Women's voices matter: Adding perspective to US state budget discussions
FirstpostJust over 2,400 women are serving in state legislatures across the U.S., or about 33% of the total, according to the Center for American Women and Politics, at Rutgers University. All together, women hold just over 11% of seats on Mississippi’s five money committees: Joint Legislative Budget, House and Senate Appropriations, House Ways and Means and Senate Finance. Money committees aren’t the only way to serve In West Virginia, Republican Delegate Kathie Hess Crouse said she believes women generally get the committee assignments they ask for. “Whenever I vote and my other colleagues vote,” Dondero Loop said, “we do it solely as being a Nevadan and making things better.” Elizabeth Steiner served as co-chair of the Oregon Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee, which handles money matters and has members from the House and Senate, before being elected state treasurer last year. “If you don’t include 50% of the population, the perspective of 50% of the population in your decision-making, then you’re really disadvantaging everybody: men and women, and certainly children,” said Steiner, a Democrat.
History of this topic
Women represent half of the US. But they sometimes lack clout in budget and tax talks
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Women represent half of the U.S. But they sometimes lack clout in budget and tax talks
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