Sister Support: Black Women in Congress and Instrumental Committee Help Chapter^[a]

Curtis K. Edmonds

PhD Candidate

Department of Political Science

Syracuse University

Abstract

This chapter introduces the Sister Support Theory to explain how Black congresswomen in a white male-dominated, majoritarian institution collaborate through congressional bonding activities to achieve both substantive and symbolic forms of surrogate representation, ultimately increasing their influence in Congress. Focusing on one of the three bonding activities, instrumental help, this chapter explores how Black congresswomen will use committee powers to advance legislation of other Black women. Using data from the 114th through 117th Congresses, I find that committees with greater representation of Black women are more likely to report out bills introduced by Black women. Notably, Black women maintain a strong presence on the Oversight, Education, Transportation, and Financial Services committees. Bills referred to these committees, particularly Oversight and Education, exhibit a higher likelihood of being reported out for floor consideration. This research contributes to scholarship on race, gender, and representation in American politics demonstrating how Black congresswomen navigate structural barriers through strategic committee engagement.

“We look out for each other.” – Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX)^[1]

Introduction

Black congresswomen work in an institution that was not originally designed with their presence in mind. Despite landmark legislative changes—including the Civil War Amendments, the 19th Amendment, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965—Black women have served in Congress for only 55 of its 234 years (23.5%), beginning in 1969.^[2] Their representation in the Senate is even more limited to just 11 years total.^[3]  As representatives working in a majoritarian institution that has historically been dominated by white men, they face challenges rooted in their intersectional identities within the chamber. Because of this, Black women must work together out of necessity based on two motivations and primary challenges: (1) issues salient to Black women like disparities in healthcare, employment, and education not included on the national agenda; and (2) navigating institutional and societal biases they face specifically as Black congresswomen. To counter these challenges, Sister Support Theory (SST) explains why and how Black congresswomen promote each other’s legislative agendas and build collective influence in the chamber.

One-third of this theory, instrumental help, demonstrates their collaborative approach through committee work and other legislative activities. This theoretical framework reveals these political actors’ collective commitment to surrogate representation, advancing not just their own constituents’ needs but also the interests of Black women nationally.

 Using data from the 114th to 117th Congresses, I test my instrumental help hypothesis, analyzing legislative success rates in committees with a high presence of Black congresswomen. I find that bills introduced by Black congresswomen and referred to committees with four or more Black congresswomen are significantly more likely to be reported out for floor consideration, particularly in the Oversight and Education committees. This chapter proceeds as follows: I first review the relevant literature, followed by explaining instrumental help as one-third of the congressional bonding activities that make up my theory. I then describe my research design and my dataset before giving a descriptive analysis. I then close with a description of my findings and conclude with further discussions.

Literature Review

Congressional committees play a critical role in the legislative process. House committees act as gatekeepers, deciding which bills advance to the floor or die. They wield significant power through hearings and oversight. The committee referral stage is the next stage of a bill’s life after it has been introduced and placed in the “hopper” (only specific to the House of Representatives). This is also the phase where most bills die. After the bill has been introduced it is then referred to a committee based on the jurisdiction of the policy area the bill focuses on. Once received by the committee it goes through the process of being referred to a subcommittee specialized in the bill’s subject area. From this point either the bill dies, or a hearing is called where members bring in witnesses for expert opinions on its subject matter.

Surrogate Representation

As mentioned in the literature review chapter, surrogate representation is when a member represents the interests of constituents inside and outside of their districts (Mansbridge 1999; Reingold 2008). In his work, Homestyle (1978) Fenno conceptualizes how members of Congress view their constituents through four concentric circles: geographical/district; reelection; primary; and intimates. Fenno updates this concept by building on Dawson’s linked fate theory and Mansbridge’s theory of surrogate representation. In his updated concept of concentric constituencies, he argues that Black members have an additional circle known as the “national Black constituency” (2004). While the concept of a national Black constituency offers a helpful framework for understanding the behavior of Black congressmembers, there may need to be more clarity on the theoretical benefits in helping to understand Black congresswomen.

