Social Marginalization & Committee Types

Table 5.3 provides the results for five separate models, one for each committee type, using the social marginalization independent variables. Table 5.4 provides the related calculations for the proportion of committee type by social marginalization. I discuss all the five models and related calculations for the social marginalization first, followed by the institutional marginalization models. The results broadly reveal

differences in committee membership when comparing minority women, minority men and white women to white men, for some types of committees, but not all. As expected, the null findings show that there are no differences between state legislators’ tendency to sit on control committees based on identity, lending support for Hypothesis 5.1. The proportion of control committees in comparison to other types of committees is about 35- 37% for all groups, as shown in Table 5.4. As expected, on high prestige committees, which are highly sought after, the strongest predictors include seniority and holding a leadership position. Those who sit on control committees tend to have fewer assignments overall, again something to be expected for legislative leaders. While I did not expect any differences regarding the party-control variable, the data suggest that when Democrats are in power they hold fewer control committee positions than Republicans, when they are in power. Further, the data show that Democrats in the minority hold more control committee positions than Republicans in the majority. This is very interesting as it

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suggests that the surplus of Republicans sit on committees other than the powerful control committees.

Continuing in Table 5.3, the results show that in terms of workhorse committees, there is a marginally statistically significant difference between minority men and white men; however, not between either white or minority women and white men. The data show that minority women and white women are not significantly different from white men. For each of these groups the proportion of workhorse committees was about 2%, as shown in Table 5.4. Minority men are significantly different from white men and have an increase of nearly 3 percentage points, more than double, in their proportion of

workhorse committees than that of white men. This is an unexpected finding which suggests that minority men are may have an interest in administration and legislative oversight—a finding which should be examined further in future research. The evidence for Hypothesis 5.1 is mixed, but the hypothesis is supported in the case of the most marginalized group— minority women. The evidence also points to support for

Hypothesis 5.1 in the case of white women, but is rejected for minority men. There are no differences in terms of seniority of leadership positions on workhorse committees,

indicating that even more senior and powerful legislators are unable to avoid workhorse assignments in state legislatures, contrary to my expectation. Democrats in the majority are better able to avoid these committees than their Republican counterparts. Overall, the results seem to suggest that legislators are somewhat equally distributed in these low- power committees; it appears that workhorse committees are committees that ultimately everyone needs to participate in.

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In Hypothesis 5.2, I state that socially marginalized legislators sit on a higher proportion of caretaker committees than white men, as seen in tables 5.3 and 5.4. The starkest differences in committee membership should appear in the caretaker committees because the policy issues involved in caretaker committees are ones that the literature has shown are of high priority to both women and to racial/ethnic minorities. The results show a significant and positive difference between all socially marginalized groups in comparison to white men, with the largest substantive effects for minority women. Whereas white men’s committee memberships include about 24% caretaker committees, 36% of minority women’s committee memberships are caretaker committees. The results are significant for minority men and white women as well with 26% and 31% caretaker committees, respectively. These calculations are shown in Table 5.4. In addition, when examining these ratios across types of committees, caretaker committees make up the largest proportion of types of committees for minority women, also supporting Hypothesis 5.2. In comparison, white men sit on vastly more control and public

committees than caretaker committees. In terms of social marginalization there is strong empirical support for Hypothesis 5.2. Seniority and holding a leadership position, all associated with more prestige, decrease the proportion of caretaker committees. Republicans in the minority, as well as Democrats in any position, also sit on fewer caretaker committees than Republicans who are in the majority.

In terms of the other two specialization committee types, the findings are mixed, shown in the last two columns of tables 5.3 and 5.4. I did not present hypotheses

specifically for these committees, because there is so far no reason to expect differences for these committee types, and further they serve to establish a comparison group to

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caretaker committees. Thus, the analysis for these committees is largely exploratory. That said, the data yield interesting results. There are significant differences between minority women and white men for private goods committees, with minority women sitting on fewer such committees, but no differences appear between white women and minority men.

There are also negative and significant effects for more senior members and those holding a leadership position, which is to be expected as these legislators’ share of committees include mostly control committees. The ratio of private committees for white men and women, as well as minority men, rests around 28-29% of all committee types. Minority women sit on fewer such committees, with only 23% private committees, as presented in Table 5.4. Minority women sit on a smaller proportion of public committees than white men do, yet white men sit on only 2.7% public utilities committees.

Substantive differences here are relatively small, minority men sit on 1.7% public utility committees, white and minority women sit on significantly fewer such committees in comparison to white men with 1.4% and 0.3% such committees respectively. More senior legislators and those who hold party leadership positions hold a significantly smaller share of both of these committees than rank and file members do.

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Table 5.3 OLS- Ratio of Committees by Social Marginalization

Control Workhorse Caretaker Private Public

Minority man -0.009 0.028** _0.019+ _{-0.012 -0.013} (0.013) (0.009) (0.012) (0.012) (0.008) White woman -0.017 -0.008 0.076*** _{-0.010 -0.030}*** (0.011) (0.008) (0.010) (0.010) (0.007) Minority woman -0.017 -0.005 0.122*** _-0.062*** _-0.024* (0.016) (0.011) (0.015) (0.015) (0.011) Seniority 0.004*** _{-0.000 -0.002}** _-0.001* _-0.001** (0.001) (0.000) (0.001) (0.001) (0.000) Party leader 0.291*** _{0.001 -0.117}*** _-0.123*** _-0.043*** (0.015) (0.011) (0.014) (0.014) (0.010) Comm. leader 0.070*** _{0.009 -0.028}** _-0.050*** _0.005 (0.011) (0.008) (0.010) (0.010) (0.007) Comm. variety -0.054*** _0.046*** _0.008+ _-0.014*** _0.032*** (0.005) (0.003) (0.004) (0.004) (0.003) (R), min. party 0.0183 -0.001 -0.056*** _0.026* _0.027*** member (0.013) (0.009) (0.011) (0.01) (0.008) (D), min. party 0.039** _{-0.010 -0.038}** _{0.002 0.016}+ member (0.013) (0.009) (0.012) (0.013) (0.009) (D), maj. party -0.028* _-0.018* _-0.041*** _0.065*** _0.024** member (0.012) (0.009) (0.011) (0.011) (0.008) 1998 -0.012 0.024*** _{0.003 0.002 -0.015}* (0.010) (0.007) (0.009) (0.010) (0.007) 2004 0.004 -0.005 -0.014 0.010 0.007 (0.010) (0.007) (0.009) (0.009) (0.006) Constant 0.353*** _0.020+ _0.238*** _0.292*** _0.027** (0.016) (0.011) (0.014) (0.015) (0.010) Observations 4059 4059 4059 4059 4059 R2 _{0.189 0.063 0.059 0.047 0.056}

Standard errors in parentheses

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Table 5.4 Proportion of Committee Type by Social Marginalization

Control Workhorse Caretaker Private Public Total

White men 35.3% 2.0% 23.8% 29.2% 2.7% 93.0%

Minority men 34.4% 4.8% 25.7% 28.0% 1.4% 94.3%

White women 33.6% 1.2% 31.4% 28.2% 1.7% 96.1%

Minority women 33.6% 1.5% 36.0% 23.0% 0.3% 94.4%