Moving up three spots, Georgia is now ranks 20th in the nation for the percentage of women serving in state legislatures – the highest Georgia has ever ranked!
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES, January 9, 2019 –
Georgia continues to lead the South for the highest percentage of women in its General Assembly, rising three spots to rank 20th in the nation.
When the General Assembly convenes on Monday, January 14th, women will comprise 30.5 percent of the 236-member Georgia General Assembly. This percentage exceeds both the percentage of women serving in Congress (23.7 percent) and the average percentage of women serving in state legislatures nationwide (28.6 percent), reports Georgia’s WIN List, the state’s only Political Action Committee (PAC) devoted to helping elect Democratic women to statewide office and legislative seats.
As a state, Georgia’s General Assembly continues to lead ALL Southern states both for the percentage of legislators who are women and for the percentage of those women who are Democrats, based on figures annually compiled by the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University. In 2018, Georgia ranked 23rd in the nation and the percentage of women legislators was 26.7.
For 2019, there are a total of 15 women in the 56-member Georgia Senate – 13 of them Democrats. In the 180-member House, there are 58 women: 43 Democrats and 15 Republicans. All together, Democratic women will outnumber their Republican colleagues more than three to one. When compared to 2018, Democrats have increased the number of women in the Senate by two and in the House by 11. Comparatively, three House Republicans lost to Democratic challengers in 2018.
“We were thrilled to endorse and elect a record-setting number of women in 2018,” said Anna Beck, chair of the Georgia’s WIN List Board. “We’re very proud to say the percentage of women in Georgia’s General Assembly is higher than both the national average and the percentage of women in Congress, both now at historic highs.”
“For 19 years, WIN List has worked to recruit, train, endorse and elect women. During 2018, we awarded more than $125,000 in candidate endorsement checks and independent expenditures. We are happy to see our efforts pay off in such a powerful way and look forward to the day when the first Georgia women will serve as Governor, Lt. Governor and in other state constitutional offices.”
As an indication of progress, when Georgia’s WIN List was founded in 2000, the state ranked 31st nationally and women held less than 20 percent of legislative seats.
Please contact us at:
Melita Easters
Executive Director and Founding Chair
melita@gawinlist.com
404-408-9863
Amber Schreiner
Communications Director
amber@gawinlist.com