Once assigned to a specific committee, members will use tools like oversight hearings and committee markups to promote symbolic and substantive forms of surrogate representation. Members are strategic when it comes to committee jurisdiction. They will strategically word their bills so it can be referred to their own committee where they have an affect over committee actions on the bill (King 1994). Black members of Congress see themselves as surrogate representatives, advocating for a national Black constituency as well as the constituents in their districts. This differentiates them from their White counterparts who are only mindful of four concentric constituencies (Fenno 2011), all of which live in that member’s district. This explains how and why Black members have an additional need to want to serve on a committee that might not have any significant deliverable ties to their district. Since there is an obligation Black members feel, even those that represent non-Black majority districts, to represent all Black American’s they try to pursue a committee that has jurisdiction over issues salient to Black Americans. This is also the case with congresswomen. 

Black Members and Committees 

Research shows that Black legislators, like congresswomen generally, often act as surrogate representatives by advocating for their broader racial and ethnic groups beyond their immediate constituencies. Minta (2011) builds on these theories of surrogate representation and racial group consciousness with his “strategic group uplift.” This commitment manifests primarily through committee participation and oversight hearings. Minta argues that  Congress’ oversight power can be seen as a form of political representation (2011). Past literature has also touched on the positive impact Black and Latino members have on committee hearings as a proxy for descriptive and substantive representation (Minta and Brown 2014; Minta and Sinclair-Chapman 2013; Ellis and Wilson 2013). While Swain (1993) contends that White representatives can effectively represent Black Democrats' interests, Tate (2003) presents evidence that race does indeed matter, as Black members demonstrate legislative records that differ from White Democrats. Additional research also indicates that when Black and Latino legislators serve as committee chairs leads to more committee hearings focused on racial and social issues (Minta 2011; Minta and Sinclair-Chapman 2013; Nestor 2021; Wallace 2014). Although these findings suggest Black congresswomen may exercise surrogate representation at the committee level, analyses have not specifically examined this phenomenon through a race-gendered lens. This represents a significant research gap, particularly as Black women have assumed committee chair positions.

Black Women in Congress

 Crenshaw and other scholars look to personal experiences of intersectional groups in how they live and interact in the world around them. Studies have shown that Black women are distinctly different from non-Black women (Crenshaw 1991; Smooth 2006) and Black men (Githens and Prestage 1977; 2005; Casper and Watts Smith 2016) in voting behavior, participation, collective action, and ideology. Black women also don’t fit traditional models of political behavior (Lansing 1973). These distinct experiences can be traced to how Black women are viewed by the state and how they interact within institutions. 

Some identity groups must combat biases against them from the stages of a candidate to an elected official. Black women political elites are doubly disadvantaged in that they face both race and gender biases, under misogynoir.  Misogynoir, a portmanteau of misogyny and noir, the French word for black, is the expressed hatred and prejudice towards Black women (Bailey 2021). This also includes being judged under racialized-gendered beauty standards (Brown and Lemi 2021).  

Black women legislators may also face these biases from their own congressional colleagues. In a mixed-methods study on Black women in the state legislature, Wendy Smooth found that the perceived influence of Black women in the legislature is only limited to other Black legislators. This is because their colleagues perceived them as not having a general impact on legislative influence in the chamber (Smooth 2001). Some scholars define legislative effectiveness as a member’s ability to push legislation to the floor and possibly signed into law by the President (Volden and Wiseman 2014). Some members, in order to promote bills they want to succeed, will introduce these bills worded in a way that it will be assigned to a friendly committee where it will be voted out successfully. This is in place of when the member is not assigned to the committee their bill was referred. While Black women may introduce more bills than their White and male counterparts salient to race-gender issues (Tate 2004). They are less likely to be voted by the chamber and signed into law. Most will not even clear the committee consideration hurdle (Volden, Wiseman, and Wittmer 2010, 2013).

