When it comes to female mayors, Texas cities have strong showing

Rice University
Office of Public Affairs/News and Media Relations

Amy McCaig
713-348-6777
amym@rice.edu

When it comes to female mayors, Texas cities have strong showing

HOUSTON – (March 30, 2015) – A new analysis from Rice University finds that although Texas’ “conservative political culture and traditional family values are usually seen as an impediment to women’s political success,” Texas has remarkably high numbers of women mayors, particularly in its largest cities.

“A Descriptive Analysis of Female Mayors: The U.S. and Texas in Comparative Perspective” is a book chapter authored by Melissa Marschall, professor of political science at Rice. It appeared in the recently published book “Local Politics and Mayoral Elections in 21st-Century America: The Keys to City Hall” and contains analysis of female local government representation in Texas and the U.S.

The research’s key finding reveals Texas cities have a strong record of electing female mayors. Among the largest 20 U.S. cities, 13 have elected a female mayor at some point in their history, and six of those 13 cities are in Texas.

Marschall noted that while research on women in local government traces back to the mid-1970s, overall there is considerably little research on women in municipal politics, elections and governance.

“This is especially true of research on female mayors,” she said.

Marschall’s research found that 635 female mayors have been elected in Texas since 1957 (when the research collection began); they represent slightly more than half of the state’s 1,207 municipalities.

Marschall also found that unlike most other major U.S. cities, in Texas many of the largest cities have elected more than one female mayor. For example, Houston has elected (and re-elected) two women mayors, and Corpus Christi elected its third female mayor in 2012. In addition, the largest cities in Texas can claim several firsts – the first Latina mayor in the U.S. (Laredo), the first openly gay female mayor (Houston) and one of the first cities to elect a female mayor (San Antonio). Houston is also currently the largest city in the U.S. to be governed by a female mayor and remains the most populous city to have elected an openly gay mayor.

The research also found that the number of Texas cities with populations over 30,000 that have a female mayor is increasing. In 1997, 202 of these cities had a female year, and in 2013 that number rose to 242.

Other facts of note regarding female mayors in Texas:

• Female mayors in larger cities almost uniformly have served in other elective offices before assuming the mayoralty.
• The majority of female mayors in larger Texas cities are Democrats, despite the fact that Texas is staunchly Republican.
• Cities and towns that have elected female mayors at some point in their history have higher median household incomes and larger shares of their residents with at least a bachelor’s degree than those who have not elected female mayors.

Marschall noted that despite Texas’ encouraging history regarding female mayors, women continue to be underrepresented in the state’s elected offices. Texas ranked 32nd in 2014 with regard to women’s proportional representation in state legislatures. However, Texas is also home to two of the 35 women who have held the governor’s office as well as three-term U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

“According to research on gender role models, the presence of these women in prominent political offices may positively impact the emergence of female candidates in Texas,” Marschall said. “At the same time, this may chip away at gender stereotypes that have traditionally made it difficult for voters to support women candidates.”

Data for the Texas case study came from the annual Texas State Directories, 1957-2012. Using a sample from 25 directories, Marschall coded and verified female mayors for all 1,207 Texas municipalities in each directory. These data were then merged with Census data for 1980-2010.

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High resolution photo (Photo credit: ThinkStock Photos): https://news2.rice.edu/files/2015/03/ThinkstockPhotos-461845295.jpg

Melissa Marschall bio: http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~marschal/Home.html

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