Congressional committee demographics and racially salient representation

ABSTRACT

The positive impact of descriptive representation upon congressional committees’ work is well-documented in the literature: more racially diverse chamber membership and leadership increases racially salient committee activity. However, the possible descriptive effects of racially diverse congressional committees remain unexamined. A new dataset records the numbers of Black and Latinx members on all standing committees in the House from the 80th through 114th Congresses. Committees with higher numbers of Black members are more likely to hold racially salient hearings and hold a greater volume of such hearings. The effect remains even after controlling for committee jurisdiction, the race of the committee chair, and House diversity. Though Latinx membership on committees does not have a statistically significant effect upon racially salient hearings by those committees, the new data indicates the comparatively smaller numbers of Latinx members on committees as a likely explanation. The results for Black committee members indicate that representation of racially salient concerns requires not only a racially diverse legislative body but racially diverse committees. A thorough exploration of descriptive representation in legislative action must include consideration of committee diversity as an important piece of the puzzle.

KEYWORDS:

• Congress
• congressional committees
• descriptive representation
• minority representation
• political representation

Acknowledgment

The author wishes to thank Erin Cassese, Christina Fattore, Bob Gitter, Matt Jacobsmeier, Wendy Schiller, and Gregory Wawro for their feedback and advice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 These patterns also help clarify important temporal control variables for the multi-variate analyses.

2 “The data used here were originally collected by Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, with the support of National Science Foundation grant numbers SBR 9320922 and 0111611, and are distributed through the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Neither NSF nor the original collectors of the data bear any responsibility for the analysis reported here.”

3 Talbert, Jones, and Baumgartner (1995) note that while legislative hearing referral is more proscribed by committee jurisdiction, both legislative and nonlegislative hearings show jurisdictional change over time; therefore, an exploration of both types is meaningful.

4 The Comparative Agendas Project topic codes for the Ellis and Wilson (2013) racially salient hearing definition are: 200, 201, 206, 603, 1301, 1302, 1400, 1401, 1403, 1404, 1406, and 1409.

5 The advocacy organizations consulted were the same Ellis and Wilson (2013) used: National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, League of Latin American Citizens, National Council of La Raza (now called Unidos US), NAACP, Rainbow Push Coalition, National Fair Housing Alliance, and National Urban League. Ellis and Wilson also included ACORN, but it is no longer active.

6 The Comparative Agendas Project topic codes for the updated racially salient hearing dependent variable are all of those in the Ellis and Wilson (2013) dependent variable, plus: 103, 301, 302, 332, 503, 504, 505, 529, 705, 708, 900, 1010, 1205, 1400, 1405, 1504, and 1523.

7 One point the creators of the Grosewart rank make is the following (Stewart and Groseclose 1999): “The rankings roughly follow Deering and Smith’s (1997) classification of committees: prestige-oriented committees generally rank the highest, next are policy-oriented committees, and last are constituency-oriented committees” (966).

8 The fact that both of these variables are dummy variables, separating one point in time from another, rather than exploring any temporal effects of individual Congresses, may raise concerns. However, as Figures 1, 2, and 3 show, the impacts of time upon Congressional committee demographics, the key variable of interest, tend to demonstrate lasting progressions, rather than individual outliers. In addition, this choice better captures the relationship of time with other independent variables, including committee dummies and committee types, which change but also tend to persist across more than one Congress. Groseclose and Stewart (1998) also summarize their committee rank variables into two distinct time periods, rather than focusing on individual Congresses as controls.

9 Note that I do not include service-type committees because the service-type committee dummy is not statistically significant.

10 Table 5 includes results for the key variables: the number of Black legislators on a committee and the number of Latinx members on a committee. A table with complete results is provided in Appendix 4.

11 Black and Latinx children are more likely to live in poverty than white children in the US. https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/44-children-in-poverty-by-race-and-ethnicity#detailed/1/any/false/1729,37,871,870,573,869,36,868,867,133/10,11,9,12,1,185,13/324,323.

12 Black and Latinx households are more likely to be food insecure than white households. https://alliancetoendhunger.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Hill-advocacy-fact-sheet__HUNGER-IS-A-RACIAL-EQUITY-ISSUE_Alliance-to-End-Hunger.pdf.

13 Though persistent stereotypes which dictate that racial minorities make up the bulk of welfare caseloads are untrue, the percentage of the Black and Latinx population receiving welfare is higher than the percentage of the white population receiving welfare. https://www.nap.edu/read/9719/chapter/8.