Representation in Committees

Volden and Wiseman found that determinants of a bill’s progression, and when it comes to actions beyond committees, being the committee chair and in the minority had a significant correlation to the bill receiving action beyond the committee process, meaning it was reported out. While one significant finding was that women legislators on the committee significantly correlated to a bill receiving action beyond the committee process, African American members had a negative correlation. If aggregating this deeper and looking at Black congresswomen especially in a period where their numbers increased, would it still hold that bills would be reported out of committee?

Theory

Black women’s race-gendered identities bring a unique perspective shaped by their lived experiences and positionality in society. These specific lived experiences affect how Black women legislate and give a unique perspective of their legislative behavior (Brown 2014). This intersectional positionality informs Black congresswomen’s legislative priorities and their commitment to surrogate representation for Black women across the nation. Because of the lived experiences of being a Black woman and trying to satisfy the general goals of a member of Congress as well as provide surrogate representation to individuals outside their district, they also must combat the perceptions other members have of them as effective and influential legislators (W. G. Smooth 2001), perceptions of them in public based on stereotypes and biases (Anzia and Berry 2011; Lawless and Fox 2005; Sweet-Cushman and Bauer 2024), and deal with the general constraints and cross pressures in the institution originally designed without them in mind. This connection of culture and lived experiences enables Black congresswomen to collaborate and promote policy interests crucial to Black women. They advocate for policies that address the unique challenges faced by Black women, ensuring their voices are heard and their needs met in the political arena. To address these challenges, Black congresswomen engage in collaborative activities. This is what I call Sister Support Theory.

Most of the literature on Black woman legislators is at the state level. These state legislators are often used as proxies for Black women in Congress. Scholars like Orey and Brown (2014), Bratton and Haynie (1999; and Reingold 2006), and Brown (with Banks 2014a; 2014b), identify the policy areas of bills introduce by Black woman legislators. Other scholars like Orey et al. identify Black woman legislators as more progressive than their other colleagues (2006). Nadia Brown’s Sisters in the State House (2014) is a comprehensive look at Black women legislators in the Maryland state house. Brown finds that there are ideological, religious, and generational differences among these Black women legislators. In her work, she developed Representational Identity Theory (RIT). RIT argues that Black women use their specific experiences to influence policy decisions. This connection of culture and lived experiences enables Black congresswomen to collaborate and promote policy interests crucial to Black women, even with ideological and generational differences.

Works like Brown and the other scholars mentioned are insightful in understanding the legislative behaviors of Black women state legislators. But they are not foolproof as proxies for Black woman legislators at the federal level. Bringing Brown’s Representational Identity Theory to the federal level broadens an understanding of biases and perceptions these political actors face. To quote Chaya Crowder, “Black women experience discrimination in ways that are distinct from white women and Black men, however, policies rarely speak to the unique nature of racial and gender-based discrimination that Black women face” (Crowder 2023: 195), That is why the presence of Black women in legislative institutions and their shared experience as legislators allows us to view their legislative decision making and policy preferences at the national level through RIT. It is also advantageous to explore the shared interest of these political actors at the federal level because there are more differences to test if their bonds are strong. For example, while Brown’s work showed religious, generational, and ideological differences among Black woman legislators in the Maryland statehouse, these women still shared a state and regional interest.

Expanding my work to the national level will not only present differences in ideology, generations, and religion, but also in regional, state, constituent demographics, and industry interests. For example, Maxine Waters, representing a majority-minority urban district in California may have different economic and industrial interests compared to Lucy McBath who represents a suburban, White majority district in Georgia, or Jahana Hayes who represents a White majority district in Connecticut. Even further, because of their generational differences, Black congresswomen like Waters may participate in a “politics of difference” or racial politics, while younger members like McBath and Hayes ay participate in transracial politics or  “politics of commonality” (Cannon 1999). But even with these additional differences heightened at the national level, these women will still rally around each other based on their shared experience and identity. Because politics is now national, it is important to bring RIT to the federal level and use it as the foundational framework of Sister Support Theory while my congressional bonding activities will be used as the mechanism of the theory in action.

