More Women and Racial Minorities in Congress to Legislate with Biden

If Joe Biden's style and manner of governing will be radically different from that of Donald Trump from day one, the Congress that is to pass or reject the laws of the new White House tenant also presents a profile that contrasts sharply with that embodied by the previous members of the Legislative Branch, both in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The 435 members of the former and the 100 members of the latter will have to get to work immediately.  

It is not in vain that the president announces the issuance from day one of a cascade of executive orders, which have the same constitutional weight as a federal law. Congress could revoke them, but to do so it would have to pass laws opposing the order. In view of the new composition of both chambers, it does not seem that deputies and senators will sabotage the president's initiatives, at least initially. The Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and the casting vote of the Senate President, then Vice President Kamala Harris, will make that majority count. 

That legislative branch will be of great help in advancing the purposes of the new Presidency. Therefore, it seems appropriate to examine in broad terms the general profile of its components, which may allow us to guess, barring surprises, the direction that the first part at least of Biden's term will take, until the mid-term legislative elections of 2022.  

The first big news is that, of the total of 535 seats in both chambers, 144 are held by women (26.9 percent), 17 more than in the Congress that emerged from the 2018 elections. It is therefore the closest to parity in the history of the United States, although it is still far from the European legislative chambers, for example 47% of women legislators in Sweden and 44% in Spain.  

It is also the most diverse U.S. Congress to date, consolidating the entry and settlement of racial minorities. It is true that the numbers do not express a full equivalence between the percentage of such minorities out of 328 million people, recognized by the National Census Bureau, and that reflected in the seats of Congress, but this legislature could give a big push toward balance.  

The most underrepresented are Latinos: 18.5 percent of the population and only 8.2 percent of legislators. If Biden ends the harsh immigration policy imposed by his predecessor, Latinos could significantly improve that imbalance. Better still is the situation of the black minority, 13.4% and 11.4%, respectively, and even better that of Asian Americans, 5.6% of the population and 4.8% of legislative seats. The premium is obviously still overwhelmingly held by the white majority, to which 60.1% of the U.S. population belongs, but which nevertheless enjoys 80.4% of the seats in Congress.  

In this breakdown, obtained from the data provided by the Pew Research Center, as well as newspapers such as the Washington Post and Le Monde, there are also new developments in terms of the religious and sexual profiles of their masters. Regarding their confessed faith, 88.1% declare themselves Christians, Protestants and Catholics in that order, and Jews 6.2%. Between the two houses, only one senator declared herself an atheist.  

On the other hand, from the ten deputies and senators who in the previous Congress declared themselves to be lesbian, gay, bixesexual or transgender, there have been eleven in this 117th legislature. All of them belong to the Democratic Party.   

It remains to be seen how calmly the President of the Executive and Legislative Branch will approach his agenda for change, supposedly for the better, in American society. And if the strong polarization shaking the country, plus the noise, which one can guess is strident and persistent in the streets, does not diminish his spirit and capacity for discernment. In the background, however, is the Supreme Court, whose nine justices have the power to declare laws or executive orders unconstitutional. The move of the 46th president and the 117th Congress of the United States of America begins.