14 American housing policy has a long history of racism. The unequal effects of housing access, ownership, and quality persist. The federal government takes an active role on the issue in both urban and rural areas, through the provision of grants, opportunity zoning efforts, mortgage assistance, and more. The 2008 housing crisis had an especially devastating effect on Black and Latinx neighborhoods. https://nationalfairhousing.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Investing-in-Inclusive-Communities-FINAL-8-26-2016.pdf. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4120744?seq=1. http://www.ruralhome.org/storage/research_notes/rrn-race-and-ethnicity-web.pdf. https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/108900/documents/HHRG-116-BA04-20190402-SD009.pdf. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/em/fall12/highlight1.html.

15 Most minority groups make up a larger share of the homeless population than their share in the overall population (though Latinx people make up roughly their share of the population among the homeless population). https://endhomelessness.org/resource/racial-inequalities-homelessness-numbers/#:~:text=African%20Americans%20make%20up%2013,share%20of%20the%20homeless%20population.

16 Compared to whites, Black and Latinx workers have less access to paid leave, vacation time, retirement savings etc., even after accounting for different levels of income and types of jobs/careers. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/black-workers-face-health-care-and-retirement-savings-benefits-gaps.aspx. https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/20131209/WhoGetsTimeOff-report-04.20.16.pdf.

17 Union membership increases wealth for all workers, but the benefit is greatest among those “who are nonwhite.” https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2018/09/04/454781/union-membership-narrows-racial-wealth-gap-families-color/.

18 Racial minorities “constitute a larger share of minimum-wage earners than their share of the overall workforce.” https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2014/04/21/87248/the-benefits-of-increasing-the-minimum-wage-for-people-of-color/.

19 Unemployment rates are generally higher among Black and Latinx people than among whites. https://www.epi.org/publication/valerie-figures-state-unemployment-by-race/.

20 From healthcare coverage, to access to mental health services, to death rates, to incidence of chronic health conditions, Black and Latinx people continue to suffer worse outcomes under the existing healthcare system compared to white people. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2020/05/07/484742/health-disparities-race-ethnicity/.

21 Despite reductions in the number of Black and Latinx without health insurance since the ACA, coverage gaps remain. Black and Latinx individuals are still more likely than whites to be without healthcare coverage. https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/changes-in-health-coverage-by-race-and-ethnicity-since-the-aca-2010-2018/.

22 CHIP provides health coverage for more than half of Latinx and Black children, compared to one-quarter of white children. https://www.kff.org/report-section/the-impact-of-the-childrens-health-insurance-program-chip-issue-brief/.

23 Studies show a link between climate change and increased air pollution, which affects respiratory issues like asthma. Asthma rates are higher among Black and Latinx people than among white people in the US. https://www.aafa.org/media/2743/asthma-disparities-in-america-burden-on-racial-ethnic-minorities.pdf.

24 The EPA notes that air quality is worse for indoor than outdoor air. Dated infrastructure in public schools leaves those buildings with particularly poor indoor air quality. The problem is even worse in schools with high low-income and minority student populations. https://www.aafa.org/media/2743/asthma-disparities-in-america-burden-on-racial-ethnic-minorities.pdf.

25 Whether it’s schools, or housing, or transportation, or water, our crumbling infrastructure has especially concerning results for racial and ethnic minorities. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/15/amid-pandemic-public-transit-is-highlighting-inequalities-cities/?arc404=true. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222486/. Investments in infrastructure improve job availability for Latinx and Black workers, who are well-represented in construction and transportation. https://files.epi.org/2013/infrastructure-investments-latino-african.pdf.

26 Black and Latinx people tend to have lower credit scores, higher auto loan markups, and a greater likelihood of taking out payday loans compared to white people. https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/credit-scores-perpetuate-racial-disparities-even-americas-most-prosperous-cities. https://www.nclc.org/images/pdf/car_sales/ib-auto-dealers-racial_disparites.pdf. http://www.sharedjustice.org/domestic-justice/2016/9/12/races-role-in-predatory-payday-lending.

27 In areas struck by natural disasters, Black and Latinx Americans are hit particularly hard, seeing a much greater wealth decrease afterwards than white Americans. https://archive.thinkprogress.org/wealth-gap-between-minority-and-white-communities-widens-after-natural-disasters-5108851f6b27/. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2018/04/05/448999/americas-sordid-legacy-race-disaster-recovery/. Low-income and minority populations are not represented well in disaster preparedness efforts. http://www.thecyberhood.net/documents/papers/disaster.pdf.

28 Incarceration rates are much higher among Black people and Latinx people than they are among white people. https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons/. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/racialgeography/report.html. https://hls.harvard.edu/content/uploads/2020/11/Massachusetts-Racial-Disparity-Report-FINAL.pdf.