Based on this theory, I focus on a nationalized viewpoint of representational identity theory while creating a congressional typology of bonding activities specific to Black women in the House of Representatives between the 114h and 117th congress. These three activities are supportiveness, which I define as recognizing a member and their work through floor speeches and bill sponsorship; social companionship – creating congressional caucuses, like the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls, and the Black Maternal Health Caucus, as a way to share information and use voting cues; and instrumental help.

Instrumental Help and Sister Support

I define the activity of instrumental help as the provision of formal legislative assistance to benefit a specific colleague, particularly when such assistance offers no electoral advantage to the helper. This differentiates it from the supportiveness and social companionship activities which may provide an electoral advantage. This form of support utilizes institutional pathways and resources to advance another member’s policy objectives, committee work, or legislative agenda without expectation of direct constituent-based returns.

Examples of this include committee reports of bills sponsored by Black women, specially Black women who are non-members of the committee where their bill was referred, and communications between staff of these members. For this particular research I operationalize instrumental help through bills reported out of committee and the work committees do based on the number of Black women assigned to them. By drafting their bill a certain way in hopes that it will  be referred to a committee with a friendly audience, members on the committee will advocate for that particular Black woman’s bill to be favorably voted out of committee so that it can be placed on the congressional calendar to be voted on by the entire House chamber. As well as for committees with a large number of Black woman representation, these women, using their gatekeeping ability, will ensure that bills addressing issues, like Black maternal health will be voted out of committee for floor consideration and be put on the national agenda. Those Black women on the committee will also increase their influence with the sense of their expertise on particular issues helping increase their influence.

In order to make sure that bills reported out of committee are not because of party leadership I also look at the 114th and 115th congresses. During this period Congress was ruled by the Republican party and every Black woman in the House, except for one, was a member of the Democratic party. So, if a bill was introduced by a Black woman and reported out of a committee with a high presence of Black woman, it could be argued that the bill was successfully reported out because of the advocacy of Black women on the committee and not because Democratic leadership told them to since the party at the time was not in the majority.

Hypothesis

Smith and Deering identify five categories of committees: influence and prestige; policy; constituency; mixed policy/constituency, which is prevalent in the Senate; and unrequested (1997). Policy committees are issue-based and deal with salient national issues. Constituency committees focus on issues salient to the constituents of a member’s district. Smith and Deering cite policy committees as: Banking (now Financial Services), Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce, Foreign Affairs, Judiciary, and Government Operations (now Oversight); and constituency committees as: Agriculture, Armed Services/National Security, Natural Resources, Transportation and Infrastructure, Science, Small Business, and Veterans’ (1997: p.75). According to Katherine Tate on Black congressmembers and committee assignments, "The majority of committees that Blacks serve on are policy or constituency focused” (2003: p.76). This is supported by Nestor’s analysis on Black and Latino MCs, showing strong membership among these groups on the Small Business, Banking, Education, and Foreign Affairs committees (2021). Based on these findings in the literature, and the jurisdiction some committees have over issues salient to Black women, I predict a higher presence of Black congresswomen in four policy committees: Financial Services,  Education & Labor, Oversight, and Energy & Commerce.

Null Hypothesis (H0): Black women in Congress are assigned to non-policy committees at the same rate as other members, meaning there is no significant difference.

Alternative Hypothesis (H1): Black women are disproportionately assigned to policy committees compared to Black men and white women.

