact of legislative professionalism on female state lawmakers' legislative success regarding women's issues. This study is important in determining if there is a significant difference in the legislative success of female state lawmakers based on the level of legislative professionalism. Additionally, this study is important in determining how much variation in legislative success can be explained by legislative professionalism and other factors. Participants for this study were drawn using a stratified sampling frame of state lawmakers elected to serve from 2003 – 2021 in professional and non-professional state legislatures in the U.S. For this study, the target population was male and female state lawmakers that have served in state legislatures from 2003-2001. The researcher included male state lawmakers in this study by using them as a control group. The four professional state legislatures for this study included California, Illinois, Michigan, and New York. The non-professional state legislatures used for this study were Georgia, Montana, New Jersey, and Texas. Legislative success was measured based on the ratio of bills a state lawmaker has sponsored and/or cosponsored and state laws that state lawmakers have passed through the legislative process. Data was analyzed using SPSS, and multivariate regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between the level of legislative professionalism (predictor or key independent variable) and female state lawmakers' legislative success (criterion or dependent variable). The findings of the current study found that the type of state legislature did not significantly affect the legislative success of female state lawmakers.