The Diversity of the 117th Congress
The 117th Congress is the most culturally and ethnically diverse in history, with almost a quarter of voting members (23%) of the House of Representatives and Senate being racial or national minorities. There has been a long-running movement on Capitol Hill against increasing the number of non-White lawmakers: this is the sixth Congress to surpass the previous one's record.
According to a Pew Research Center review of Congressional Research Service records, 124 lawmakers today identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, or Native American. This is a 97 percent improvement from the 107th Congress, which had 63 minority members in 2001-03.
The vast majority of racial and ethnic minority senators and delegates (83 percent) are Democrats, while just 17 percent are Republicans. This is a significant change from the previous Congress, where just 10% of non-White representatives were Republicans. As of January 26, 2021, there were 532 elected members of Congress elected.
Despite the fact that recent Congresses have tended to set new records for racial and ethnic diversity, they have remained overwhelmingly White in comparison to the total population of the United States. Non-Hispanic White Americans make up 77 percent of the current Congress's voting members, even more than their 60 percent share of the country's population. This disparity hasn't narrowed over time: in 1981, 94 percent of members of Congress were White, compared to 80 percent of the population of the United States.
However, in the House of Representatives, certain racial and ethnic groups now have representation equal to their population share. For eg, 13 percent of House members are African-American, roughly equal to the percentage of African-Americans in the United States. Native Americans currently make up approximately 1% of both the House and the overall population of the United States.
Other racial and ethnic groups in the House are underrepresented in comparison to their population share. Hispanics account for about half as many people in the US population (19%) as they do in Congress (9 percent ). Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders make up 6% of the national population and 3% of the House of Representatives.
This study contains four individuals that are counted under several national or ethnic identities: Rep. Robert Scott, D-Va., is Black and Asian, according to the census. New York Democrats Antonio Delgado and Ritchie Torres are both identified as Black and Hispanic. Rep. Marilyn Strickland, D-Washington, is the state's first Black legislator and one of the country's first Korean American women elected to Congress. Rep. Kai Kahele (D-Hawaii), a Native Hawaiian, is among the Native American legislators. The Hispanic count does not include Portuguese Americans.
The Congress building of the United States of America.
Republicans now make up a greater proportion of newly elected minority members in the House than in the past. Nine of the 16 non-White freshmen representatives are Republicans, similar to just one of the 22 new representatives of the 116th Congress. Burgess Owens of Utah and Byron Donalds of Florida are the only two Black Republicans of the chamber in this freshmen class.
There are also eleven senators who are members of a racial or religious group, up from nine in the previous Congress. There are six Hispanic senators, two Asian senators, and three African-American senators. Raphael Warnock, a newcomer, is Georgia's first Black senator, and Alex Padilla, a freshman from California, is the state's first Hispanic senator. Padilla took over for former Vice President and Senator Kamala Harris, who was one of the four women of color (and the only Black woman) in the Senate. Just three of the 11 non-White senators are Republicans: Tim Scott (R-SC), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Ted Cruz (R-TX).