Also, members of Congress prefer to be part of committees that both satisfy the policy needs of their constituency but also have jurisdictions over issues that members have prior experience. For example, Shirley Chisholm made note that because of her prior experience as an educator, and her assignment to the education committee in the New York General Assembly, she requested to be a member of the House Education & Labor committee. Another example would be former House member Sheila Jackson Lee’s legal and judicial  experience prior to serving in Congress. Also, Black congresswomen have had prior experience in government, education, and healthcare, which means they would also request to be assigned to committees specific to their prior expertise in these fields. Because Black congresswomen have experiences in these fields, it would make sense that they would also be assigned to and have most of their bills referred to the Education, Energy and Commerce, and Oversight committees in high numbers. If this is the case and these Black women are the gatekeepers of these committees, then I expect a bill introduced by a Black congresswoman is more likely to be voted out of committee with a high presence of Black congresswomen.

Null Hypothesis (H0): There is no difference in the likelihood of bills being voted out of committee between the high Black women committees (4 or more) and others for Black women.

Alternative Hypothesis (H1): Bills sponsored by Black women are more likely to be voted out in these committees with a high presence of Black women than in other committees.

Research Design

To test my instrumental help activity, I investigate the relationship between Black congresswomen’s presence on committees and the legislative success of other bill sponsored by Black women in the committee it was referred. This section details the following steps I took to conduct my analysis. This includes my data collection, how I operationalized my variables and the categorization of the committees Black congresswomen were assigned. This is followed by certain exclusion criteria I made to my analysis and then structuring my analysis, first through descriptive statistics and then pairwise t-tests comparing success rates between my committee groupings.

Data Collection

Using the House of Representatives History, Art & Archives website and a Congressional Research report on African American members of Congress, I collected and compiled data on all the committee assignments of Black women in the House of Representatives from the 114th to 117th congresses (2017-2023).  This specific period was  selected because it represented the highest number of Black women in the House prior to the 118th.  Additionally, the 114th and 115th Congresses had a Republican majority, while the 1the 116th and 117th Congresses had a Democratic majority, providing a comparative perspective. I then used congress.gov to track the bills introduced by Black congresswomen. This allowed me to record their committee referrals, the policy label of the bill, the number of cosponsors, as well as the bills’ progression. Congress.gov provided seven phases of the legislative progression and for this study I defined a bills success as when it was given the “floor consideration” label on the website. This told me that the bill went through the process of committee deliberation and was successfully reported out.

Operationalization of Variables

After I collected my data, I then operationalized my data. I used a binary code for my main variables: bills reported out of committee, the number of Black congresswomen on each committee, bills sponsored by Black women, and party majority in the House. For bills that were successfully reported out of committee if they were coded with the number 1 that bill was successfully reported out. If the bill was coded with a 0 then that bill was not reported out of the committee it was referred.

The reason I am not including bills referred to the committee the original sponsor is assigned to is because the literature suggest that most members already do this. Instrumental help argues that Black congresswomen will help each other if they are in a position to do so. So that means they will support other Black women who may have a bill introduced to a committee but not have the benefit of advocating for it to be favorably reported out for floor consideration. In place of that original sponsor’s inability to fight for her own bill at the committee stage, other Black women on that committee will advocate for her bill.

Descriptive Analyses

Committee Referrals

        Before looking at the descriptives for committees, I looked at the committee referrals of all Black congresswomen between the 114th and 117th congresses. Table 1 shows the number of committee referrals to a Black woman’s bill. This specific Table omits the committee referals to be bills Black women are assigned to. For example The number of bills referred to the Financial Services committee does not include those bills introduced by Joyce Beatty or Maxine Waters, who are alreay members on that committee. The committee with the highest number of referrals during the 114th congress is Ways & Means. That is followed by Energy & Commerce (with 45 referrals), then Education (44), Judiciary (40), and Oversight (19). The 115th congress saw Energy & Commerce with the most committee refrals at 66 bill referrals of Black women’s bills. This is followed by Ways & Means and Judiciary both with 58, Education (52), and then Oversight and Financial Services with 24 referrals.

