Legislative Professionalization and Membership Diversity in State Legislatures

TLDR

State legislative professionalization was expected to boost membership diversity. The study evaluates whether professionalization correlates with increased representation of blacks, women, and occupational diversity in state legislatures. A new professionalization index is constructed by comparing each state legislature’s salary, staff, and session time to those of the U.S. Congress.

Abstract

Proponents of state legislative professionalization thought it would increase membership diversity. I assess whether this expectation has been met by examining the relationship between the level of professionalization and the numbers of blacks, women, and various occupational groups elected to the state legislature. I begin by proposing a new measurement of professionalization, one which uses the United States Congress as a baseline against which to measure the salary, staff, and time in session of all 50 state legislatures. Level of professionalization is found to be positively related to the percentage of blacks in a legislature but negatively related to the proportion of women serving. Occupational diversity also decreases as level of professionalization increases, because more members identify their occupation as full-time legislator.