Nevada becomes 1st US state with female-majority legislature

Nevada became the first state in the US with an overall female majority in the Legislature when county officials in Las Vegas appointed two women to fill vacancies in the state Assembly.

The appointments of Democrats Rochelle Thuy Nguyen and Beatrice "Bea" Angela Duran to two Las Vegas-area legislative seats give women 51 per cent of the 63 seats in the Legislature.

Women will hold nine of 21 seats in the state Senate, falling short of a majority in that chamber. But they will hold 24 of 42 seats in the Assembly, comprising 57 per cent in that chamber and giving women enough numbers to make the two chambers an overall female majority.

No state has previously had a female-majority or even a 50 per cent-female Legislature, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, which tracks women's political representation.

Women picked up seats in the Nevada Assembly and Senate during the 2018 November election but fell short of an overall majority. Vacancies created by lawmakers who won election to other offices in November, along with one sitting female lawmaker then allowed women to gain additional seats.

Before 2018, New Hampshire was the first state to have a female majority in any legislative chamber, when women held a majority in the New Hampshire state Senate in 2009 and 2010.

With the 2018 election, women cracked the 50 per cent threshold in the Nevada state Assembly and Colorado State House, but no overall majority was reached until the Nevada appointments.

"It is unprecedented at this point to see a majority female legislature overall," said Kelly Dittmar, an assistant professor of political science at Rutgers-Camden.

With the two Nevada appointments, women will make up 28.6 per cent of state legislators nationwide when new legislators are sworn into office in 2019, according to data from the Center for American Women and Politics.

Women made up 24.3 per cent of state legislators in the US a decade ago, the center said.

Studies of women who have served in Congress are probably comparable to female gains in state legislatures, she said, and the studies have found that "the more women you have in the body, the more that their perspectives and life experiences are integrated into policy debates and deliberations.