Energy & Commerce saw the most referals among Black women’s bills in both the 116th and 117th congress. For the 116th congress this is followed by Ways & Means (88), Judiciary (81), Oversight (65), and Education (60). For the 117th congresss Energy & Commerce (144) is followed by Ways & Means (89), Education (74), Judiciary (56), and Financial Services (48). In total Energy & Commerce (376), Ways & Means (291), Judiciary (257), Education & Labor (230), and Financial Services (121) saw the most referrals of bills introduced by Black congresswomen.

My results, which can be found on Table 1. Shows steady trends and little movement among the top five committee referrals of bills introduced and sponsored by Black congresswomen. Energy & Commerce, which has jurisdiction over healthcare, was the top committee referral in the 115th, 116th, and 117th congress. Among all four congresses the top two referrals, Ways & Means and Energy & Commerce, never changed. Judiciary and Education were usually the third and fourth top committee referrals, except in the 116th when Education was ranked fifth. Financial Services was the fifth top committee referral for Black woman-sponsored bills in the 115th and 117th congresses. Oversight ranked fifth during the 114th, tied for

 fourth  with Financial Services during the 115th, and remained fourth during the 116th.

 Table 1 illustrates the top referrals of Black woman-sponsored bills. These top referrals were to Ways & Means, Education, Energy, Financial Services, Judiciary, and Oversight. This is the case when not including the bills introduced by Black women in these committees. If these commiittees are where Black congresswomen’s bills are sent, then it is likely that these committees will have a high presence of Black women assigned to them. It is also likely that, since these are the bills introduced by women not in those committees (non-members), the issue areas of their legislation is a policy priority for Black women, and the committees their bills were referred to have jurisdiction over it.

Committee Assignments

Descriptively, the data  in Graph 1 reveals notable trends in the number of Black women across committees. The Financial Services, Education and Labor, Oversight, and Transportation committees consistently had the highest number of Black women across the four congresses. Oversight, specifically, maintained a presence of five to six Black women across the four congresses examined. This averages out to 5.2 Black women. Similarly, the Education and Transportation committees saw gradual increases during periods of Democratic majority rule, with Education recorded as having the highest number of Black women with seven during the 116th Congress. The large presence in committees like Financial Services, Education, Oversight, and Transportation may reflect a targeted approach to addressing specific issues like economic policy, employment and housing opportunity, education, oversight of federal agencies, economic growth, and infrastructure.

        In contrast, the Armed Services and Intelligence committees had consistently low numbers, with only one Black woman serving in both committees in the 117th Congress. This small showing of Black women presence in these committees may reflect either the policy priorities of Black congresswomen or institutional barriers limiting their placement to particular committees. 

Looking at the graph, and Table 1, there is some overlap between committees Black women’s legislation is sent and committees with a high presence of Black congresswomen. Education and Financial Services have a high presence of Black women and they are the committees that Black women’s bills are referred. However, Energy and the Ways & Means committees are respectively the first and second most common commmittees Black women’s bills are referred to but have some of the lowest presence of Black women.

Table 2 presents the committees averaged out and seperated between periods of Democratic or  Republican rule and totaling out the averages of each commiittee across all four congresses observed. I then grouped the individual committee averages into three groups: 4 or More, 2 to 3, and 1 or Less. Wherever the seat numbers of each committee averaged up to, that was then where they were group. Table 2 also shows similar patterns in Oversight, Financial Services, and Transportation having a large presence of Black women under both Democratic

and Republican majorities.

Based on these numbers I also predict that out of all the committees, bills introduced by Black congresswomen are more likely to be reported out of the Education, Oversight, Transportation, and Financial Services committees for floor consideration. I also predict that Oversight will have the highest success rate of Black women’s bills being reported out due to it averaging to have the most Black women assigned to it (5.25).One thing that may need further discussion is a low presence of Black women on the Energy & Commerce committee. This committee has jurisdiction over healthcare, and one would think an issue like maternal health, which disproportionately affects Black women would be a committee of major presence and work for Black women.

