Subnational Study of Female Minority Legislators and Enactment of Red Flag Laws

• In Event: State Politics

Abstract

In the United States, Black and Indigenous women experience intimate partner violence at disproportionate rates (Edmund, 2022). Black women are more likely to be killed by firearms than any other racial or ethnic group in the U.S. (Edmund, 2022). Red flag laws, that provide barriers to gun access for people with histories of domestic violence, can help to alleviate this issue for women, specifically Black and Indigenous women. Red flag laws are often on the political agenda, but how to address domestic violence is not. Women’s descriptive representation often has the greatest impact on issues that are neither frequently referenced on parties’ policy agendas nor owned by a particular political party (Betz et. al. 2021). Furthermore, having more women involved in the policy-making process may deter representatives who attempt to pursue policies that harm women, and block proposals that are inadvertently discriminatory and harmful to women (Betz et. al. 2021). Drawing on intersectionality theory, I argue that there is a correlation between the number of minority female legislatures, their partisanship, and the gun control measures in each state. This is a study of state politics from an intersectional perspective to determine if minority women's representation increases the likelihood of gun control measures in each state.This research draws from the literature of Kimberle Crenshaw and Patricia Hill Collins whose work created foundational frameworks for intersectionality. Building on this framework I also draw from the works of Nadia Brown who has endeavored to determine the unique political processes of Black female legislatures at the state level. As this study is concerned with the most vulnerable groups in the context of gun violence at the state level, this work also draws from the scholarship of Wendi J. Shiller and Kaitlin N. Sidorsky. These works have provided the framework that forms the following hypotheses:

(1) I use cross-sectional state-level data to test my hypothesis that states that have positive ratings of racial and ethnic representation in the legislature will also be states that have earned a positive rating on the gun control scale.
(2) States with a negative rating of racial and ethnic representation in the legislature will also be a state that has earned a negative rating on the gun control scale.
(3) States with a greater number of minority women in the legislature will also be a state that is more likely to vote to protect their vulnerable populations, therefore the state will have a positive rating on the gun control scale.

This study is a cross-sectional study of all state legislatures in 2023. To conduct this study two indexes were created. The first is an index determining the level of racial diversity in the legislative bodies in each state. The index was set to a scale from -3 to 3. A state with a -3 rating indicates a negative level of racial and ethnic diversity within the legislature, and a state with a 3 rating indicates a positive level of racial and ethnic diversity within the legislature. The determination of positive and negative levels of racial and ethnic diversity is determined by the racial and ethnic demographics of each state and whether the legislature is reflective of those demographics. The second index determines to what level a state supports gun control or not. The index was set to a scale from -1 to 1. If a state has a high number of enforced gun control policies or red flag laws, then the state will receive a positive rating of 1. If the state has very few and poorly enforced gun control policies, the state will receive a -1 rating. This study contributes to the intersectional studies of women’s representation at the state level.

Author

• Mary Elizabeth Kettering, University of Illinois at Chicago