Findings

Pairwise T-Tests of Committee Groupings

Now that these committees are grouped based on the number of Black women assigned to them, I conducted a t-test testing the hypothesis among bills introduced by Black women reported out of committee based on the number of Black women assigned to it. Committees with more Black congresswomen were more likely to favorably report bills sponsored by other Black women. This was evident in the Education, Financial Services, and Oversight Committees. Bills introduced during Democratic majorities had a higher success rate, highlighting the importance of party alignment on advancing legislation. This reinforces prior literature on the effect of party majority on advancing legislation.  Despite healthcare being an important issue to Black women, the Energy & Commerce committee had a lower presence of Black congresswomen. This is a prime example of institutional barriers.

The Financial Service Committee is also significant in that it is one only two committees to have a Black woman chair.^[4] The Financial committee is also the only committee to have both Democratic and Republican Black women assigned to it.^[5] Looking at the committee referrals of Black women and Congress as a whole, while also seeing committees with a high presence on certain committees tells us two stories. The first one is that bills Black women introduce both show their priority on issues and their calculus of also trying to be influential in the chamber. The second story tells us that Black women have a high presence on committees where the House as a whole has referred its members’ bills. With the exception of Energy and Ways & Means, Black women have a high presence on the committees that most members bills are refereed. This tells us that Black women have a presence on committees with certain influence and also address issues important to Black women.

Based on the groupings, Table 3 and Table 4 underscore my assumption, that bills referred to committees with a high presence of Black women are more successful being reported out for floor consideration. This would be the case for bills introduced by Black women who are non -members of the committee their bill was referred. Non-members’ bills sent to committees with 1 or less Black women have a 3.6% report out success rate. For bills referred to committees with 2 to 3 Black women, non-members’ bills had a 6.7% success rate. Meanwhile committees under the 4 or more committee grouping had a successfully reported out 12% of bills referred by Black on-member congresswomen. The graph also illustrates this ,showing that more Black women on a committee increases likelihood of a non-member’s bill being voted out.

Committee Specific Success Rates

Table 5 summarizes the success rates of non-member bills referred to five specific committees: Education, Energy & Commerce, Financial Services, Oversight, and Transportation.^[6] Thos includes four committees in the 4 or more grouping - Education, Financial Services, Oversight, and Transportation - and one from the 2 to 3 grouping – Energy & Commerce. I chose these specific committees to analyze because of the overlap they share in Black congresswomen’s presence on them, bills introduced by Black women that were referred to them, and their jurisdiction over issues considered important to Black women. The table provides information on the total number of bills referred to that committee between the 114th and 117th congress, how many of those bills were reported out of the committee, and the calculated success rate of those bills (proportion of bills reported out).

There are multiple insights from both the table and graph. First is the Oversight committee. Oversight had the highest success rate of non-member bills being reported out for floor consideration. Out of the 40 non-member bills referred to Oversight during this timeseries, 11 were successfully reported out. This resulted in a 27.5% success rate. This suggests that Oversight is relatively more successful at advancing Black congresswomen’s bills who are not assigned to it. In contrast, Transportation had the lowest success rate at 5.26%, with only 2 out of 38 bills being reported out. This indicates that Black congresswomen who don’t sit on the Transportation committee are less likely to have their bills succeed when referred to it, compared to the other committees.

Education had 41 bills referred by non-members and 6 were voted out. This gives the Education committee a moderate success rate of 14.6%. Energy & Commerce, the only committee in the 2 to 3 grouping in this table, saw 48 bills referred to it and 8 being successfully reported out. This gave it a 18.8% success rate making it the committee with the second highest success rate for non-member bills. One surprise is the low success rate of non-member bills in the Financial Services committee. This committee had a high presence of Black women assigned to it that was steady throughout the four congresses. It is also the only committee in the 4 or more grouping that had a Black women as a committee chair, both Republican and Democratic Black women assigned to it, and still had a steady high presence in both Democratic and Republican majorities. Yet it only had a 9.52% success rate. This may suggest that the committee may be more restrictive of  non-members’ bills.

Discussion and Conclusion

        My initial goal of this chapter was to test the instrumental help aspect of my Sister Support Theory. I wanted to see whether Black congresswomen supported each other in their gatekeeping roles by advocating for the bills of non-members during the committee process. My findings provide some insights. First, I analyzed the top committee referrals of bills introduced by Black women in the House from the 114th to 117th congresses. This descriptive analysis led to my assumption that the Energy, Education, Financial Services, Judiciary, and Oversight committees had jurisdiction over issues important to Black women, and that there would be a high presence of Black congresswomen on these committees.

I further analyzed the committee assignments of every Black woman in the House from the 114th to 117th congresses by using data from the House of Representatives History, Art & Archives website and a Congressional Research report on African American members of Congress. From that analysis I assigned these committees into three groups based on the number of Black women assigned to them: 4 or more, 2 to 3, and 1 or less. My assumption that committees with the highest number of referrals of Black congresswomen’s bills would also be the same committees with the highest number of Black women assigned to them was partially supported in this analysis. While Education, Financial Services, Oversight, and Judiciary were committees assigned to the grouping with a higher presences of Black women committee members, Energy was assigned to the grouping where only two to three Black women were assigned to it.^[7] This led to my assumption to test whether the greater the number of Black women on a committee the higher the likelihood a bill introduced by a Black woman and assigned to that committee (particularly bills introduced by Black women who aren’t assigned to referred committee) will be reported out for floor consideration.

My t-test pairwise analysis proved that committees with four or more Black women had a significantly strong success rate of reporting out bills introduced by Black congresswomen. This also proved that committees with two or more Black women had a slightly less significant success rate. The analysis further looked at  the effectiveness of certain committees with a moderate to high presence of Black women. Oversight was the most successful committee for bills sponsored by Black women who were non-members of the committee. It had a significantly higher success rate compared to other committees. This could indicate some structural or representational factors that make it more receptive to advancing non-member’s bills. Meanwhile, Financial Services, and Transportation showed lower success rates signaling less favorability to non-members’ bills. If the Education and Energy committees had higher representation of Black women, these results could support my hypothesis that representation improves the success rates of non-member bills.

These findings affirm my central premise of Sister Support Theory: Black congresswomen use instrumental help through committee work to overcome structural barriers in the institution. By focusing on instrumental help, it sheds light on their collective efforts to address inequities and institutional biases. Their presence on certain committees acts as a gatekeeping mechanism, ensuring bills sponsored by other Black congresswomen addressing Black women’s concerns reach the national agenda. Their presence on certain committees also give them the impression by other members as experts on certain issues. This helps challenge the concern that Black congresswomen are not considered  influential legislators by their peers.  However, the uneven representation across committees suggest persistent challenges. Future research should examine additional factors like partisan dynamics, regional and generational differences, and informal networks for a more comprehensive understanding of Black congresswomen and legislative success at the committee level.

Policy Implications

These findings also highlight three policy implications for future research: institutional reform, advocacy strategies, and intersectional research as part of studying legislative behavior. Institutional reforms should be set in place to ensure more equitable representation in the chamber. While this chapter advocates for it to start with increased diversity on committees, equitability can also be pushed in pursuing a national agenda that explicitly fits rubrics to assist in helping other groups. An example would be the Black Women and Girls Caucus’s Black Women Best agenda. This agenda also exemplifies the second policy implication for advocacy strategies. Black congresswomen using their gatekeeping power on committees to advocate for the bills of Black committee non-members illustrates the need for researchers to understand the importance initiatives to support and amplify the voices of these Black women during the legislative process. Last, this work encourages further studies on how intersecting identities influence legislative behavior.

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Index

Note: the second number is the total not including the bills introduced by the women on the committee